GMass has become a popular mass email option<\/b>\u00a0for faculty, departments, and educators at colleges and universities in the U.S. and around the world.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re using GMass to\u00a0transform old, impersonal, inefficient emails into modern, personalized, automated emails<\/b>. And they\u2019re doing it without having to learn new software \u2014 because GMass works right inside Gmail.<\/p>\n
In this article, I\u2019ll walk through some of the most popular types of mass emails college faculty send. And I\u2019ll cover how to set up those emails in GMass to help you save time\u00a0and<\/i>\u00a0get better results.<\/p>\n When you need to email a group of people \u2014 whether it\u2019s a class, a group of students, other faculty, alumni, or others \u2014 how are you doing it now?<\/p>\n The most common \u201cold\u201d ways are:<\/p>\n This article will cover a better way \u2014 a\u00a0much<\/i>\u00a0better way. In fact, some of the most common feedback we hear is regret\u2026 over how much time people wasted on email before they learned how to speed things up with a mass email tool like GMass.<\/p>\n With email tools like GMass you can:<\/p>\n Here are some of the\u00a0most popular types of emails college departments and faculty are sending<\/b>:<\/p>\n We\u2019re going to cover how to set up four of those emails in GMass: Recruiting student participants, sending out grades, job and career assistance messages, and academic probation warnings.<\/p>\n Before we jump in, there are two things you\u2019ll need:<\/p>\n There\u2019s this huge pool of students out there, ready to fill whatever group or study you need\u2026 you\u00a0just need to figure out how to get in touch with them<\/b>.<\/p>\n And then get in touch with them again and again when they inevitably ignore your first few emails.<\/p>\n I\u2019m going to cover the method of\u00a0sending an email campaign with automated follow-ups<\/b>. (One of the primary ways people use GMass is for\u00a0cold email<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 in the academic world and beyond. Outreach to students has quite a few similarities to cold email. The platform is ready to handle it.)<\/p>\n There are multiple ways to add a contact list to a GMass campaign. But the primary method \u2014 and the one we\u2019ll focus on here \u2014 is by\u00a0connecting a Google Sheet<\/a>.<\/p>\n Prepare your Google Sheet of students, making sure you include (at a minimum) their email address.\u00a0Note: It\u2019s smart to include yourself on the list as well, for testing purposes.<\/i><\/p>\n Here\u2019s my sample spreadsheet:<\/p>\n Connect to your spreadsheet by clicking the spreadsheet icon which GMass puts next to the Gmail search bar:<\/p>\n Or you can open a new Gmail compose window, click into the Recipients field, then click the small GMass icon on the right.<\/p>\n Now you can\u00a0choose your Google Sheet from the dropdown<\/b>. In the optional settings, \u201cKeep duplicate emails\u201d should stay unchecked. And if you want GMass to update your Google Sheet with results (like opens and replies), check the box to \u201cUpdate Sheet with reporting data<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Click \u201cConnect to Spreadsheet.\u201d GMass will take you back to your compose window and you\u2019ll see a single email address in the To field. GMass\u00a0compresses all the recipients in your campaign into that alias<\/b>\u00a0which helps keep your window clean and organized.<\/p>\n You can now write your email to the students \u2014 much\u00a0like you\u2019d write any other email<\/b>.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s my study participant request email:<\/p>\n I\u2019m going to add participants\u2019 names to the email. That\u2019s light\u00a0personalization<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 but enough that it might catch someone\u2019s eye.<\/p>\n I\u2019m going to add each participant\u2019s first name to the start of the email.<\/p>\n Type a left curly brace\u00a0 I\u2019ll use the students\u2019 first names here with the\u00a0 With GMass you can also\u00a0set a fallback value<\/b>, in case you don\u2019t have some students\u2019 first names available in your Google Sheet. Separate the fallback value from the merge tag with a pipe\u00a0 So my final result is\u00a0 I know many students won\u2019t respond to this first email. Many won\u2019t even open it.<\/p>\n So I\u2019ll set up a\u00a0sequence of automated follow-ups<\/a>\u00a0to send more messages to the students who don\u2019t reply. In standard cold email campaigns,\u00a0it\u2019s often around the fourth email in a sequence where you\u2019ll see the highest volume of responses<\/b>. We\u2019ll apply that same logic to this student recruiting email and send four follow-ups.<\/p>\n To set up your follow-ups, click the arrow next to the red GMass button. That will\u00a0bring up the GMass settings box<\/b>\u00a0for this campaign.<\/p>\n Click into the Auto Follow-up section.<\/p>\n Check the box under \u201cStage 1.\u201d And set up your message to go out \u201cIf\u00a0 Type in your message. You can use the mail merge fields if you want; type a left curly brace to bring them up.<\/p>\n Then\u00a0compose the rest of the emails in your follow-up sequence<\/b>. When a student replies to any email, the sequence will stop for them. Here\u2019s what my sequence looks like:<\/p>\n You can\u00a0test out your entire email sequence<\/a>\u00a0in GMass.<\/p>\n Click the arrow next to the Send Test button near the top of the settings box.<\/p>\n Check the box next to \u201cSend all stages.\u201d<\/p>\n Then\u00a0click the Send Test<\/b>\u00a0button.<\/p>\n You should receive the entire sequence in your email. As you can see, each email comes as a reply to the prior email.<\/p>\n Review your sequence to make sure everything looks right (and the mail merge personalization worked correctly).<\/p>\n Once everything looks good, head back to your draft. Hit the red GMass button \u2014\u00a0not the regular blue Gmail send button<\/b>\u00a0\u2014 to send the campaign.<\/p>\n The first email will go out to all students on your list;\u00a0follow-ups will go out, as scheduled, to students who don\u2019t reply<\/b>.<\/p>\n The next email we\u2019ll cover are emails with student grades.<\/p>\n Here, you\u2019ll send every student an\u00a0individual email containing their grade<\/b>. And, for good measure, we\u2019ll\u00a0also attach a PDF to each email<\/b>\u00a0with that student\u2019s full assessment for the course.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll need each student\u2019s grade in the spreadsheet. (In my example, I used the spreadsheet to track their midterm and final exam grades. Then I averaged those grades and gave them their final grade.)<\/p>\n For\u00a0mail merge attachments<\/a>, you\u2019ll also need a column with \u201cAttachment\u201d in the header where you include links to each student\u2019s personal PDF. You can link to PDFs anywhere (Google Drive, AWS, Dropbox, or any other server). GMass will pull the PDFs off that server to attach them to the emails.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how my spreadsheet looks:<\/p>\n Like in the prior example,\u00a0connect your spreadsheet to a new campaign<\/b>\u00a0in GMass. (Either by clicking the spreadsheet icon next to the Gmail search bar, or by clicking the GMass icon in the To field of the Gmail compose window.)<\/p>\n As for the optional settings, you probably won\u2019t have any duplicate emails here. And it\u2019s up to you whether or not you want GMass to update your Google Sheet with campaign reporting.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll use\u00a0a lot of mail merge personalization in this email<\/b>.<\/p>\n I\u2019m including all the info I have on the students\u2019 grades in the email. Remember: Type a left curly brace\u00a0 Here\u2019s what my email looks like (with all the mail merge tags flagged):<\/p>\n I\u2019m going to use GMass\u2019s\u00a0conditional content feature<\/a>\u00a0to add a line to the email based on how the student did. Anyone who received a B or higher will get one message; anyone who received a lower grade will get another.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s my conditional content, all based on the student\u2019s average:<\/p>\n You don\u2019t need to do anything in the compose window to add your attachments to the emails.<\/b>\u00a0As long as you put the URLs in your Google Sheet in a column whose header contains the word \u201cAttachment,\u201d GMass will automatically add the right file to each email.<\/p>\n Open the GMass settings by clicking the arrow next to the red GMass button.<\/p>\n Then click the Send Test button to send a test to yourself.<\/p>\n As you can see in my test, all the mail merge personalization is correct. I received the right conditional message for a high grade. And the correct PDF is attached.<\/p>\n Even though you have a lot of faith in the accuracy of the email after that test\u2026 this is a situation where you\u00a0need<\/i>\u00a0to make sure the right students get the right grades and attachments.<\/p>\n So rather than sending these emails immediately, we\u2019ll\u00a0create drafts<\/a>\u00a0of each email first. That will\u00a0give you the opportunity to spot check the emails<\/b>\u00a0to make sure all grades and attachments are correct.<\/p>\n To create drafts, open the GMass settings for the campaign. In the \u201cAction\u201d section, click the radio button next to \u201cCreate Drafts\u201d.<\/p>\n Now when you click the red GMass button, GMass will create drafts of your emails. You can find them in the Drafts folder in Gmail, where you can check to make sure they all look correct.<\/p>\n Once GMass has created all the drafts, it will send you an email letting you know. That email contains\u00a0links to go ahead and send the emails to their recipients\u2026 or to delete the drafts to try again<\/b>.<\/p>\n Assuming everything is correct with your email, click the link<\/b> to send your students their grades.<\/p>\n Our next email is a job listings email. In this example I\u2019ll show you how you can\u00a0use GMass to send emails with design elements that would normally be a lot trickier to send through Gmail<\/b>. (Which is\u00a0not<\/i>\u00a0particularly friendly to using your own HTML.)<\/p>\n Connect your Google Sheet to a new email campaign. (Either by clicking the spreadsheet icon next to the Gmail search box or by clicking the GMass icon in the To field of the compose window.)<\/p>\n It\u2019s good to update the sheet with reporting data so you can see how many students are engaging with what you send.<\/p>\n There are plenty of free HTML email designs out there (Google is bursting with \u2018em). I wanted something simple-ish for this email (with a header image and a list of jobs), so I put the HTML table together myself.<\/p>\n To\u00a0edit the HTML code of your email<\/a>, click the arrow next to the GMass button in the compose window to bring up the GMass settings.<\/p>\n Then\u00a0click the HTML link<\/b>\u00a0near the top right.<\/p>\n Paste in your HTML code, or type it up in the window that appears.<\/p>\n Click the \u201cOkay\u201d button and you\u2019ll be back in the compose window with your HTML code active.<\/p>\n You can now compose your email normally. And you can\u00a0use the Gmail formatting bar as needed<\/b>.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s my final version. I added more HTML formatting as well as a mail merge tag for first names:<\/p>\n You may create this email hours, days, or weeks before you\u2019re ready to send it. With\u00a0GMass scheduling<\/a>, you can set up the email to go out whenever it\u2019s supposed to go out.<\/p>\n Open the GMass settings for the campaign, then\u00a0click into the Schedule section<\/b>.<\/p>\n In the \u201cTime\u201d area you can set the date and time when you want to send this email.<\/p>\n With GMass,\u00a0every campaign you send becomes a template you can use in the future<\/a>.<\/p>\n To keep those templates nice and organized I like to use GMass\u2019s \u201cFriendly Name\u201d option to name my campaigns.<\/p>\n You can find the\u00a0Friendly Name<\/a>\u00a0option in the Advanced section of the GMass settings box. Give your campaign a descriptive name (no one but you will be able to see this name).<\/p>\n Send a test of the email to yourself by opening the GMass settings then clicking the Send Test button. Here\u2019s what it looks like in my inbox:<\/p>\n Assuming everything looks good, click the red GMass button in the Gmail compose window to send the email.<\/p>\n You can skip all the design steps by using this email as a template.<\/p>\n Create a new campaign and connect your Google Sheet.<\/p>\n Then open the GMass settings box.\u00a0Click on the Templates dropdown.<\/b>\u00a0You should see your campaign (with the Friendly Name you gave it earlier).<\/p>\n You can now edit as necessary, saving lots of design work.<\/p>\n The last email we\u2019ll set up is an academic probation warning \u2014 which will show you a GMass\u00a0filter<\/a>\u00a0in action.<\/p>\n For this Google Sheet, I have students\u2019 email addresses, names, and GPA. You could use a Google Sheet that automatically calculates GPAs as well for this particular email.<\/p>\n Start a new campaign in GMass, then click the spreadsheet icon by the Gmail search box or the GMass in the To field of the compose window to connect the spreadsheet.<\/p>\n We only want to\u00a0send this email to students whose GPAs are below 2.0<\/b>. We\u2019ll use a filter to do that.<\/p>\n In the \u201cFilter Rows\u201d box we\u2019ll type\u00a0 Click the Connect to Spreadsheet button. You should see in the email alias that this email is going to a smaller number of students (in my case, there were only four whose GPAs were low enough to qualify).<\/p>\n Compose your email. You can\u00a0use mail merge here<\/b>\u00a0(and probably should) to help the students understand why they\u2019re on academic probation.<\/p>\n You can test your email by clicking the Send Test button in the GMass settings.<\/p>\n If everything looks right, you can send the email to the students on academic probation by\u00a0clicking the GMass button<\/b>.<\/p>\n We covered four of the most common emails we\u2019ve seen college faculty and department sending to students. And we hope\u00a0these examples inspire other uses of GMass for all your personalized mass emails<\/b>.<\/p>\n (Also check out our guides for\u00a0college administrator emails<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0college admissions emails<\/a>\u00a0for even more ideas.)<\/p>\n To get started with GMass,\u00a0download the Chrome extension<\/a>\u00a0from the Chrome Web Store. It\u2019s\u00a0free to try<\/b>\u00a0and you can\u00a0send up to 50 emails per day<\/b> during your free trial.<\/p>\n When you\u2019re ready to upgrade, GMass has some of the\u00a0most affordable plans<\/a>\u00a0in the industry \u2014 and even offers\u00a0team plans<\/a>\u00a0with team features.<\/p>\nCollege Faculty Emails: Table of Contents<\/h2>\n
\n
What Are Personalized Mass Emails for College Departments, Faculty, and Professors?<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
What types of personalized mass emails are departments and faculty sending?<\/h3>\n
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\n
Recruiting Student Participants (For Studies, Tutoring Groups, Focus Groups, and More)<\/h2>\n
Connect your Google Sheet of contacts<\/h3>\n
![\"Student](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/recruit-spreadsheet-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Connect](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/recruit-connecticon-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Connect](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/recruit-connectcompose-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Sheet](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/recruit-sheetconnect-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nComposing your email<\/h3>\n
![\"Recruiting](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/recruit-psychemail-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAdding in mail merge personalization<\/h4>\n
{<\/code>\u00a0and GMass will\u00a0show a list of all the available mail merge fields for your email<\/b>. They correspond to the column names in your Google Sheet.<\/p>\n![\"Left](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/recruit-mergeoptions-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n{FirstName}<\/code>\u00a0merge tag.<\/p>\n|<\/code>\u00a0.<\/p>\n{FirstName|Hello}<\/code>.<\/p>\n![\"Name](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/recruit-namemerge-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSetting up the automated follow-ups<\/h3>\n
No<\/code>\u00a0Reply<\/code>\u00a0after\u00a03<\/code>\u00a0days.\u201d That means: This follow-up will go out to any students who don\u2019t reply to the initial email after three days.<\/p>\n![\"First](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/recruit-firstfollow-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Follow-up](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/recruit-followupsequence-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nTesting the email, then sending it out<\/h3>\n
![\"Send](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/recruit-sendallstages-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/recruit-fullsequence-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSending your email campaign<\/h4>\n
![\"Send](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/recruit-sendwithgmass-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSending Out Student Grades<\/h2>\n
Preparing your spreadsheet (with personalized attachments)<\/h3>\n
![\"Grade](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/sendgrades-spreadsheet-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nConnect your sheet to a new campaign in GMass<\/h3>\n
![\"Connect](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/sendgrades-connectsheet-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nCompose your email with mail merge personalization<\/h3>\n
{<\/code>\u00a0to bring up your mail merge options (they correspond to the column headers from your Google Sheet).<\/p>\n![\"Sample](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/sendgrades-compose-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nUsing conditional content to add messages based on performance<\/h4>\n
{{If Average >= 83 Then}}Congratulations on a job well done!<\/code><\/p>\n{{Else}}The course material is challenging. Please review your assessment to see areas to watch out for in future courses.<\/code><\/p>\n{{End If}}<\/code><\/p>\n![\"Conditional](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/sendgrades-conditional-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nDo you need to do anything with your attachments?<\/h4>\n
Test your email, then create drafts<\/h3>\n
![\"Testing](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/sendgrades-test-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nCreating drafts of the emails<\/h4>\n
![\"Create](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/sendgrades-createdrafts-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Option](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/sendgrades-draftsend-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nJob and Career Assistance Emails (Including Events, Internship Listings, and More)<\/h2>\n
Connect your Google Sheet to a new campaign<\/h3>\n
![\"Connect](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/internship-connectsheet-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nDesigning the email<\/h3>\n
![\"Click](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/internship-htmllink-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Paste](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/internship-addinghtml-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Draft](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/internship-compose-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Final](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/internship-finalemail-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nScheduling the email<\/h3>\n
![\"Scheduling](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/internship-schedule-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nIf you want to reuse this email template in the future<\/h3>\n
![\"Setting](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/internship-friendlyname-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSending a test, then sending the email<\/h3>\n
![\"Test](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/internship-listingstest-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nReusing this email as a future template<\/h3>\n
![\"Using](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/internship-selecttemplate-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAcademic Probation Warnings<\/h2>\n
Set up your Google Sheet<\/h3>\n
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/acapro-sheet-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nConnect to your Google Sheet with a filter<\/h3>\n
GPA < 2<\/code>. That way, GMass will only send this email to people whose GPA is below 2.0.<\/p>\n![\"Filter](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/acapro-filter-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nCompose your email<\/h3>\n
![\"Compose](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/acapro-email-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Test](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/acapro-sample-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nCollege Faculty Emails: Next Steps<\/h2>\n