If you could increase the performance of your enrollment and retention efforts while reducing costs, would you be interested? What if there was a proven way to get your prospective student’s attention in a way that they’d actually appreciate? Good news – tactics to accomplish are available now and they are less expensive than you thought.
If you want to reach and engage with college-bound high schoolers, you need to switch up your plan and provide content in ways that engage students and deliver your personalized content on the platforms they use and prefer.
As part of the 7 Best Practices for Enrollment, AnswerNet Education Services outlined several possibilities to improve your enrollment strategies. The latest topic in our seven-part series is the benefits of personalized student messaging.
Why Personalize Your Student Messaging?
The junior and senior years of high school are meant to be the best years of the K-12 education journey. But during these years, students are tasked with making major decisions that could affect the rest of their lives.
What do they want their future to hold? Do they want to jump right into the workforce, pursue a trade or continue their education at a 2- or 4-year college or university? If they choose to pursue a degree, what school is the right fit for them?
Personalized messaging based on each student’s needs makes the decision process for a prospective student a little easier. It also helps the student feel more comfortable with your institution, which helps your goal of taking them from prospective students to fully enrolled students.
Bulk email and bulk communications cannot do this. Individualized messaging helps nurture these leads and can be used to convey how valued the potential students are.
4 Types of Personalized Messaging
Below are four simple ways to personalized messaging helping make all the difference to prospective students helping boost your enrollment numbers.
Live Call
There are currently no in-person high school college fairs. So, there are no one-on-one conversations happening. It would be impossible for your admissions staff to call every prospective student. Why not let a skilled education specialist call on your behalf?
These specialists build that critical relationship with students. They represent your institution and identity.
Specialists are there to share information and facts, answer questions, set up tours, and most importantly, begin the admissions and enrollment process. One of the most traditional methods of connecting with students is through outbound calling.
Live Chat
When prospective students browse websites researching schools they may want to attend, questions often arise.
Providing a 24/7 live chat option on your website allows these prospective students to engage with you at the peak of their interest. They receive answers to their questions in real-time, helping them throughout the entire enrollment process.
SMS Text
Cell phones are a critical part of our lives. No matter our age, we rarely leave home without them.
This is even more of a true statement for younger generations. They don’t know what life is like without a cell phone. Why not communicate with prospective students the way they communicate with their family and friends?
A higher education answering service can set up outbound text campaigns that connect students to your institution, right from their devices in real-time. Using this preferred communication method can help you connect with your audience.
Social Media
When young people aren’t texting, they’re sharing their life on social media. Are you sharing what your school has to offer, on social media?
This is a great way to show images and videos of the campus from a students’ perspective. You want to make it as easy as possible for prospective students to communicate with your school.
Student support specialists assist with chatting with your students right on these social media platforms.
3 Benefits of Using Personalization
Stand Out in the Crowd
Schools are vying for the attention of those prospective students, and you need to set your school apart from the rest of the crowd. We know all schools work tirelessly to keep prospective students engaged. Your messaging should focus on the students’ needs rather than the college itself.
Are you taking your messaging to the next level? Instead of discussing what makes your campus the premier choice, tell them how they, as a student, will thrive on your campus.
Improve Retention
AnswerNet Education Services offers Retention Services, which aims to keep students engaged through a cadence of personalized texts and wellbeing check ins. This type of outreach is a great way to both keep students accountable, and show them that you care about their engagement and trajectory.
A study by Boise State University reports that in areas where personalization and outreach like community impact programs were implemented, their university saw a 17-25% increase in attendance.
Help Students Achieve Their Goals, While Achieving Yours
Your goal is to help prospective students envision a future at your school – with an effective yield campaign. Email is definitely an important step in the plan, but you need to incorporate the communication methods above as well.
AnswerNet Education Services is happy to help tailor your marketing to the interests of prospective students. We’ll work with you to develop a strategy that works best for your institution and prospective students.
With AnswerNet Education Services on your side, you gain:
- Highly tailored messaging to students in their preferred format
- Eliminated need for face-to-face interaction during Covid restrictions
- Specialized targeted messaging increases enrollment and reduces your recruiting costs
AnswerNet Education Services helps higher education institutions improve their communication with students in virtually any format. That’s why AnswerNet Education Services is the preferred vendor for communication and connecting with your prospective students.
Contact us today for more information or schedule a consultation.
