Email to Text Solutions For Higher Education: Automate Student Applications

Text messaging makes it easier for you and your students to apply and confirm their enrollment and acceptance. Moving from email to text solutions for higher education also makes it easier for students to ask for your help and for you to continue building on the relationship you began during your recruiting process.

Since text messaging is the conversation channel of choice for your students, they’ll naturally read and respond to your messages concerning their enrollment process. Thanks to the powerful automation available with advanced conversational text messaging solutions, you’ll be able to share and track all applications using workflows and digital tools. This means you focus on students, not on which form they need to sign.

Our clients use text messaging during the recruiting, application, and enrollment processes to simplify and accelerate results while also building a stronger relationship with their incoming students, thanks to personal conversations.

Moving From Email to Text Solutions for Higher Education

There are a number of ways to use text messaging to simplify and improve your application process. Here are a few ideas.

1. Offer text opt-ins for more information or help. Students won’t necessarily pick up the phone and call you if they have questions about the application forms on your website, your curriculum or programs, or need your help. Offering a text opt-in to ask questions or get help makes it easy for digital natives to engage with you the way they want. They’ll like you because you’ll converse with them in the way they prefer, and they’re much more likely to engage with you through a text message than any other channel.

For example, on your website, add a message that promotes the option to text a specific keyword to a specific short code for help, to get answers to questions etc. When they text you, you will immediately be notified and can respond to them quickly, beginning a conversation that’s personal, quick and easy.

2. Invite key prospects to apply to your school. You meet a large number of students. You can easily send the students you select to invite to your program a text message to start the application process.

For example, after you meet with a top prospect, you can send a simple message with a personal link to an application form.

When a student clicks on the link, you’ll know they’ve clicked and be able to monitor their progress.

When they submit the application form, a confirmation message is automatically created and sent.

If the student responds to the text, Jackie is immediately alerted so that she can respond immediately with a personal message to answer questions or simply have a chat.

3. Automate acceptance messages and offer more information. When a student’s application is accepted, an acceptance message can automatically be sent, along with a link to start another multi-message series that guides a student through the admissions process.

You can create messages to guide a student through the admissions process, from financial aid to housing, campus activities to class schedules. You can also blend messaging with emails based on which channel is most appropriate for the communication.

For example:

• Forms for financial aid, housing and class schedules can be sent to students via email, for ease of access.
• You can monitor student progress with submitting these forms. When they delay, you can automatically trigger text messages at specific points in time to remind them to complete applications and other necessary forms.
• You can also automate messages that offer keywords to text for help, more information, a call from a counselor and more.

By using conversations to remind and encourage students throughout the process, as well as offer them help, you create a stronger relationship with students while simplifying the process for all. Because all communications are tracked in your CRM, you’ll know the history of student conversations whether the communication was made via text message or email.

The Bottom Line

Conversational text messaging is the channel of choice for digital natives, aka your students. By using email to text messaging for higher education as a key component of your admissions process, you’ll make things easier for your students, creating stronger relationships with them before they ever reach your campus to begin classes.

You’ll also make admissions tracking simpler for your admissions team, saving them time spent on organizational tasks that can be better spent building relationships with the students themselves.