TikTok’s Future Delayed
In an era where digital platforms shape countless decisions, TikTok remains a dominant force, captivating millions worldwide. While a U.S. ban loomed — and the app even went dark overnight for 14 hours on January 18th — sending shockwaves and outcry from millions, an executive order has postponed any restrictions for 75 days, granting higher education institutions more time to leverage the platform’s marketing potential. The show of support and fevered loyalty toward the app shows how influential TikTok is as a tool in higher education marketing.
For now, TikTok offers a valuable opportunity to connect with prospective students from Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Here’s how colleges and universities can maximize TikTok’s influence to enhance recruitment and engagement efforts during this extended window.
TikTok’s unparalleled reach, vibrant content culture, and robust analytics tools provide a proven blueprint for engaging Gen Z and Gen Alpha.
TikTok: A Gateway to Engaging Gen Z and Gen Alpha
TikTok’s rapid growth, particularly among younger audiences in the U.S. — 41% of its users are aged 16 to 24 — makes it an excellent marketing platform for colleges and universities. But it’s not just about the numbers; TikTok thrives on vibrant, immersive content that fosters deep engagement. Prospective students from Gen Z and Gen Alpha aren’t merely passive viewers, they’re active participants spending an average of 9.31 hours per week on the platform. This makes TikTok a prime tool for driving event registrations, generating leads, and building meaningful connections.
Best Practices for Enhancing Visibility and Engagement
Showcasing campus life, academic programs, and student experiences helps colleges attract a broad range of prospective applicants. To create standout content on TikTok, a mix of creativity, strategy, and execution is key. Here are some effective strategies:
- Day-in-the-Life Videos: TikTok thrives on creativity and authenticity, urging educational marketers to craft campaigns that connect with students. Our partners stand out by using TikTok to share real student stories, campus events, and daily college life. These videos offer genuine snapshots into student life, helping prospective students connect emotionally with the institution and envision themselves as part of the community.
- Highlight Unique Aspects: Showcase the elements that make a campus unique—renowned faculty, cutting-edge research facilities, or dynamic student life activities—to differentiate the institution.
- Leverage Challenges and Trends: Participating in challenges or trends can boost visibility, especially when tailored to educational themes or campus life. TikTok’s algorithm amplifies engaging content, increasing the likelihood of ads going viral and expanding reach for branding campaigns.
- Collaborate with Influencers: Student influencers and alumni lend credibility and authenticity. Influencers viewed as peers can more effectively persuade and engage prospective students from both generations.
- Optimize Calls-to-Action: Strong, clear calls-to-action are essential for encouraging prospective students to explore the institution, visit virtually or in person, or apply. Investing in TikTok reaches a highly engaged audience, driving recruitment and event results. TikTok’s analytics offer key insights into performance, helping marketers refine strategies, optimize resources, and adapt to audience preferences in real time.
TikTok’s Continued Lessons for Higher Education Marketing
Despite the uncertainty surrounding TikTok’s future, it remains a goldmine of opportunities for higher education marketers. The unwavering support and dedication from TikTok’s loyal user base reinforce its undeniable value as a platform for meaningful engagement in higher education marketing. Its unparalleled reach, vibrant content culture, and robust analytics tools provide a proven blueprint for engaging Gen Z and Gen Alpha. The 75-day postponement offers a chance to double down on your TikTok strategy. By crafting compelling narratives that resonate with prospective students, institutions can maximize visibility and build lasting connections.
As the future of TikTok in the U.S. remains uncertain, now is the time to make the most of its marketing potential. The digital media strategists at Spark451 are here to help you navigate this dynamic platform, refine your tactics and approach, and achieve your goals. With a forward-thinking approach, we’ll ensure your institution stands out and remains competitive in the evolving digital landscape. Reach out today to get started.
Dive into January
Welcome back! January is a busy month, but luckily, we get to stay indoors with fewer on-campus events and visits this time of year. So, sit back, get cozy, warm up a beverage of your choice, fire up your CRM, and crank through the work ahead.
To get you started, we’ve outlined a few actionable tips to help you streamline your processes, personalize your outreach, and make the most of the tools at your disposal. Something tells us this will be your best year yet!
Application Review
It’s application and essay reading time! Get yourself and your team ready for the assortment of deadlines that comes with this time of year. From internal deadlines to the all-important regular decision deadline, does your team have what it needs to tackle the tasks at hand? Here are a few tips that may help:
- Have you sent reminder emails to students with missing materials? Don’t let missing materials hold up your application review! Even if your campus hasn’t started the spring semester yet, high school students are probably back in school and admissions counselors can follow up with a phone call or text to get those materials in.
- How does your duplicate record count look? Make sure your team is merging duplicate records, whether they are inquiries or applicants. (Slate users: Visit Consolidate Records. Element451 users: See the Deduplication Module.)
- Are you following up with students who started an application, but haven’t submitted it? Don’t let your institution fall off their radar!
Pro Tip: In your CRM, get checklists prepared and tested well ahead of time. That means properly configuring materials and testing checklist functionality before the arrival of student résumés, recommendation letters, and transcripts.
Interviews
If your institution conducts student interviews, you know the drill — schedule, interview, repeat! Whether these interviews are in-person or virtual, leverage your CRM to schedule these conversations. In your CRM, log notes on student records and make it so that any admissions counselor can quickly find your notetaking later.
Food for Thought: Add a personal touch when following up with students. Did you learn they were going to a band competition or competing in a state basketball tournament? That could be a meaningful personalization to mention in your communications with them!
Yield Management
It’s time to start converting admitted students into enrolled students for the fall. Plan how your team will be organizing admitted student events in your CRM. Here are a few questions to consider:
- Do you need any new templates built?
- How are your event communications looking?
- Do you want visit reports that show year-over-year goal progress from this year to last?
- Where is your admitted student checklist?
- Are the forms you’ll be asking students to complete accessible and easy to navigate?
- Do you have a plan in place for recruiting dual enrollment students?
Food for Thought: How eye-catching are your reports? Some color, visual illustrations, and interactive elements are sure to impress every member of your team.
Financial Aid
There’s no better time than now to get financial aid packages prepared and proofread. This holds especially true if your institution has early deadlines or priority deadlines for submitting the FAFSA. Get ahead now and enter the spring term with less stress than last year!
Applicant Questions
No matter how perfect your website, pamphlets, FAQ documents, and information sessions are, students and parents will have many questions. How will you be triaging these types of questions this year?
We have some creative solutions in mind. Let us help you optimize your inbox configurations. Reach out to learn more!
Let's Cross the Finish Line Together.
Need a hand? With our flexible SparkAssist service, you can learn with us and become an expert on all things Salesforce, Slate, and Element451. Or, hand us a project for one-time completion. No project is too small or large for us!
- Drip campaigns development and automation
- Responsive HTML email templates
- Querying and reporting
- Database efficiencies
- Lead generation and strategizing origin sources
If you’re interested in learning about Spark451’s SparkAssist options, please reach out to us!
Harness the Power of Sophomore/Junior Search
Blog
|January 9, 2025Working in higher education right now can feel like the floor is lava and you’re not sure where to stand. With institutions rethinking pricing strategy, an increase in faculty and student burnout causing schools to refocus on supporting the mental and physical health of their communities, and outdated marketing materials that don’t match updated brands, it’s time to rethink how you plan to communicate with a new crop of eager young minds.
It All Begins With an Effective Sophomore/Junior Search
In our recent College-Bound Student Survey for the Class of 2028, 60% of students indicated that they began to look seriously at college before the summer entering their senior year.
Building early brand awareness is the foundation upon which you can expand your funnel and attract a wider pool. Being familiar with your institution is a prerequisite for students’ curiosity: When surveyed, almost 40% of the Class of 2028 said they would not open an email from a college if they had never heard of it. So, how can you make sure they’ve heard of your institution — and know how to feel about it?
60%
of students indicated that they began to look seriously at college before the summer entering their senior year.
40%
of the Class of 2028 said they would not open an email from a college if they had never heard of it.
Step 1: Figure Out With Whom You'd Like to Connect
What kind of students do you want to enroll? Where are they? What are their interests? Answering these questions might seem like a daunting task, but using tools like Spark451’s Purchase Modeling and Predictive Modeling can help you prioritize where to invest your budgets and efforts. By analyzing your institution’s historical data and comparing it with national enrollment trends, we can help you make a strategic name purchase, and then, assign a score to those names ranking the likelihood of their enrollment.
Step 2: Plan for Where You'll Reach Them
Multi-channel communication plans are the most effective tools for building brand awareness. To start, introducing yourself through digital media is an excellent way to gain passive engagement. Having a presence on Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat — or even better, running ads on these channels — is an excellent way to be noticed and remembered.
Of course, email will be the primary vehicle to tell the story of your institution and what it has to offer. 98% of students noted that they used email for their communication during their college search, with mailed materials (68%) and texting (65%) coming in as the next most popular channels. Reflective of this, students ranked email as their preferred communication method, with traditional mail coming in second and texting coming in third. (Also, 37% of respondents noted they were OK with receiving texts anytime!)
Once you’ve established which channels you’re going to cover, it’s time to lean on your admissions counselors. High school visits and college fairs are the best time to connect with sophomores and juniors in their natural habitat. To get the most out of those visits, pair data insights from your communications with the student names you purchased (and potentially scored) to get a better idea of where your team should be traveling. And don’t forget to equip your counselors with a list of students from each school who have received and/or engaged with your communications. Doing so will help them make personalized connections and leave a good impression on the students you’re looking to recruit — a recipe for success! (When was the last time you updated your giveaway and travel materials? We can help with that, too! Read more about that here.)
Another way to build relationships is to offer specific on-campus visit opportunities for sophomores and juniors. After all, 28% of the students we surveyed indicated that they knew their chosen school was right for them upon visiting campus, so any way you can get students to your campus will likely result in a boost in enrollment. A “Tips for College Admissions” workshop could be a great way to garner interest from sophomores and their parents/guardians. For juniors, focusing more on your campus, scholarships, academic opportunities, etc. may be more appropriate.
Step 3: Determine How to Engage Them
Our College-Bound Survey indicated that 27% of students did not click through an email from a college if it was too generic. Digital natives know you have data on them, and they want it used to serve their needs. While keeping branded information simple and clear is important, adding personalization makes your message relevant to your audience. This is the Instagram/TikTok generation, where everyone has their own page, their own individualized timeline, and uniqueness is often celebrated. Leveraging segmentation and personalized messaging is a great way to show these students you not only know what they want, but you can offer it. Make sure you’re talking to them as individuals so they feel that any email, text, or postcard you’ve sent was truly meant for them — it can really make all the difference!
Once you’ve managed to capture their attention, providing easy ways for them to indicate their interest is very important! Make sure you have a user-friendly lead form that is easily accessible in all of your communication channels and has been optimized for mobile.
Step 4: Engage Stakeholders
We know parents/guardians are a huge factor in a student’s college search, with 87% of surveyed students indicating that their families had an impact on their college decisions. Engaging parents/guardians through their own specific campaigns (separate from their students) is a very effective way to build brand recognition and establish relationships with these key influencers. Tailoring these messages to make them feel personalized is paramount, as the way you’d engage with a first-generation family may sound very different than how you might speak with a parent who is an alum, for example.
At Spark451, we have the ability to append parent/guardian data to purchased names, making it easy to include them in your communication plans. Remember, if students and their families feel that your school genuinely cares about them and their academic future, they’re going to be more likely to enroll.
In a nutshell, running a successful sophomore/junior search comes down to playing a strategic long-game in a thoughtful way. We know there are plenty of students who would be a great match for your institution — the challenge is finding them early enough in the process so that they are excited when it comes time to apply.
To discuss the details of your college or university’s sophomore/junior search further, please reach out. We’ll be happy to help you refine your strategy and deliver a campaign that will support your goals. Trust us: Future you will thank you!
Now That You’re Off the Road…
Now that travel season has come to an end, it’s time to turn your focus to the next steps in the admissions cycle. December is a crucial month for setting the stage for a successful spring and beyond, so we’ve put together a list of key tasks and reminders to help keep you — and your CRM — on track:
1. Send Holiday Cards
Sending holiday cards to prospective students and their families is not only thoughtful, but a great way for your school to stay top-of-mind. Use your CRM to curate a list of top-engaged students for your recipient list, then, assign tasks to your counselors (or even print to card using services like Slate Print). This personal touch can make a significant impact and shows that you care about the student’s journey.
Food for Thought: Have you set up a parent drip campaign yet? If not, December is a great time to get started so it’s ready to roll before yield season kicks into high gear!
2. Prepare Your Yield Communications
Get ready to implement yield campaigns over the coming months to nurture your admitted students. Regular, personalized communications will help keep them engaged and excited about attending your institution, and consistent reminders about next steps will help move your admit pool through the funnel.
Take advantage of portals and microsites by using them to house additional information and action items that future students need to complete in order to deposit and enroll. Then, be sure to link to them in your communications to grow engagement metrics! You can even create reports to help your team visualize metrics and track which campaigns were most successful.
Pro Tip: Need help? The Spark451 team has extensive experience building and populating customized portals and microsites. Reach out today!
3. Plan Your Spring Yield Events
It’s never too early to start developing your spring yield events! Begin by refining your recipient list within your CRM, then, determine how many email and SMS reminders you want to send (don’t forget to preview all of them!). These events are critical for converting admitted students into enrolled students, so be sure to create them ahead of time so they can be reviewed internally before going live. Remember, the more prepared you are, the smoother these events will run.
Food for Thought: Speaking of spring… if you use Slate and haven’t already implemented Voyager, now is a good time to start trying out its features in preparation for spring travel.
4. National Student Clearinghouse Import
A new source format for the National Student Clearinghouse was recently released in Slate, so now it’s time to automate the import. Remember, the quicker student’s transcripts are imported to your CRM, the quicker your team can process them.
5. Slate.org Setup
If you’re a Slate user, a quick check to make sure you’re displaying the correct round and decisions could save your office staff a lot of time. Don’t have Slate.org configured? Reach out to us for help!
6. Test New Features
Now is the perfect time to test out any new functionalities your institution will be rolling out. Take advantage of your test environment and test records to ensure everything is working as expected. Spending a little more time on testing can save you a lot of headaches later.
7. Make Your New Year’s CRM Resolutions
In addition to your personal New Year’s resolutions, set some CRM New Year’s resolutions for you and your team. By focusing on these tasks, you’ll be well-prepared for the upcoming months and ready to support your students in making one of the most important decisions of their lives.
Ensuring your workspace is clean and organized is just as important as your CRM being clean and organized! Take some time clearing your desktop, downloads folder, shared cloud storage, and physical workspace. It’ll make coming back to the office in the new year much more enjoyable. Most importantly, remember to take a moment to celebrate your team’s successes this month! Recognizing and appreciating the hard work of your colleagues goes a long way towards fostering a positive and motivated work environment.
Let's Cross the Finish Line Together.
Need a hand? With our flexible SparkAssist service, you can learn with us and become an expert on all things Salesforce, Slate, and Element451. Or, hand us a project for one-time completion. No project is too small or large for us!
- Drip campaigns development and automation
- Responsive HTML email templates
- Querying and reporting
- Database efficiencies
- Lead generation and strategizing origin sources
If you’re interested in learning about Spark451’s SparkAssist options, please reach out to us!
Mindy Best, Award-Winning Higher Education Professional, Joins Spark451
Mindy Best, Award-Winning Higher Education Professional, Joins Spark451
Meet Our Newest Senior Business Development Strategist
|November 19, 2024Westbury, NY — Spark451, a Jenzabar company, is proud to welcome Mindy Best as our newest Senior Business Development Strategist. Based in Colorado, Best will work closely with the company’s partner institutions, primarily in the Central and Mountain states, to help them achieve and exceed their enrollment and institutional goals.
“We’re incredibly excited to welcome Mindy to the Spark451 and Jenzabar teams,” says Steve Kerge, Co-founder of Spark451 and Jenzabar Vice President for Enrollment Marketing. “Mindy’s extensive experience and understanding of higher education is a huge asset, and we’re so pleased that our partner colleges and universities will benefit from her expertise.”
Best holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and English Composition from Wartburg College, as well as certifications in Change Leadership, Digital Marketing, and Product Analytics, and comes to Spark451 with extensive experience in higher education marketing, communications, and creative services. During her tenure in higher ed, she has led groundbreaking and award-winning work in digital marketing and telefundraising, and mastered the art of collaboration between diverse stakeholders to increase engagement and propel growth in enrollment and annual giving.
A strategic advisor and thought partner, Mindy has honed her broad and deep skill set in previous roles as a writer, marketer, and consultant. She combines long-term vision with systems thinking to bridge efforts between sales, marketing, product, and delivery teams and achieve high-impact results.
“I love this field because I believe that education is the key to solving the world’s most pressing issues — economic instability and mobility, human rights, social equity and justice, climate change, public health and safety, and more,” says Best. “Through higher ed, I strive to be a catalyst that helps drive forward transformational change and fuels the future of students and our partner institutions.”
About Spark451
Spark451, a Jenzabar company, is a higher education enrollment strategy, technology, and marketing firm that combines creativity with powerful technology to achieve measurable results. With a mission to help colleges and students fuel their future, the firm integrates a multitude of communication channels and platforms for effective enrollment marketing, student search, creative services, and digital media. Since 2011, Spark451 has worked with over 200 colleges and universities nationwide. For more information, please visit spark451.com.
The College Search Unveiled: Trends, Tools, and Tactics for Engagement
Webinar
Blog
|November 18, 2024The college search process is full of opportunities to connect with prospective students and their families. But to truly make an impact, it’s important to have a thoughtful strategy in place that reaches high school seniors and their parents at every step of their decision-making journey.
In our recent webinar, enrollment strategy experts Macrae Robertson and Amanda Miller reviewed the findings from Spark451’s 2024 College-Bound Student and Parent Surveys, and discussed best-practice tips and tactics for engaging each group throughout the cycle.
Watch the webinar recording to gain insights about:
- The Class of 2028’s social media habits
- How regional and campus political and social attitudes influenced admissions decisions
- Which communication tactics resonated most with students and their parents
- How AI and technology were utilized in the college search process
- The impact of FAFSA frustrations on students and families
- And much more!
Text Message Marketing Best Practices
Text Message Marketing Best Practices
Tips for Optimizing SMS & MMS Marketing Campaigns
|November 12, 2024As the digital landscape continues to evolve, and text messaging becomes more of a fundamental mode of communication in our day-to-day lives, people are spending more time on their phones than ever. Research indicates that people spend an average of four hours and 37 minutes on their phone every day, with younger generations, such as Gen Z, spending about six hours a day on their phone1. Statistics also show that there has been a steady increase in cell phone usage over the last several years. With this increase comes the growing opportunity to utilize text messaging as an effective marketing tool.
In this blog, I’ll outline key factors to consider when sending text messages in your marketing campaign, and go over tips on how to enhance the effectiveness of each one.
First, let’s discuss the most significant benefits of incorporating texts into your marketing strategy:
- It’s a Faster Way to Reach Your Audience
95% of text messages are opened within 90 seconds from the time they are received.2 - It’s an Additional Medium of Communication
Having multiple ways to engage your audience and carry out your marketing plan diversifies your marketing strategy and puts your message in front of your intended audience wherever they are. - It Has a Higher Response Rate
People are 134% more likely to respond to a text message than an email.3
Next, our focus will shift to the key components needed to create and send effective marketing text messages.
Keep It Personal
Making sure the content of your texts is appropriate for the target population is always important, but so is personalizing your messages. Using customized elements and tailoring your message to a particular recipient group has been known to increase engagement, with some reports showing recipients are 29% more likely to respond to a message if it’s personalized!4
Below are some examples on how you may better personalize a text and build rapport with your audience:
- Include the preferred first name of the recipient.
- Include the recipient’s major or field of study.
- When applicable, tailor the content to a specific geographic area.
- Mention the name of the student if your text is going to parents.
- Customize your sending groups based on what you know of your target population’s preferences and interests.
Be Concise
Even though MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) messages allot for more, the general rule of thumb is to try and keep texts at around 160 characters. Text messages are regarded as a more personal medium of communication than emails, so keeping content short and sweet is a good way to ensure you get your message across without overwhelming recipients with too much information.
It’s important to be concise, but we want to make sure we maintain clarity, as well. A strong call to action, the name of your institution, and any relevant information regarding the call to action are the basic components of a concise text message. By communicating the above with a conversational tone, and without the use of acronyms and “text speak,” you can maintain an air of professionalism while building an engaging relationship with recipients.
Add UTMs to Track Links When Possible
Including appropriate UTMs at the end of links is important for accurately tracking the effectiveness and progress of text messaging campaigns. A UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) is a small portion of code that is added to the end of a URL to track online marketing performance. Having feedback on different parameters of your marketing efforts can assist you later down the road by offering insight into what communication strategies are working, or where some adjustments might be necessary.
We also suggest using link-shortening platforms when sending text messages. However, not all sending platforms support shortened links, in which case, we advise removing the UTMs to keep the message within character limits.
Provide an Unsubscribe Option
A key component of email marketing is making sure you provide the opportunity for recipients to unsubscribe from the mailing list. The same goes for text messaging!
You always want to make sure you provide an option for recipients to opt out of receiving further communications by including “Reply STOP to End” at the end of all text messages. This also helps you refine your sending populations for future sends to more engaged students and parents.
Timing Can Be Everything
You want to make sure you time the sends of your text messages appropriately, too. This ties into what we mentioned earlier about text messaging being a much more personal mode of communication — we do not want to abuse the more intimate opportunity we have to reach our audience by sending too frequently or at inconvenient times.
According to the research collected in Spark451’s 2024 College-Bound Student Survey, in which we gathered feedback from more than 5,400 graduating high school seniors, 37% of students report that they are open to receiving texts from an institution at any time in the college search and selection process. However, any time in the cycle does not equal any time of the day, and you should carefully schedule your campaign launches for maximum efficacy. In fact, numerous studies have been conducted on the subject, generating data that more clearly outlines the significant impact time and frequency of sends has on recipient engagement and participation:
- Timing: Several sources support that it’s best to send text marketing messages between the hours of 8:00 AM and 9:00 PM within recipients’ local time zones5, and more specifically between noon and 8:00 PM6. Sending texts to a high school population around 3:00 PM yields the highest response rate7—after school has let out and before after-school activities begin.
- Frequency: Send frequency should be something that is increased gradually, and monitored closely. It’s suggested that one text a week be the frequency with which to start. Research suggests there is a significant increase in unsubscribe rates once the sender reaches the threshold of 10–15 messages a month.8
Make It Visual
Not every text message needs to include a visual aspect, nor should it. However, adding a simple but relevant image or GIF to a text message can increase engagement by as much as 350%!9
You may be asking, “So when is it best to incorporate an image or GIF?”
Event announcements and messages that provide significant updates profit the most from having media included, because the visual component distinguishes it from other messages and promotes more awareness. Reminders and submission confirmations are more effective as simple SMS messages.
The numbers already support the presence of the massive opportunity cell phones lend to marketers. The results from our 2024 College-Bound Student and Parent Surveys alone indicate that 79% of students use an iPhone regularly, while 67% of parents reported using their cell phone more than any other device.
Incorporating text messages into your marketing strategy can increase the effectiveness of your institution’s campaign — whether your goal is to increase awareness, drive traffic elsewhere, or encourage further engagement. As text messaging continues to grow in popularity, the benefits and unique opportunities that cell phones provide marketers grow along with it. Heeding the suggestions above can help you take advantage of said opportunities, and reach your audiences in the most impactful ways possible!
For more information about incorporating and optimizing text messaging in your marketing plans, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at Spark451. You can also access the full results from our 2024 College-Bound Student and Parent Surveys for additional insights about how texting plays a role in the higher education landscape today. We are always happy to discuss with you the ways we can work together to make the most of your text message marketing campaigns.
- https://www.harmonyhit.com/phone-screen-time-statistics/
- https://sproutsocial.com/insights/sms-marketing/
- https://sproutsocial.com/insights/sms-marketing/
- https://callfire.my.site.com/answers/s/article/Best-Texting-Practices
- https://www.constantcontact.com/blog/sms-text-message-marketing-best-practices/; https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/how-to/sms-marketing-best-practices/
- https://simpletexting.com/sms-marketing/campaigns/best-time-to-send/
- https://message-support.moderncampus.com/hc/en-us/articles/10017990079373-When-should-I-send-my-message
- https://uplandsoftware.com/mobile-messaging/resources/blog/what-is-the-optimal-frequency-of-sending-sms-messages/
- https://callfire.my.site.com/answers/s/article/Best-Texting-Practices
Thanksgiving With a Side of CRM
As the fall semester winds down and early admissions deadlines loom, it’s the perfect time for college admissions and operations offices to take a look at their CRM and make sure everything is working the way it should. Now that the November 1 deadline has passed, there are many things your team can focus on during this holiday-shortened month. But, just like a large Thanksgiving dinner, not everything can be gobbled up in one sitting. Choose the CRM areas you want to focus on the most right now!
Large Events: The Turkey
Thinking about open houses or other big on-campus events? Just like the turkey, it’s what everyone’s been waiting for! Have you sent out QR codes to your open house attendees (especially to their parents/guardians) to check in early? This can really speed up check-in, and as a bonus, the student’s name pops up when the code is scanned, so you can greet them personally — “John, check in early for open house!”
Datasets: The Side Dishes
Do you have your alumni ambassadors in a dataset? Set them up to conduct interviews and assist at college fairs. Just like those delicious side dishes, these datasets can complement your main events perfectly.
Slate.org: The Gravy
Save yourself and your staff some time by setting up Slate.org so that high school counselors can see the status of their students’ applications and upload any missing items the student might have. If you haven’t already, let the high school counselors in your area know about this helpful feature and encourage them to sign up. Did you know there is a community forum just for Slate.org? And at last year’s Slate Summit, there were some pre-conference sessions!
Pro Tip: You can write a query to see who is an active Slate.org user; this makes a great Deliver campaign audience.
Forms: The Cranberry Sauce
Check for forms that need updating. Do any other departments, like financial aid or the registrar, own forms in your CRM that should be reviewed for necessary updates? Just like cranberry sauce, these updates might seem small, but they are essential for the complete experience.
Import Spreadsheets: The Mashed Potatoes
Does your team have spreadsheets floating around outside of your CRM? It might be a good time to import that information into your CRM and manage them that way! Just like creamy mashed potatoes, integrating your spreadsheets will make your data management smooth and seamless.
Reports: The Stuffing
Speaking of spreadsheets, what reports do you need to improve or update with this year’s periods and rounds? Make sure everything is full of the right information. Stuffing your reports with useful data ensures a satisfying outcome.
Document Management: The Green Bean Casserole
There are so many different documents students provide to your institution (driver’s license, immunizations, transcripts, recommendation letters, etc.). How are you requesting and tracking those documents? How are those documents being securely transferred to the other departments that need them?
Pro Tip: Strengthen collaboration with other departments. Regular meetings and shared goals can ensure everyone is on the same page and working toward common objectives.
Email and Social Media Campaigns: The Pumpkin Pie
Field questions from prospective students and their families about the application process, deadlines, and requirements. Consider posting something to social media related to their concerns. Sweet and engaging, just like pumpkin pie, these campaigns can leave a lasting impression!
Travel Season: The Leftovers
While not as busy as other months, many of you are still involved in college fairs or visiting high schools. Compile notes and save information for next year. Contact the students, parents, and counselors you networked with. Have you uploaded the participants from all those fairs your counselors attended in the fall? Are they marked as attended?
Pro Tip: Utilize the notes and expenses section of an event. These can be a huge help if your admissions counselors leave or take on a new territory.
Audits: The Post-Meal Walk
Gear up for January deadlines. Make sure automations and rules are running. Do you have some queries in place to audit your system? A good audit is like a post-meal walk, ensuring everything is in order and ready for the next big event.
Readers: The Cozy Fireplace
Get your team’s application readers trained and ready to review applications! Make sure files are moving through the reader the way they should be. Why is it always the President’s second cousin that didn’t get his file read because some rule had it looking like he didn’t have all of his materials in?
Portals: The Family Gathering
Ensure your admitted student portal is up to date. Do you have this year’s events linked on the portal? What about the admissions deposit? Do you have the students’ “next steps” clearly defined on your portal, which would save your counselors time answering the same questions over and over?
By pushing along these crucial projects, you’ll ensure a smoother transition into the new year and a more efficient admissions process. Happy Thanksgiving and happy CRM-ing!
SparkAssist
Need a hand? With our flexible SparkAssist service, you can learn with us and become an expert on all things Salesforce, Slate, and Element451. Or, feel free to hand us a project for onetime completion. No project is too small or large for us! Here are a few examples we’d be happy to support you on:
- Drip campaigns development and automation
- Responsive HTML email templates
- Querying and reporting
- Database efficiencies
- Lead generation and strategizing origin sources
If you’re interested in learning about Spark451’s SparkAssist options, please reach out to us!
Your October CRM To-Do List
October is here and we’re certain your office is abuzz with recruitment efforts! Let’s make sure your team is ready to successfully manage the influx of applications and campus visits that come with this time of year. Don’t let these important proactive steps take second place on your agenda.
Application Review
Application review season officially kicks off this month, and for schools with rolling admissions, this means heavy application review is underway. No matter when you start seeing those apps roll in, make sure you’re keeping applicants informed about the status of their applications — including any missing documents — by sending automated, recurring emails.
Here are the other top areas to focus on:
- Update App Review/Reader Forms: Ensure your review forms are current and reflect any changes in your review process.
- Create App Review Dashboards: Unread apps per counselor, apps missing items, read apps — dashboards allow you and your readers to get a feel for the funnel.
- Staff Training: Make sure your staff is trained to read applications and fully understands your process.
- Automations: Don’t forget to check and update your automated bin movement rules.
- Scholarship Calculations: Make sure your scholarship calculators are updated to your new model.
Pro Tip: Get organized! Ensure that documents (transcripts, letters of recommendation, test scores, and personal statements) are set up appropriately in your CRM.
Hey Slate Users: Are you getting ready to use Reader AI when it’s released later this year ?
Decisions & Deposits
Prepare for smooth decision releases and deposit season by making sure everything in these three areas are in place:
- Financial Aid: In addition to ensuring students are aware of available scholarships and deadlines, help them and their families understand the financial aid process and where/when they can find their package when the time comes. (Thinking about digitizing your financial aid packages? Learn more about why it’s a great idea.)
- Payments: Is your system set to receive deposits? Have you made a test payment to confirm the process is easy to complete and, most importantly, works?
- Decision Letters: Don’t forget to update signatures, dates, and years, and build in excitement. (Slate users: Did you know you can customize the colors and type of confetti that rains down with your acceptance letters? )
Pro Tip: Ensure your CRM is functioning efficiently. When peak student activity takes place, you don’t want to be rushing to rewrite those legacy queries and reports in modern architecture (that’s Configurable Joins in Slate speak).
Campus Visits
We all know how important campus visits and open houses are for prospective students, so let’s make sure their visits count! ️
- Promote, Promote, Promote: Make sure everyone knows about upcoming events by posting about them on your social media accounts and emailing students and their families with personalized invitations.
- Virtual Events: Consider hosting virtual events (1:1 appointments work wonders) to reach a broader audience. Virtual tours and webinars are fantastic ways to engage students who can’t visit in person.
- Data Insights: Identify patterns in applicant demographics, acceptance rates, and yield rates. Use this data to refine your recruitment strategies and improve your admissions process.
Pro Tip: Foster collaboration and open communication within your admissions office. Encourage team members to weigh in with ideas and try out new approaches. Remember, happy staff leads to peak productivity!
By focusing on these key areas, your admissions office can navigate October’s challenges with confidence and efficiency.
Let's Get Across the Finish Line Together.
Need a hand? With our flexible SparkAssist service, you can learn with us and become an expert on all things Salesforce, Slate, and Element451. Or, hand us a project for onetime completion. No project is too small or large for us!
- Drip campaigns development and automation
- Responsive HTML email templates
- Querying and reporting
- Database efficiencies
- Lead generation and strategizing origin sources
If you’re interested in learning about Spark451’s SparkAssist options, please reach out to us!
2024 College-Bound Student & Parent Surveys: Download the Reports
Blog
|October 1, 2024We know that as a higher education professional, you are intimately familiar with the state of college and university admissions. However, we have a feeling you’ll probably still be surprised by some of the findings from Spark451’s 13th annual College-Bound Student Survey Report and our latest Parent Survey of College-Bound Students.
This summer, Spark451’s Education Research Division gathered feedback from more than 5,400 students and more than 1,100 parents across the U.S. Download the reports to gain access to all of the valuable information for college admissions professionals, including:
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- The Class of 2028’s social media habits
- How regional political and social attitudes influence admissions decisions
- Which communication tactics resonate most with students and their parents
- How AI and technology were utilized in the college search process
- The impact of FAFSA frustrations on students and families
- And much more!
Download the reports now. Then, reach out. We’ll be happy to help you determine if your upcoming admissions marketing and student search plans are fully in line with the latest data from students and their parents.