Did you know college enrollment has fallen for the first time in 15 years? In fact, 1 out of 10 schools can’t fill their freshman class. Text messaging provides a way for colleges and universities to reach out to teens on the device they use most—their mobile phones – and get them to take action.
SMS is an effective way to engage teens, capture information, and effectively communicate with prospective students to drive enrollment. Follow these four steps to learn how to incorporate mobile into your admissions strategy.
- Promote Your Campaign
The first step in any successful mobile campaign is promoting your call to action. Add it to any marketing material visible to prospective students, including print, radio, TV, local press, social media, and at live events. The more often students see your mobile call to action, the more likely they’ll be to opt in to your campaign! You’ll see a 3-10x improvement in response rates when you add a text message call to action to your existing media.Here is a Twitter call to action from Bowling Green State University:
- Target Prospective Students
Once prospective students text in to your campaign, get to know them by asking questions. Text them to find out their zip code, age, graduation year, and more. You can then use this information to segment your users into groups and send them information specific to their situation. - Educate and Drive Action
With text messaging, you can educate prospective students about your school and keep it fresh in their minds. Send reminders about upcoming deadlines, invite them to sign up for an open house, or share links to interesting content on your website. You can even grow your mobile list by asking teens to text in the phone numbers of a few friends they think might be interested in your college with our Tell-A-Friend feature. By tracking and measuring every text, click, and call, you can gauge which students are the most interested in your college and most likely to apply. - Enroll
After you’ve identified the most engaged prospective students, you can use text messaging to help them successfully enroll in your college. Send reminders about housing deposits, FAFSA, orientation and placement tests, class registration, and more. Host a live chat to let students text in questions about the application process and receive answers back quickly and easily.
Text messaging is an effective tool for keeping prospective students on track with their applications. By sending personalized and timely information to students when they need to take action, you can simplify the enrollment process and break it down into easily achievable steps.
Even after enrollment is over, text messaging can be a wonderful resource for communicating with college and university students. You can do everything from providing students with access to one-on-one college counseling to sharing updates on new courses and programs to inviting alumni back for fundraising events and galas.
Is your college or university is ready to drive enrollment with text messaging? Contact us to launch your mobile campaign today!