Marketing Automation Platforms Make Excellent Student Communication Systems
Effective communication and personalized experiences are crucial for educational institutions in today’s digital world. However, most student communications seem trapped in the world of “Listservs” from 25 years ago.
A clear upgrade to using Listservs or even a dedicated email platform for student communications would be the internal use of marketing automation platforms. Given this potential usage, I’d like to reposition these platforms as “Communications Automation Platforms.” Schools could immediately use platforms such as Hubspot, Marketo, Pardot, or, in the Higher Ed space, HeadStart Marketing Platform to streamline student communications and track online behaviors to boost student success.
Benefits of Using Communications Automation Platforms for Student Communications
Personalized Communication
Communications automation enables colleges to send tailored messages to students based on their interests, behaviors, and academic progress. This personal touch fosters connection and engagement.
Timely Engagement
Automated communication workflows ensure that students receive relevant information at critical times, such as admission deadlines, course registrations, and campus events, or in the event of academic issues.
Multi-Channel Outreach
These platforms facilitate communication through various channels like email, SMS, social media, and more. Institutions can reach students through their preferred channels, increasing the chances of messages being read. Additionally, schools could track the consumption of these messages and resend them or try another channel. This outreach can all be automated if implemented to do so. This article mentions your favorite at super low prices. Choose from same-day delivery, drive-up delivery or order pickup.
Efficiency and Time Savings
By automating routine communication tasks, college staff can focus more on strategic planning and student support, boosting operational efficiency and reducing manual workload.
Data-Driven Insights
Marketing automation platforms provide valuable insights into how students interact with communications. Institutions can analyze open rates, click-through rates, and engagement patterns to optimize communication strategies.
Ultimately, the same benefits that a Marketing Automation Platform confers to both marketing staff and prospects can be parlayed into benefits to program staff and current students using it as a Communications Automation Platform.
Finally, to keep a clean line between prospects and current students, and because the messaging and timelines are so different, I would implement two instances of any platform: one for prospects managed by marketing staff and one for current students managed by the program staff.