Work smarter and improve your customer journey. Automation can streamline the way you communicate with your prospective students/families from initial point of contact through to enrolment... and beyond!
Automation software tools will allow you to hand over many of your manual tasks and communications to computers - letting you focus on the one-to-one calls and ensuring that your emails are personalised and sent at the right time to meet the needs of your customers.
If you are drowning under an ever-growing to-do list, automating tasks and emails can free up valuable time.
Automation is easily one of the most powerful tools available to schools, colleges and universities who want to streamline their efforts in a world of high customer expectations.
Automation in an integrated marketing and CRM platform like HubSpot consists of 'workflows', these are like funnels that trigger reactions to certain actions. For example, if a website visitor subscribes to your blog then you could automate an email in response to their action. If that same visitor then clicks a link in your first blog email, they could receive another email ('we hope you enjoyed reading about ....., you may also find it helpful to read.....').
We have helped schools to automate some of the busiest moments in the marketing calendar: Open Events, by building workflows focused around the date of an upcoming event. Schools can then easily ensure that everyone who has registered their interest in an event online receives timely and personalised emails in the run up to the event with more information.
Then following an event, schools can automate follow up emails for attendees depending on whether they attended or not. Sending a 'next steps' email to those who came to the open event, and sending those who registered but did not attend 'sorry you couldn't make it'. Best of all, when automation is fully integrated with a CRM system, each email can be personalised with names, child details and information like 'year group on entry'.
Using HubSpot workflow tools to help automate the enrolment process has helped Saigon South International School increase their enquiry to application conversion rate by 10%. It's not just emails that benefit from an automation overhaul, you can trigger a wide range of reactions to different 'events'. Here are some examples:
The possibilities with automation are endless and the examples above are just a glimpse into the capabilities of workflows in HubSpot. Any of the data capture points within your school's HubSpot system can be utilised to trigger events and create workflows - and as the education CRM system allows you to create bespoke properties for your database there really is no limit to what can be achieved.
Keeping prospective families informed with relevant, personalised and timely communications throughout the enrolment journey and beyond is easy with marketing and admission automation software. It provides the professional experience prospective families desire.
Internal school communications can benefit from HubSpot automation tools just the same. When it comes to re-enrolment, the sequence of emails detailing the benefit's of your education setting for their child can be sent to current parents year on year by setting up retention marketing workflows. Well timed information sent out in an engaging format helps turn current families into advocates of your education organisation, driving word-of-mouth marketing.
Automation = more time freed up for your team, more efficient communications, smoother customer journey process and admissions journey = happy customers and more enrolments
An a key part of streamlining admissions processes through automation is reporting. Analysing the engagement - email opens and click rates - alongside other advanced analytics will allows for automation workflows to evolve as and when sticking points are highlighted within the process.
Want to find out more about automation and how HubSpot can support your schools' recruitment targets?
Book a free HubSpot for Education demo: