Schools need to be in the cloud

With school closures in-force or imminent across many countries, remote working policies are being put to the test across the world. Here are some pointers, statistics and insights to help your school continue to grow when your teams are working remotely.

Remote working is something that has been gaining popularity across sectors for the last decade, but has been uncommon in education - until now.

Here are some interesting remote working stats for 2020:

• The amount of people who work remotely at least once per week has grown by 400% since 2010. (GetApp)
• 42% of employees with a remote work option plan to work remotely more often in the next five years. (Owl Labs)
• If they could, 99% of people would choose to work remotely, at least part-time, for the rest of their careers. (Buffer)
• 77% of remote employees say they're more productive when working from home. (CoSo Cloud)
• 23% of remote workers say they work longer hours than they would on-site. (CoSo Cloud)

More than ever people are realising that they need to be able to work in the cloud. The ability to work remotely is now a 'need to have', not a 'nice to have'.

So what does this mean for education marketing and admissions? How can they adapt?

• School closures do not equal time off for most marketing and admissions teams, September will still come around and students will still need to enrol. Having admissions systems that can be maintained fully remote is crucial.
• A time to go digital. If you are still mostly accepting paper admissions forms, now is the time to future-proof your processes so that the experience of your incoming students is impacted as minimally as possible. If your admissions processes and application forms are managed online, then it can be (almost) business as usual for admissions teams working remotely. It certainly means less playing catch-up when schools re-open.
• Make the most of more time for marketing, using a CRM system will allow all of your communications and marketing efforts to continue as normal regardless of where you are working from. Senior leaders will also still be able to access live reports on enquiry data and email, social or web analytics.
• If you have access to automation tools, these can provide a seamless customer experience of your admissions process without any work from your teams. It's a good time to build this if you don't have it in place yet!
• Quality content will reassure your audience - in today's uncertainty, parents (whether at work as normal, or in isolation) will need some extra guidance and reassurance. Keeping in regular contact about your school's position and of course, their child's application will offer some peace of mind.
• Cloud-based software and CRMs make an impact all of the time - not just in the event of a school closure. With software that works all of the time, for all users, no matter where you are based, it doesn't matter if something prevents you getting to the office as everything can be done remotely and collaboratively.

If you have any questions about how marketing and admissions can be managed remotely, or are considering new CRM/marketing software to future-proof your efforts, get in touch and we will be happy to help and offer some free advice.