Student_Engagement

In the last 3 years, university admissions have changed drastically. Universities must put their best foot forward to attract prospects, build a list of contacts, and nurture their leads to drive enrollments. While ramping up marketing strategies is a way to attract more leads, having a CRM built specifically for universities can streamline the process more effectively.

What is a CRM for universities?

A CRM, or customer relationship management, help universities track and manage the success factors of their students in one single place. Such systems in higher education enable universities to keep the information of their stakeholders updated while streamlining various processes, like university admissions. As per the IT research and advisory agency Gartner, a CRM is not just a technology but a business strategy that optimizes profitability and improves customer satisfaction.

CRM for universities includes actionable analytics around custom content and design templates, student enrollment, landing page optimizations, and marketing automation tools, which helps in better student engagement across digital platforms. It is designed to help university enrollment officers simplify their workflow while improving their relationships with students. The outcome of which is increased admissions and retention rates!

How CRM helps universities streamline their processes

The importance of CRM for universities | Key points

The prospective students have busy schedules and are mostly inundated with marketing messages. However, the right tool is needed to gain and retain their attention. This is where a CRM for university admissions helps out. Overall, it will streamline enrollment campaigns, speed up application processes, track new-student completion rates, and build lasting student relationships. Here is an in-depth insight into the importance of having a CRM for university admissions -

1) Helps identify and focus on quality leads

A robust CRM can help build a scoring system, which will determine the quality of leads that the university receives. This allows the university admissions or enrollment teams to focus on leads with the highest converting chances. Having a CRM with this capability usually assign a numerical value (out of 100) to the leads, depending on their profiles. The leads with higher numerical values are most likely to convert into prospects. In addition, most CRM for university admissions has a customizable scoring system, enabling universities to focus on criteria set by them. Not only does it allow admission officers to connect with the right audience, but it also increases the university's ROI.

2) Delivers a student-driven enrollment experience

It is no surprise that virtual enrollment is rising steadily for higher education. The pandemic has exposed drawbacks in student enrollment processes, most notably the flexibility to create digital experiences for their prospects. A CRM addresses this drawback and makes the enrollment process more student-driven. While modern marketing for higher education is all about relevance, knowing what to market to prospective students is of utmost importance. In addition, using the right channel for marketing to prospects is also essential. Hence, a CRM for enrollment helps universities send customized and relevant messages to each student in the channels they use the most, delivering a more student-driven experience.

3) Enabling an organized admission journey

Investing in whole-campus events will improve the student experience while benefitting the academic success of the university. However, organizing and managing multiple events at a time can be heavy on the enrollment officers and admins. With the help of an efficient CRM, they can centralize the events and activities across various departments while making the process much more organized and transparent. Customer relationship management systems, if used correctly, can improve the admission journey by giving students contextual content and providing enrollment officers with updated academic and personal records.

As per reports, the global market size for CRM in 2022 is estimated to be USD 58.8B, with higher education holding a considerable share.

Source: Grand View Research Reports

4) Helps in better student retention

For enrollment officers, student retention is always the most important task. When it comes to this, CRM for universities is an incredibly valuable tool. According to SalesForce, it is found that universities that use a CRM platform were able to increase their student retention rates by 6.8%. This is because a customer relationship management system helps streamline workflows and consolidate student data for advisors so that they can be more proactive with their student support efforts.

5) Lowers total cost of ownership

Besides helping with university admissions and other processes, a CRM helps in lowering the total cost of ownership. As per Forrester's Total Impact Study, CRM for higher education is estimated to have averaged $2.4 million in total legacy cost savings. The study showed that universities that use CRM had also attained significant increases in their revenues. This is because expenses associated with training, adopting older processes, updating legacy systems, and using multiple sources for student journey management, get eliminated.

iSchool360's CRM for universities

Today, institutions are stuck with multiple tools and software to manage each part of the student lifecycle - a lead gen tool, a CRM, an admissions tool, and student advising software. This adds to the cost, complexity, and loss of effective continuous engagement with students.

iSchool360 is a solution that provides universities with technology to interact with students while placing them in front of millions of prospects globally. Using the power of machine learning, iSchool360 cohesively binds enrollment, graduation, and employment to get you the highest yield out of each student in the lifecycle.

iSchool360's CRM uses chatbots and active instant messaging to nudge prospective students. It also proactively manages the engagement and analytics for the university's staff and students. Critical factors like financial strength, academic strength, and institution perception can be understood more effectively using micro-interactions with iSchool360's AI.

Overall, iSchool360's CRM helps universities convert their leads into successful enrollments while assisting them with successful post-graduation.

The final word

Educational institutions can benefit significantly from CRM in various ways — from creating a more personalized student experience to streamlining university admissions to simplifying data complexity. Not only can universities reach their enrollment goals with ease, but they can also focus on creating better on-campus experiences and student retention.

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