How to Improve Communications at Higher Education Institutions - KELL Partners
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How to Improve Communications at Higher Education Institutions

How to Improve Communications at Higher Education Institutions

Encouraging learning in the wake of a changing world can be difficult. Many colleges and universities have resorted to a hybrid educational approach, so students experience online and in-person learning. While this model is now a new normal across the country, it represents a total transformation of how higher education institutions interact with students, their families, and staff. That means communication throughout your campus needs to evolve with the changing curriculum.

Regardless of what industry you’re in, there’s one thing that will always be true—communication is key! From email, texts, social media, and printed materials, communicating with your students, staff, families, and alumni is a daily and necessary task for many higher education institutions. As we’re still navigating the uncertain waters of a post-pandemic world, you need to know what’s working and what isn’t at your campus. Do you know what’s top of mind for your students and what they expect throughout their educational journey? Are your messages getting to the right people at the right time? Is your messaging supporting and connecting with all constituencies?

At KELL Partners, we want to assist your higher educational institution to go farther and faster with Salesforce training and support. Whatever your needs may be, we’re here to help you embrace the most effective and modern communication platforms. We can assist you in selecting, implementing, and leveraging the right combination of Salesforce technologies so your organization can engage, involve, interact and collaborate, regardless of where they are. Below are five ways your higher education institution can improve communications with your constituencies.

Consistency is key

Consistent communication with students, staff, families, and alumni is crucial if you want to get and keep constituencies involved. There are dozens of occurrences happening every day at your campus, but not all are relevant to everyone. How will people trust that they’re receiving the correct information at the proper time? Your website, online portal, email, and text messaging must work together to allow everyone to find and retain the information when they need it.

According to the second edition of the Connected Student Report from Salesforce, 59% of students surveyed credited a trust gap between administration and students to a lack of consistent communication, and 53% of the administration said a lack of communication led to a trust gap between themselves and leadership.

With KELL Partners on your team, we provide the Salesforce tools to deliver the right message on time, every time! We will work together to create and share consistent communication that supplies the information your students and alumni need in the way they want to receive it.

Reach out more often

Your students and staff enjoy hearing from you. In truth, nine out of ten students surveyed agreed they want their university to communicate with them the same amount of time or more via email, text messaging, etc. If you’re wondering how to accomplish this, we’ve got a simple solution—investing in a system that creates and grows relationships at all levels and speaks to each of them in a consistent and personal way. Stop using outdated programs and start leveraging your data to deliver customized communications with dynamic content and consistent branding to improve everyone’s experience. A fantastic example of this is Texas Tech University. When they switched to Salesforce to manage their data, the volume of their digital communications increased by a whopping 200%.

Personalize your messaging

We touched on consistent and persistent messaging, and now it’s time to think about personalization. 42% of students polled by Connected Student Report said that their university could improve existing communications by delivering a more personalized approach. To do so, you must fully understand your constituencies to the greatest extent. When you work with KELL Partners and Salesforce Marketing Cloud, your organization can create highly personalized, behavior-based digital campaigns that target and nurture prospective and current students, alumni, and parents across the lifecycle of your organization’s activities. Utilizing Marketing Cloud, your educational institution will now be more effective at leveraging data, so you only send communications relevant to the recipient.

Increase engagement and build trusted relationships with alumni

Your alumni form the backbone of your multi-generational community; they are often responsible for a large portion of your university’s donations, and they influence their children to observe the school they attended. More frequently, alumni want to understand how and where their donation money is used and how they can continue to support your school. However, many institutions find it challenging to maintain a strong relationship with alumni. To keep alumni on your side and continue the relationship beyond graduation, you need to incorporate personalized communications about events, news, updates, and opportunities happening at your institution. Let KELL help you choose the right tools for your needs! Utilizing our Salesforce expertise, we can help you personalize each communication with content based on their concentration while they were a student and since leaving your campus. Easily see connection points so you can create a more focused journey for your alumni and make better plans based on their reactions.

Make it rewarding

Your campus’ community extends far beyond the classroom. So why not reward your community with some perks? To keep the campus community alive, incorporate strategic opportunities like school-branded clothing, invitations to special lectures or courses, or tickets to sporting or arts events. Creative and rewarding communication not only promotes brand loyalty but also fosters a sense of belonging.

Why Choose KELL Partners for Salesforce Training and Support?

If you’re struggling with communication across your organization, or you’re ready to import, migrate, manipulate, dedupe and clean your data and implement Salesforce for your education institution, connect with our team of experts today! We’ve helped educational institutions go farther and faster with the Salesforce platform and can’t wait to provide you with the services and training you need to support your mission.

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