CRM is the fastest growing software market today. It was INR100 billion industry in 2010 and is expected to reach INR 568 billion by 2025.
Time and again the tremendous power of CRM has fundamentally changed customer relationships across industries for best. We have proven parallel with the likes of Capillary in the retail industry, Zenoti in the wellness industry, Veeva in life sciences, OpenTable in hospitality, to name a few tremendous success stories.
So ever wondered how CRM can be utilized in the education industry? CRM Systems are software applications that help to automate and manage communications with the prospective lead and/or with the current opportunities.
Just like the other industries, the education industry too needs to adapt to the changing marketing needs to cater to the 21st-century learners. It cannot just rely on traditional practices like conventional ERP, bulk e-mailing, SMS, IVR, etc.
Enter an industry-focused CRM that would power the admissions & marketing team with tools to increase engagement, manage student journey, build targeted communication strategies & measure ROI in real-time.
Fig: Areas wherein a CRM sees maximum benefit inside an Education Enterprise Source: ExtraaEdge
So in brief, here’s what a CRM system can do in the next 30 days to literally take your admission engagement to the next level.
CAPTURE: Captures the entire student journey from enquiry to admissions across Online (Google, FB, Website, Chatbot), Offline (Events, Calling) & 3rd party listings.
QUALIFY: Helps understand the online, social & demographics signals to focus on the interested students.
ENGAGE: Help craft periodic, focused & meaningful marketing campaigns in the form of e-mail, text, WhatsApp, chat, push notifications, especially on mobile devices.
MEASURE: Measure the above 3 across marketing spent & admission team’s efficiencies.
A recent example of Reinhardt University can be traced to see the success of a CRM system in an educational institute. Implementing a CRM system has made a significant impact on Reinhardt University’s ability to successfully recruit and enroll new students. In 2015, Reinhardt finished their recruiting season with 398 new students. In 2016, they recruited 483 new students. In 2017, they set the bar even higher and enrolled 525 new students.
According to a survey of around 603 admission enrolment & marketing professionals across the globe by Advance Global Higher Education (AACRAO) publication on the State of CRM in Education Report, the findings were pretty clear.
Fig 2. Universities & All types of Institutes are already jumping on the CRM bandwagon Source: ExtraaEdge
Four major benefits of using a CRM System are:
- Increase time to admission response – Emails and other types of automated communication can help in speeding up the response time and thereby drive faster services.
- Automated admission workflows – The use of workflow automation will make sure that you do not miss out on any activities of following up, also ensuring that the right thing is delivered to the prospect at the right time.
- Improved engagement across omni-channels – The ultimate purpose that CRM serves is in seamless interaction with prospects across offline & online thereby leading to improved experience when you interact with the brand. It makes sure that you are aware of the experiences customers have with your brand and reacting accordingly.
- Measure what matters – The outcomes of having a focused CRM are an ability to measure critical metrics like marketing ROI, enrolment ratios from leads to walk-ins, application channels & performance of counseling teams. Without getting lost in curating data from different sources & excel sheets.
You can achieve the same benefits with ExtraaEdge’s CRM solution which is specifically designed for educational institutes to exceed their admissions goals. Moreover, help admissions teams increase, manage & predict their admissions.
About ExtraaEdge:
ExtraaEdge is a VC backed pioneer in Admissions & Marketing Automation software for the education industry. We are the category leaders when it comes to understanding education marketing & technology that powers admissions for 130+ education institutes across geographies. This blog is an effort to share our learnings from the Industry and help education marketers, admissions, and all associated stakeholders of education institutes strengthen their admission technology.
Request a Demo/Call to know how ExtraaEdge’s CRM solution can help your institution with admissions.