“To not follow up with your prospects is the same as filling up your bathtub without first putting the stopper in the drain.” ― Michelle Moore, award-winning author.
If your goal is to reach more families, increase enrollment rates, or keep parents excited about your school, following up is vital. A voicemail alone won’t do; you must use creative tactics to increase the effectiveness of your follow-up strategy. At Schola, we offer the best online tools to seamlessly define and execute a follow-up strategy that allows you to attract the right students, convert prospective families into fully committed students, and continue to nurture families to ensure you reach your enrollment goals. Click here to check out our latest tool that helps you centralize communication: ScholaRecruiter Pro™
Did you know that about 80% of conversions happen on the 5th to 12th contact? That’s right, persistence and team effort are fundamental for reaching your recruitment goals. No matter the size of your team, establishing specific roles is a must. Here is a guide of how to delegate tasks within your team to be proactive and effective with your follow-up efforts:
Parent Liaison
- Is in charge of providing school tours. Physical or virtual tours can boost parents’ confidence in their final enrollment decision. By claiming your Schola Profile, we can help you out with this task. Easily show families what your school has to offer by sharing the latest pictures of your campus. It’s like having a virtual tour available 24/7!
- Focuses on promoting a sense of community and trust. Feeling part of a community is powerful and adds value to your school. Make sure your families feel supported and appreciated every step of the way.
- Helps with follow-up. The more, the merrier! Having more than one person following up with potential leads will help you achieve your recruitment goals.
Office Staff
- Does office work. The staff is in charge of tasks like calling parents or verifying attendance.
- Provides administrative assistance. Scheduling is a must! Be sure to keep a schedule of all your recruitment efforts to stay on top of the follow-up tasks. With ScholaRecruiter Pro™ we can assist you in streamlining communication, organization, and automation.
Enrollment Advisor
- Focuses on full-time follow-up. Having one or multiple people solely focused on following up will be a complete game-changer for reaching your recruitment goals. At Schola, we have a bilingual (Spanish and English) team ready to take this task off your shoulders and promote effective communication by following up with families in their own language.
- Knows all the details about the school. To send out an accurate and unified message requires knowledge, so make sure your advisor knows all about the current enrollment process and deadlines.
- Calls, texts, and sends emails to parents. This person is in charge of following up and encouraging families to schedule a school tour or meeting.
These roles have different responsibilities, but they should all follow a unified team strategy. Sending out mixed information can create inconsistencies and communication gaps within your community. The entire team should aim to achieve measurable follow-up goals. Have you already defined yours? Here is a list of our suggested goals for this school year:
✔️50+ calls every day. Why wait? Reach out to families when their interest in your school is fresh!
✔️2+ applications per day. You can do it! Boost your chances by having a mobile-friendly application process that makes it easier for parents to apply.
✔️First follow-up within 24 hours. Tick-tock, tick-tock! The longer you wait, the higher are the chances of potential leads losing interest.
Top Ways To Follow Up With Parents
Knowing your target audience and the channels they usually use is a huge advantage when it comes to reaching out and following up. If you need specific details about your target audience, be sure to check out the Persona Profile or join our weekly webinars for more information, both free online Schola resources.
- Text messages. These have an open rate of 98% and people usually read them within 3 minutes.
- Calling. 69% of customers accepted a call from new salespeople in the past 12 months.
- Emails. More than 20% of emails get open daily all over the US.
OMG, an SMS!
You already use them for everything else; why not for following up? The quickest way to follow up with potential leads is by SMS or text, plus it helps parents recognize your phone number and encourages them to answer your next call. Keep it casual, friendly, and concise when reaching out by text message. (Tip: keep your messages to 160 characters or less.) Don’t forget to add a ‘STOP to opt-out’ option to the end of your original message. It makes it easy for your team to stay compliant and efficient with its communication.
¿Hola? Hello?
Calling is all about making sure that they want to talk to you! Speak your potential leads’ language; it will encourage them to be more confident and accurate when expressing their needs and interests. Use a friendly and respectful tone while establishing authority. Understand and designate the best time to call parents (Tip: avoid lunchtime and aim for the afternoon.) Finally, create urgency and deliver a clear call to action. Remember, if you don’t speak Spanish, Schola has you covered! Our bilingual team is ready to provide the support you need to nurture and comunicate with families in your diverse community.
You’ve Got Mail!
What is the purpose of your email? Have a clear objective for your email and let your audience know about it. Remind them about your last interaction or where you got their information. (Tip: always use an official school email to follow up and communicating with families, avoid using Gmail, Outlook, or Yahoo. You can purchase an email domain for less than $10 a year.)
No matter the follow-up strategy and tactics you choose for your school, it is imperative to keep track of it all. Having a cloud-based system will make the follow-up job easier and more precise. A cloud-based system can help you share tasks and phone numbers among your entire staff while improving response time and efficiency. It allows you to add texting capabilities without using personal phones, and it facilitates recording calls or messages for reference and improvement.
Have you got too much on your plate? We are always here to help! Visit Schola.com and request a demo to learn how our cloud-based services can help your team reach out, connect and follow up more efficiently. We nurture families to make sure they show up months later on the first day of school, so applications become enrollments. Families receive consistent communication about your school’s events, tours, and essential updates.
Successful follow-up requires strategy, persistence, team effort, and organization. Put in the work, identify your ideal resources, don’t give up, and we can assure you will start seeing results.
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