A school without students is like a $1,000,000 check you can’t cash.
Pointless.
If you want your school business to stay profitable, you need to attract as many students as possible. Easy? Yes. But you must have a well-oiled machine that is consistently attracting more customers in the door. Schools and colleges can't just open the doors and expect a herd of customers to fly through the door after each summer break. You need to adapt and attract yourself - and this comes with many challenges - but one thing that stays consistent? Quality teaching and great school administration software!
With all the new technology available on the market, students are demanding more. For surviving in the current educational environment, schools must keep up with them. “Creating a holistic, customizable educational experience that allows each student to use their existing knowledge to master new skills and concepts” is crucial, points out The Council for Adult and Experiential Learning. Students are regularly chasing the best software and if your schools provide it and make their learning easier, you can assure they will be queuing to get in the door before each semester!
Quick takeaway: Enrollment is easier when student experience is frictionless—clear communication, self-serve portals, streamlined admissions, and mobile access.
In this article, we’ll talk about how online school management software can revolutionize the way you manage your school and how to use it to attract more students.
Why you need an online school management software
Here’s something to put you in the right mindset:
Without a robust online school management software, you’re banging your head against a brick wall. 🤦♀️
Running a school is no walk in the park—we know you have a lot on your plates. Most of you spend a lot of time and energy on the administrative side of this business: scheduling lessons, managing students, tracking progress, billing, reporting, keeping in touch with parents, etc. No wonder you end up exhausted, missing out on opportunities.
A school management system handles all the above tasks—and a lot more. It can help you free up your schedule and prioritize tasks, such as improving student enrollment. It can also be accessed from anywhere in the world because it's cloud-based, which allows you to communicate easily with parents, students, and teachers from your fingertips.
Without further mentions, here’s how powerful educational software can help you better attract and meet students’ rising expectations.
Ways to attract more students with online school management software
#1. Have a dedicated student portal
To succeed in an industry where competition is stiff, you need to create a dynamic learning environment where every student has a voice. Another goal your school should focus on is eliminating potential obstacles students may face and helping them complete their tasks on time.
With school management software, you can easily fulfil students’ basic needs:
- ✅ access to readings and course materials
- ✅ a way to submit assignments and receive feedback on their work
- ✅ a means to send in questions and communicate with their teachers
- ✅ access to report cards and grades
- ✅ online payments for their course
- ✅ attendance tracking
Students can upload homework and keep up to date with schedules through their calendar, which will save them time and allow them to be more productive.
#2. Create drip email marketing campaigns
Research shows we are more likely to buy something from a business we already know and trust. Long story short, the more you get your name out there, the bigger your chances to attract more students.
Use drip email campaigns to promote your school and expand its student base. With a school management system, you can send emails directly from the platform. Create mailing lists and send reminders when enrollment opens up and have full control over what gets sent and when.
A good way to attract new students is to run an onboarding email campaign and show off your school’s environment. Pro Tip: Ask your current/former students to share their stories and reasons for choosing your school. You’ll build up more trust.
Check out these four tips for a perfect drip campaign:
- ✅ Introduce yourself and the school and explain what value your emails will bring
- ✅ Analyze data to find the best time to send out the drip campaign
- ✅ Segment your student audience to identify what call-to-action to create and how frequently to send emails
- ✅ Make sure each email you send has a master call-to-action (e.g. enroll now, etc.)
#3. Make sure your admission process is streamlined
Does your school still use the conventional admission management system?
Yikes. We all know the admission process is time-consuming. Management handling so much student data is tedious and risky—even the smallest mistake can lead to a lot of nightmares—so better safe than sorry is the right attitude.
In this day and age, your school needs to connect all aspects of the admissions process in a streamlined way. Online applications are the answer because they create a win-win situation:
- ✅ your admin staff no longer need to do laborious manual data entry
- ✅ students can quickly fill up forms online
- ✅ student data is stored and secured on a centralized platform you can easily access
When you replace slow, outdated admission processes with an automated workflow, you end up improving the student experience. Happy students = great referrals.
#4. Have a fast mobile app
In 2020, there’s no excuse for businesses not having a mobile presence. Since we carry the world in our pocket, people are looking for a mobile-friendly solution in (almost) every service and software.
Deloitte’s “How do today’s students use mobiles?” study found that students aged 18-24 expect to be able to use their mobiles to manage their lives. For education institutions, that means their digital infrastructure will need to support the latest technologies and platforms.
With students always on the move, they need a tool to go through their schedule and other important updates. Most importantly, they want to have all the features at their fingertips. Your school’s mobile app must have real-time notifications and alerts, outstanding chat functionality and seamless integration.
#5. Add your school branding
Here’s something that’s been thrown around a lot:
Schools don’t have huge budgets to spend on branding.
Yet, you can build a powerful brand without spending fortunes. The thing is, your brand can either inspire or repel prospective students. If you want to attract more students and establish a name in your community, use your brand to communicate your school’s story—from history, vision, to the future.
You can add your school logo inside your online school management software to give your school an expert look (the logo will also appear across the application and on your customers’ receipts).
Pro Tip: Don't forget to also include your logo and colours on your buses, uniforms, business cards, forms, website, and social media accounts.
Ready to reach more students and crush it? 💪
Teach ’n Go is a cloud-based school management system that brings together assignments, student information, files and conversations into a single platform that students can access on a mobile, tablet, PC, or browser.
School administration never looked so easy!
If you’re ready to boost your student pool while automating your business, try it out for free now.
