A sustainable and lasting relationship is something most people want. But hold on, we are not talking about wedding plans! The subject here is relationship flow with students, have you ever heard about this concept?
We are always updating ourselves with capture resources for new students and academic retention, but we know that nothing happens if the Educational Institution (EI) doesn’t keep a good relationship with their students. Actually, the interaction starts before the enrollment, so, it’s better to think about strategies to build and keep contact.
Actually, the similarity with personal relationships is no coincidence. That’s why we created this article for you to understand what this communication flow is and how to apply it. Shall we?
What is the relationship flow?
The relationship flow (or communication flow) gathers a bunch of marketing actions to build a good relationship with the customer.The Inbound Marketing strategy is based on the users’ behavior in the communication channels and must follow them as they flow in the purchase funnel.
That way, there is regular contact with these people, including prospects and leads among the customers. The intention is interacting with the audience in a personalized way, individualizing the service and content that every one receives.
The idea is to understand how they behave and, then, improve the communication approach of the brand aiming to attract and capture them.
But, after all, how can you rightly put the concept into practice? Check below.
5 good practices of the communication flow
It’s important to understand that a personalized and successful communication relies on a main concept: knowing the customer profile.
The personal information users offer on your suite is worthy to apply the methodology efficiently. Think of an example: if someone calls you in the middle of a crowd, but without saying or name or some very personal feature, would you look?
Let’s list some marketing strategies that will be useful to your EI when creating a good relationship flow for students.
1. Welcome
Everybody likes to be welcome, right? We can deny it! And we are not talking only about physical welcoming. We can please new contacts a little.
When a lead subscribes to your page, it’s fair enough to thank them and welcome them, right? This first contact will be very important to your brand, because it will show receptivity
Read too:
- What is link building? Learn how to make it successful;
- The 8 essential tips to improve your CRM. Check out now;
- Automation: how to create a purchase flow in 5 standards!
2. Discounts
Has someone said “discount”? Yes, this takes the attention of your customers, and takes it even more when the discounts are exclusive.
An enrollment or tuition discount can help a lot, ok? Just remember that these segmented sales make the communication with the students more individual.
And we are not talking about first contact only, but for future opportunities the perfect resource is one we know well: email marketing flow.
3. Content Editing
Customer relationships are not just sales. Well, actually it will be pretty difficult to start this contact with purchases. That’s why it is very important to offer relevant content for the potential student.
Inbound Marketing is a good tool to do that. After all, attracting new students and nurturing leads are also part of the strategy.
Think about the needs of your students, show solutions and call them to make it happen. The call to action makes all the difference! It can be a call for another post reading, maybe a newsletter subscribing or asking for information about a service or product. Inviting the reader is always good.
4. Contact in commemorative days
Have you ever thought about giving a happy birthday to the students of your EI?
Send congratulations on their birthday, but also on student’s day and even on enrollment anniversary. Why not? The idea here is to work on a happy and creative communication that creates a closer bond with the student.
5. Post purchase strategies in the relationship flow
Post purchase is a crucial step on the relationship flow and email marketing. Customer support says a lot about an institution and, as a consequence, about the user experience.
In this case, it’s very important to keep service channels to solve students’ questions and doubts, to avoid evasion (or, churn). Yes, student support helps a lot in avoiding academic evasion!
It’s true that a humanized, personalized and fast service makes your EI better and it can be done with chatbots programmed to contact students with short or no human intervention.
Extra tip: the relationship after the lead conversion
It’s important to say that your job is not done when a visitor becomes a lead. Even after conversion, the contact with this user is essential to strengthen this relationship. Besides that, feedback from this lead can help you to improve your media performance.
When they finish the communication flow, there is another fundamental part of the process: relationship flow from the service team to keep nurturing users with relevant and worthy offers.
What are the benefits of the relationship flow?
Communication is the key to keeping good relationships, right? For schools, it’s not differente. Once close contact can reflect positively on your students’ experience.
The benefits of your EI if it takes this practice are many, check some:
- Reducing of academic evasion, what is synonym of a greater students retention;
- Increasing ROI - return over investment;
- Customer loyalty;
- More engaged users on your communication channels;
- Communication is more precise and connected with the interests of each person.
If your EI needs a solid and lasting relationship with your students, put your hands to work and make a strategy. The first step is to do market research and to understand what is more important to the experience of people enrolled at your institution.
After mapping, it’s time to search for the best actions for your school and the customer profile. Then, it’s put to practice and creates the relationship flow.
Did you like this article? Do you want to know other marketing strategies to boost your students' capture? Read also our post about Marketing Automation and CRM!
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