If you follow our blog, you know we already introduced the CRM as one of the five tools to track performance in educational marketing. So why are we harping on this string when talking about student’s capture to HEIs (High Education Institutions)?As we’ll see with more details ahead, CRM stores data that can be used as a foundation to the marketing campaigns of your EI. For this to work, it’s necessary knowing how to use the information, directing to leads’ attraction and capture.
In this post, we’re going to tell you how to do it. Mainly, understanding that the mechanical use of educational CRM is not enough. Thus, if you already don’t know how to use this tool in an innovative way, you’ll find out in this reading. Join us!
After all, what is CRM?
CRM is the abbreviation of Customer Relationship Management. An educational CRM is a tool that gathers students and potential students information and their communication activities with the EI.
The tool collects data such as name, number, website visits, sent messages or emails… In other words, relevant information that can be used in attraction and conversion actions, besides a relationship historic with these students before their enrollment.
The use of this technology, as Hubspot CRM, allows the EI having access to index related to leads capture, qualified - or not - leads, their conversion rate and so on. More than that, it makes these measurements more precise.
There is no need to say that educational CRM is a way to optimize the manual collection of relevant data. Only because of this feature, the tool can already be considered innovative and capable of directing better the students’ capture actions and marketing campaigns in the HEIs.
Porém, a parte do relacionamento com o cliente, inerente ao CRM, demanda mais. Sobretudo em um cenário em que a competitividade é forte e o nível de exigência dos clientes é alto.
CRM and Inbound sales
In the beginning of this post, we highlighted that the mechanical use of CRM is not enough to capture students anymore. That happens because collecting data without using them strategically correctly won’t produce the expected result, mainly with so many HEIs with the same mission of attracting new students.
To deal with this subject, the idea of inbound sales to EIs comes to mind. A sales model to substitute this exact mechanical model of the CRM. Or it benefits a more-strategic approach outcome of the educational CRM, goaling a more efficient data collection to increase enrollments.
A little about the inbound sales to EIs
As you already know, the process of students’ attracting and capturing has been changing for years. Previously, active marketing approaches were hugely used to promote an EI and get the attention of potential students. Nowadays, however, the technological impact on society asks for a different approach.
In Education, as in other areas, it’s very common for the customers (or students, in this case) to search for information about your Ei, the courses and other relevant things for their choice. Unlike before, when this information used to reach the audience through ads, for example.
It’s not like the active strategies of outbound marketing are invalid (on the contrary!), but it’s necessary to learn how to match the new dynamic and also allow the interested students to come to the EI.
So, your EI needs to rely on inbound marketing strategies to encourage the students, attract them and, then, convert them. What that means is changing the most generic and wide marketing action to some actions more individual, personalized and which promote closeness to a more exclusive experience.
Connection with the CRM
To develop these actions - that are the inbound sales features - to EIS, yours need to know with whom it is connecting.
Certainly, to do that you can’t just establish a generic audience based on ideas as “young students that just dropped High School”. It’s necessary to know more to develop enough assertive strategies to get the attention of the EI’s potential students.
After all, students that go after EIs, to start a graduation, have as an offer a multitude of options. And what they want is finding in the relationship other reasons to make their choice more than just the EI reputation or the course price.
Building this relationship in a different, consistent and meaningful way is what increases the EI rate of extending the contact and turning it into enrollments.
In that moment comes the data a tool like HubSpot CRM makes available. The idea is not using them only to measure results. More than that, it’s analysing them in a way they fit as a foundation so the EI finds out what to do, aiming to improve its attraction and the power of involving and gaining students.
Como alavancar a captação com o CRM
An educational CRM combined with Inbound Sales to EIs allows the HEIs to know the questions and interests of each student. In other words, know why they looked for the EI. That also helps to identify what moment of the buying journey's each student is in.
With this information derived from the - already mentioned - relationship historic, the EI is now capable of personalizing the approach and taking advantage (in a good way) in every contact.
The idea is to understand which student is prepared to receive a course offering. But, instead of sending them a generic message inviting them to find out more about the courses, the EI can focus on their areas of interest that were already pronounced by the student (maybe through their website or blog researches or conversations in chats, emails or phone, for example).
This strategy benefits the students’ capture in Higher Education because it catches the students with a proposal that matches their interests. And at the exact moment they really want to receive this proposal.
Do you want to know more about students’ capture using CRM? Contect our team and find out about the HubSpot CRM!
Portugal