Rethink Your Student Engagement and Email Strategy

Do your emails stand out in students’ inboxes? Or are critical financial aid communications getting lost in the shuffle? Institutions of all sizes and types struggle with how they communicate to students. When it comes to complex (and time-sensitive) financial aid tasks, the right messaging is crucial for students to understand their aid and what actions are required to keep it. And that’s assuming you get them to open your emails in the first place.

Automated, dynamic messages are key to driving engagement, understanding, and ultimately, student success. With the right technology, higher ed can cut through the noise and rethink their email strategy.

In a recent panel, higher ed technology leaders Dustin Johnson, associate director of financial aid at Utah Tech University, and Emmilee Mitchell, director of financial planning operations at Mercer University, came together to share how paper-based and manual processes were keeping their financial aid offices from getting students the information they need when they need it and in a form that is understandable and actionable. By implementing modern technology, both institutions can now clarify communications, build engagement, and guide students effectively from enrollment to completion.

Higher Education Financial Aid Was Stuck in the Past

At Utah Tech University, an open-enrollment institution with more than 12,000 students, award letter season was once met with a campus-wide groan. “When we would do that first push sending out award notices, we had to use an actual letter-folding machine,” Johnson says. In addition to printing the award notifications and putting them in their respective folders, Utah Tech staff manually created nearly 3,000 student ID cards that then had to be matched to the appropriate letters.

“I was in there spinning these labels as fast as I could,” Johnson remembers. “It was all hands on deck at that point. We had about 10 to 12 full-time staff members and some work-study helpers then. Everyone from work-study to directors would have a nice large stack of envelopes to stuff.” The whole process took three to four days.

Mercer University, a private research institution in Georgia, faced a similar problem, compounded by the wide range of colleges and schools it encompasses. “We had a hodge-podge of processes for the different types of students that we serve,” Mitchell explains.

Incoming students, for example, received a physical booklet with their financial aid offer and a worksheet that they’d have to fill out themselves to determine their final costs. “It would take about a week just to get the booklets printed,” Mitchell says. “And then someone had to proof 1,000 pages of PDF documents to make sure the right student information matched the student on the mailing. And that’s just for incoming students.” For both institutions, a change was long overdue.

Removing Communication Barriers to Student Enrollment

With the right technology, paper-pushing is a distant memory. “Our advisors can actually advise students and answer their emails and phone calls now,” Mitchell says about life after implementation. “We haven’t lost any staff. We’ve just been able to use them more effectively. It's helped tremendously.”

At Utah Tech and Mercer, all students—incoming and returning, undergraduate and professional, traditional and otherwise—can now receive the information they need exactly when they need it without having to open a single envelope.

This is especially critical at the beginning of the year when the number of award letters being drafted and sent is likely double or even triple the number of eventual admitted students. By the time some prospects finally get their notifications via snail mail, new policies and verifications might have already rendered them out-of-date. Those delays make a difference. Without timely aid communications, students are likely to enroll elsewhere.

Mercer leadership has taken it a step further by bringing their admissions team into their new financial aid communication software. Now, when admissions staff meets with students and their families, they can easily pull up a student’s aid letter to talk through questions and potential roadblocks. By further integrating their tools throughout the institution, Mercer can see the direct impact dynamic communications make on the enrollment funnel.

A New Era of Student Engagement and Understanding

Financial aid notifications can’t just be efficient, though. They also have to be effective. For many aid offices, not hearing from students is a red flag. Where are they going if they don’t understand their aid letters? Do they know what actions they need to take and when?

“The concern we always had with any of the communications we were sending out was, ‘Are the students getting this?’” Johnson explained. Before, the only way they knew a mailing hadn’t reached its destination was if it eventually bounced back to their office. And there was no guarantee delivered mail ever got opened. With their new system, Utah Tech can keep a close eye on open rates, leveraging personalization and dynamic follow-ups to keep that number high.

Since implementation, call volume has gone up, but Johnson says that’s a good thing: “The questions are on topic now. We can see that students are getting the information now and can recognize what it means.”

Digitization also helps staff shift from reactive to proactive advising. “One thing we strive to do is answer questions that the student might not even know they have,” Mitchell explains.

Mercer staff took stock of the questions they were receiving and let those—as well as other response data—drive the evolution of what information to include and how to best communicate it. Cost of attendance, for example, was identified as a point of confusion and more clearly surfaced in future notifications. Other common questions could be answered with templated video messages.

And because both Utah Tech and Mercer are using their new technology for a variety of communications—from lending processes and loans to satisfaction tracking letters—their financial aid staff can clarify key milestones throughout the student journey.

Better Communications Drive Stronger Outcomes

With automated, dynamic communications, Utah Tech University and Mercer University are doing more than just saving on postage. They’re providing the timely, personalized support students need to enroll and persist. Staff no longer spend their workdays stuck in front of the printer. They can advise students directly, answering specific questions and clarifying the path to student financial success.

Watch the webinar.