Mark, a seasoned Marketing Communications Specialist was ecstatic about his new job at a premium higher education institute in San Francisco. On his first day of job, he arrived a bit early and was more than impressed with the towering building and the magnificent infrastructure. Groups of students gaily chatting away, lush green lawns and bookworms reading under the shade of high reaching pine trees made Mark nostalgic.

Mark’s first day at College

But what fascinated Mark was this new breed of students, a kind that was non-existent in his college days. These were students, who were completely engrossed in their mobile phones and were tapping at a speed that would give the best typewriters a run for their money. Such students appeared to be the most common sight in the campus.

Observing college students

He entered the quadrangle and breezed past the hallowed classrooms.

Suddenly, he heard some voices in the distance. They seemed to come from the admin office. He went closer to find out. As he peered from the window, he saw some students surrounding the stern looking admin officer. The students were putting forth their complaints all at once and the gentleman was trying to pacify them.

Students putting forth their issues

The distant clock tower struck ten. Mark suddenly remembered that he had a meeting with his new team. He quickly rushed to find the conference room.

The clock strikes 10

Once there, he was greeted by a young and dynamic looking group of Marketing Specialists. The admin officer was also there. After the pleasantries were exchanged, Rob, the head of department, started his address. “We have all gathered to discuss some urgent issues that have come up. Mark, I will bring you up to speed on this.”

Meeting the new team

“Almost a year ago, our team was looking for ways to meaningfully engage the millennial students in order to reduce the Student drop- out rate. Besides the multiple channels that we were already using to communicate with our students, we introduced texting, one of the most cost-efficient communication approaches. We were amongst the first few educational institutes to have leveraged on mobile technology.”

Texting for student engagement

Benefits of using texting

On one hand, we were able to reach out to a huge database quickly, on the other hand, the students were quite appreciative of the college’s modernized approach to communication.

The admin officer, Tim, who had been at the direct receiving end of student’s complaints pointed “Students feel that we are sending them texts that are not relevant to them for e.g. The simple way to send fee payment reminder is to send a message to all the students and append the message with the statement that ‘Please ignore if already paid’. Those who have paid fees already are finding such texts annoying.”

Challenges in implementing the texting strategy

Everyone seemed to have ignored Mark’s point earlier. Mark recounted the student complaints that he had overheard while walking for this meeting. He said “What if we had not missed sending the free soccer ticket related texts to the sports enthusiast? We would have given him a memory of a lifetime and fetched his loyalty for the college! I feel what we are going though are some initial challenges in optimally and strategically using texting to get the most out of it.

The team was silent. Looked like Mark had nailed the hammer at just the right place.

Addressing challenges head-on

When the admin officer, Tim, asked some pointed questions, Mark was quick in his retort “How are we sending these texts to students?” Tim replied “Through the data in the CRM.” Mark said “What if our CRM is so intelligent and robust that it gives us all the information about student’s interests, hobbies, fee payments etc. We will of course have to systematically collect these important pieces of information over a period of time if we intend to send the right text to the right audience. Tim looked anything but convinced. He scoffed “Mark I appreciate your enthusiasm on your first day at work. However, what you are saying is easier said than done.”

Facing flak from team members

By now Mark had understood that he would have to lay out a detailed plan to convince this committee that their ‘One Size Fit all’ approach to texting would not work. He requested for some time to come up with a detailed plan to find concrete solutions to their challenges. Rob’s and Tim’s expressions conveyed that they had the least amount of optimism in Mark’s approach. However, Rob wanted to give Mark a fair chance. Therefore, he gave Mark a week’s time. Mark could see the scepticism in his colleague’s eyes. Will Mark be able to come up with a solution that impresses all. Let’s read his eBook to find out.

Chalking out a concrete solution