We recently teamed up with our partners at Webster University and North Carolina A&T State University, to present on how to effectively engage parents through the full student lifecycle. With a coordinated, cross-departmental strategy, both institutions have scaled their family communication strategy and improved experiences for their prospective and current families. 

Curious how you can scale your family communication strategy across the full student lifecycle? Here are our 4 tips to effectively engage families from pre-enrollment to graduation:

TIP #1: Collect parent contact information as early as possible

Make a clear plan for collecting parent email addresses early on. And we mean before the application – the earlier, the better! Give parents the opportunity to identify themselves with a parent specific RFI form. You might be surprised how many people fill it out.

Students with engaged parents are nearly 3x more likely to convert from inquiry to applicant. So it doesn’t hurt to get the process started early.

Per Erin Rivers, Assistant Director of Enrollment Communications and Marketing at Webster University, “It’s important for us to get parents of prospective students into the conversation sooner because they have a lot of influence on decision making.”

TIP #2: Start communication with families of prospective students as early as possible

You got your parent emails – hooray! But that’s only the first step. Keep the momentum going by communicating with families as soon as you get their information.

If you’re worried about communicating with parents too much...don’t. Look at the data – 85% of families (both prospective and current) want institutions to communicate with them on a weekly basis or more. Families expect frequent communication from you.

Per Dawn Nail, Interim Associate Vice Provost for Enrollment Management at North Carolina A&T, “It’s a microwave society now. People want information really quickly.” 

TIP #3: Keep families informed during their student’s college transition

After enrollment confirmations and deposits start rolling in, don’t drop the ball. Continue to inform families during the transition period. 

One strategy is to send parents the same information that you send to students about important reminders and action items. For example, let’s take Orientation registration – try sending a reminder to students and then share a similar message with their parents a few days later. Chances are, you’ll notice a significant impact when parents and families receive the reminder. Coincidence? 

“We actually give more information to the families than to the students themselves, so that the parents can truly be our partner in educating and reminding their students about things, said Billy Ratz, Director of First-Year Experience and Family Programs at Webster University. “If there's something really important we want the students to do or see, we make sure the parents get similar reminders and information. And it works every time.”

Engaging families can help reduce summer melt. Read about the 5 topics that Cedar Crest College shared with incoming first-year families to help them support their students through the college transition.

TIP #4: Breaking silos among different campus departments can be the key to successful content collaboration

When communicating with families of current students, gathering information from different campus departments can be valuable. Capturing different perspectives in your content strategy allows families to stay informed in diverse areas. 

At the same time, it’s also important to be intentional about who manages the distribution of content. When too many people get involved in content management, it can lead to information overload and duplication of efforts. That’s when your messaging can get cloudy, which is what you want to avoid.

According to Ratz, “We’ve taken on this idea of how important families are in the recruitment cycle, but also the retention cycle at Webster. It's really become a large-scale effort that silos have come down, but information is able to pass through really two people.”

Here are a few bonus tips to help break down department silos and develop a coordinated cross-departmental strategy:

• Set expectations from the beginning

• Meet regularly with campus departments

• Stay organized through a shared communication calendar

73% of parents say content from CampusESP helps them better advise their student. By establishing a coordinated effort to deliver content from departments across campus, more families can get the information they need to better advise their students. 

Ready to launch a full lifecycle family engagement strategy?