Staying in touch with alumni after graduation can provide tremendous, lifelong support to many post-secondary institutions. Alumni contributions are often a large reason why schools can invest in more resources for current students. A lot of benefits can be lost by not properly staying in touch with your alumni.
Donations are not the only benefit of communicating with alumni. There are many other ways that alumni can provide support to the school, such as volunteering at sporting events, mentoring current or prospective students, and just generally endorsing the school to their peers. All these benefits show exactly why it is essential to maintain proper personalized communication with alumni after graduation.
Many universities and colleges manually reach out to alumni to gauge their interest in donating or staying connected with the institution. At schools with many alumni to communicate with, you can easily see how difficult this process could become. Instead of completing this task manually, an automated solution should be implemented. An automated solution consists of communicating with many alumni at once, while also maintaining the personalization aspect that everyone wants. Implementing an automated alumni communication process is not difficult, but you still may be wondering why it is necessary for your educational institution.
In this blog, we will go over three of the reasons why an automated solution should be used for personalized alumni communications.
1. Increased engagement
The main goal of personalized alumni communication is to simply get former students involved. Once they show interest in staying connected with the school, then you can look for specific things such as donations or volunteers. Personalized alumni communication is the first step to engaging your former students and an automated solution can help get this done while also staying as efficient as possible. Engagement will also be increased as each message will be automatically personalized, which helps grab the reader’s eye.
It is also important to be careful with the wording of the messages being sent. Most alumni have spent at least two or three years investing in your school, so you never want them to feel disrespected. If alumni see that their alma mater is invested in seeing them succeed, they will be more inclined to stay in touch.
2. Simplified alumni database
Another reason to use an automated solution is that you are able to keep all contact information in one spot. Once alumni fill out a form they are sent, each person will have their own profile created in the alumni database. Having all your information in one organized database is much more efficient than using a cluttered spreadsheet or document. Instead of searching for alumni contact information, employees will be able to search a profile and instantly have everything they need.
Once alumni indicate that they are engaged, they can be added to a separate contact list within the database. This contact list will receive automated emails about things like volunteer opportunities, school events, or donations. There is no need to be worried about configuring the database, as the contact lists are all made automatically based off alumni’s form submissions.
3. Reduce manual tasks
One of the most prominent benefits of an automated system is reducing a bunch of manual tasks and ensuring they can now be done without human intervention. With an automated alumni communication solution, messages will be sent automatically, so employees will not need to worry about manually contacting each person separately. Each message will be customized with merge tags, so you won’t lose that personalization aspect either.
When you implement an automated alumni communication solution, many of the manual tasks associated with the process are eliminated. This will provide employees with more time to work on other tasks.
Interested in an automated personalized alumni communication solution?
If you are looking for the most efficient way to communicate with alumni, SimplyCast has you covered. Here at SimplyCast, we have built a solution that can be used by any educational institute that wants to increase efficiency in their personalized alumni communication efforts. The solution is easy to implement and can be used by any school, no matter the size.
Click the button below to request a demo from our team to see how our personalized alumni communication solution works.
