By Jeremy Tiers, Vice President of Admissions Services
2 minute read
Last week during the session I co-led at the American Marketing Association Symposium for Higher Ed, one of the updated pieces of data I shared is that only 17.9% of students felt like the communications they received from schools during their college search felt very personal. Almost 25% actually said they weren’t personal at all.
If you’re looking to differentiate your messaging and increase both personalization and engagement, consider utilizing voice notes with different groups of students.
During a recent conversation I had with TCS President, Dan Tudor, he shared that many of our college coaching clients have been experiencing success with this growing trend – in part because it’s a medium that many from this generation are comfortable with.
A study conducted earlier this year by online language learning marketplace, Preply, concluded that Gen Z is leading the way, with a striking 84 percent utilizing voice notes. They can be recorded in your cell phone’s messaging app, as well as places like WhatsApp and Messenger.
Here are a few of the key reasons why voice notes are effective:
- They feel more personal than an email or text message because they supply tone and add a layer of emotion.
- Having a voice to focus on causes us to listen closer and be more attentive.
- Not hearing tone can sometimes cause the language you use in an email or text message to be misunderstood.
- A voice note has elements of both a phone call and a text message, but unlike a phone call where students feel like they have to be “on” and ready to respond, this allows them to take time and have control over how they formulate (and possibly edit) their response.
If you’re on board with testing out this strategy, let me give you some additional direction.
Utilize this tool mainly with your admitted and committed/deposited student populations. You also could test it out with students who have started but not finished their application, as well as those who are missing materials such as a transcript.
Your voice note needs to be short and to the point. I’d suggest you open with a direct question in your first sentence that gets the listener to focus their attention towards the action you’re hoping for – that might simply be a response.
The question you ask could be something related to the reason for your voice note, or related to the stage the student is at in their college search. You can find all kinds of effective questions I’ve shared in previous articles by going here.
Next, make sure the tone you use is relaxed and conversational. It shouldn’t sound like you’re reading off a script, nor should you sound over the top.
You also need to be mindful of your pace – don’t speak too fast. The person listening should almost feel like they’re sitting next to you in the same room.
Finally, be prepared to have some immediate back and forth dialogue with the student or students – meaning, block some open time on your schedule to respond. Some students may send you a voice note back but the early returns indicate that a text message is more popular.
Good luck!
P.S. If you’ve already been using voice notes, or if you start and are comfortable sharing your experience, I’d love to hear all about it in an email.
And if you found this article helpful, please forward it to someone else on your campus who could also benefit from reading it 🙂