7) Don’t forget about the parents
A lot of the time when we’re discussing how to use texting for events we’re talking about how we should text students. But what about parents? For Sam Houston State, recognising that there was a need for parents to be looped into these communications was crucial.
Courtney says, “We’d get a ton of phone calls from parents saying, my child has signed up for this, I don’t have any information about it. We would have to walk them through all the communications we’d sent, but the parent has never seen any of the information.”
“We realised we needed to start directly connecting with parents, guardians, family members – the people invested in this college search process. We added a field to our event forms to capture parent data, which ask if there’s a parent/guardian who would like information and updates. It’s been a lifesaver. Parents love having that information and not being dependent on their students. They tell us all the time, they love it.”