Introduction
Push notifications are the most commonly used engagement channel by websites from different domains like news and media publishers, e-commerce platforms, job portals, etc. The usage of push notifications has seen incremental growth in the market.
So, where does the education sector lie in user engagement?
Why not leverage push alerts for colleges and universities that have thousands of students?
Let’s understand why push notifications are essential for educational institutions and how to use them effectively.
Why should colleges and universities use push notifications?
Push notifications are an effective way to communicate with the end user. The interface is simple and reaches straight to the user’s devices; desktops and mobiles. Some of the major benefits for universities and colleges to use push notifications service are as follows.
- With a single click, students and parents can reach the landing page with important details of the announcements.
- Push notifications provide 10-15X better engagement than emails.
- Browser notifications have better views and open rates.
The other mode of communication like email and SMS poses many challenges for educational institutes. Some of them are mentioned below.
- Often, emails create a sense of overwhelming doze of content. There are various emails in the student’s inboxes, and chances are the students will ignore the crucial educational emails like any other email. In fact, according to a study, 39% of students don’t open emails from educational institutes and 72% of students feels email from an educational institute are spam.
- The SMS can be sent for a certain character count. This makes it difficult for institutes to put detailed enough information in the SMS.
The benefits of push aren’t something difficult to understand, now let’s see how to implement push notifications for educational institutes and use this mode of communication effectively.
How to use push notifications for colleges and universities
Create your target audience
The main objective of push notifications for institutes may not be conversions, but better engagement. And, better engagement comes with the right audience.
Sending exam alerts for specific course students should not be sent to everyone in the organization. Therefore, you can create segments based on the following categories.
Age, gender, class, batch, enrolled courses, etc.
You can use Truepush which allows you to send personalized push notifications while creating the segments of your preferences.
Notifying about generic announcements
Imagine a fest is about to come in the month of October and you want to inform all your students about it. Sending a push notification plays a crucial role in distributing such important news to the students.
Push notifications also serve as a uniform source of engagement. Without it, sending the alerts manually might or might not reach every student in the corner. Therefore, push alerts are a reliable source of student engagement.
Online classes announcements for colleges and universities
Online classes are on rising due to the prevailing pandemic. Alerting students about last-minute changes or reschedules can be a tougher task.
Imagine the benefit when all the class students are notified at the same time on their devices. This will further prevent unnecessary chaos among the students and colleges.
Class-specific announcements
Different activities take place in every class with different teachers. A teacher can have a more specific announcement for the specific class of students. For example, a surprise class test or the announcement of the previously conducted exams.
In such a scenario, sending push notifications ensures that the student community is informed and updated.
Announcing time crucial updates
There could be instances where any planned event gets canceled due to other reasons. During such scenarios, the gathering can be avoided with one single notification in due time.
Push notification triggers can prove to be a useful engagement channel when time is the deciding factor.
Informational alerts from colleges and universities
There are college magazines and newsletters that come from time to time. A university generates a lot of information for students. It could blog on how to prepare well, exam management, new technologies to introduce to students, etc.
Sending crucial information through push messages adds value to student management and makes them competitive enough for their future roles.
Engaging old subscribers (Alumni) for relevant updates
Engaging the existing students is not the only benefit of using push notifications. Colleges and universities can always engage their graduate students for future events and alumni meetings.
Summarizing
There are a lot of ways colleges and universities can use web push notifications to build student engagement. From alerting students of upcoming events to sending useful guides and ebooks, sending web push notifications to students, parents, and alumni make it an effective mode of communication with far greater engagement.
If you are a college or university looking for a free push notification platform, sign up to Truepush to start sending unlimited push alerts to unlimited users.
