Jacksonville State University is a 4-year public institution that faced a declining number of enrollments and applicants, as well as a decline in event attendance. Lauren Findley, Director of Undergrad Admissions, Shaun Stancil, the school’s Systems Administrator, and their team used integration and well-crafted, automated texts to overcome these obstacles.
Clever integration with Cadence and Recruit
“You couldn’t create custom activities [that could be plugged into the comm plan] in Recruit, so we were stuck with what they had... we used faxes! I used the ‘fax activity’ as a trigger, so when a fax activity is created, it fires off a workflow and I used that to do what I wanted to do [with texts].” - Shaun Stancil
Shaun created a custom script that runs every 15 minutes, looking for new data and any open text message activities. The script pulls those activities down and uses the Cadence ‘Send Message’ API to actually send those messages out. The activities are then closed out immediately after.
Balancing automation with personalization
With the integration in place, Lauren builds text message templates in Cadence with the code option. The code is placed into the activity code in the CRM. When the workflow is generated through the activity code, it signals for Cadence to send the template. That allows messages to be sent in an automated fashion.
The JSU staff develops automated campaigns around student inquiries, scholarship notifications, event invitations, and other activities to save time. The team then has more time to focus on personalized exchanges that build relationships with students.
Impressive results
Jacksonville State saw significant improvement in number of applications submitted, total enrollments, and number of transfer students. The school also amassed the largest freshman class in school history - 420 students.
- 39% increase in freshman enrollment
- 10.7% increase in transfer enrollment
- 200% increase in applications submitted and processed
Based on this success, JSU is initiating a student search campaign in the Fall of 2019.
“If they tell us no, it allows us to focus on the other students, those high-quality prospects that are more likely to come to JSU."
- Lauren Findley
Want to learn more?
Download the case study, "Smart Integration Leads to Texting Success at Jacksonville State."
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