SMS Opt-in Use Cases For Schools: Everything You Need To Know

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In this article, we examine SMS opt-in use cases for schools and why they need them.

For years, school communication systems have revolved around emails, direct mail, and phone calls. However, text messaging has quickly caught up and is shifting how schools communicate with key stakeholders: the board, trustees, admin, parents, and students.

Why has text messaging become so popular? Two concepts: instant communication and easy accessibility. A text message can instantly reach thousands of contacts in one go. Also, since people read texts within the first five seconds of receiving them, you are more likely to receive a response (texts get a 45% response rate while emails lag at 8%)- what a relief from constant follow-ups!

The power of text messages for schools is thus evident.

There are two ways in which schools can leverage text communication. The first is to send personal 1-on-1 text messages to each stakeholder individually. The second is to implement a text messaging service that could easily reach hundreds of people with the push of a button. The latter has been gaining popularity within schools over the years to save time and effort for mass communication.

This article focuses on the latter aspect and explores two text messaging features schools can use to improve their communications: SMS opt-in and mass texting. Let’s learn more.

Mass texts and SMS opt-in use cases for schools

SMS opt-in and mass text messaging work simultaneously but diverge at the data collection point. While SMS opt-in allows you to collect data, mass texting is an information outlet. Let’s explore both.

SMS opt-in

SMS opt-in allows schools to collect phone numbers, email addresses, and more through text messaging. More importantly, this is a sure-shot way of collecting consent from parents and students for your school to text them and populate your list organically.

If your school’s text messaging campaign aims to elicit responses from the receivers (parents, students, or admin) or collect data, then SMS opt-in should be your go-to feature.

Setting up an SMS opt-in system is easy. You can create a free account with CallHub and rent a keyword of your choice when someone texts you that keyword on your rented long code or short code number, they have opted into your SMS subscription. And you’ve begun!

When running more extensive communication programs, such as sending text messages to all parents or the entire student body, you could get a dedicated 10DLC number and choose unlimited keywords for different use cases.

Here’s what it can do for you:

It allows you to set up automated follow-ups for each text message. Once a parent or student opts into your SMS list, you can send automated follow-up messages to glean more information, such as email addresses and location.
It lets you personalize your outreach. Once you have collected the first name of your intended recipient, you can set merge tags accordingly, and the system will automatically add the name corresponding to a mobile number from the following message onwards. Thus, hundreds of messages can go with optimum personalization without manual effort.
Sends nudges to remind recipients to respond to your message and thus increases the response rate.
CallHub’s SMS opt-in tool allows you to direct the data collected from the SMS campaign to your CRM. We integrate with Blackbaud, Databank, Salesforce, and hundreds of other CRMs. Moreover, you can even use Zapier to integrate with us if your CRM is not already on our list.
This allows users to unsubscribe from the SMS list, thereby maintaining clean lists. Recipients can text trigger words like END, STOP, CANCEL, and UNSUBSCRIBE to opt-out from your list. It is especially useful for parents to allow their children to unsubscribe after they have graduated from school.

As a school, your communication varies depending on the people you reach out to, the message you want to convey, and the occasion (events, result announcements, emergencies, etc.). It would be best to assign different keywords for different use cases, such as automatically sorting out contacts in your lists. Create new contact lists for each use case (or class), and you have an automatically segmented list ready to receive text communications!

We’ll discuss the different use cases for text communications in the section below.

Mass texting

Mass texting allows a school to send a scheduled, personalized message to an extensive list of recipients in one go. Scheduling a mass text is easy and saves you time and effort- no logging in on weekends to send texts to an entire class individually!

Here are some benefits of mass texting:

It helps your outreach tremendously. 98% of text messages are opened and read– far more than one can claim for emails or calls.
Maintains connections with your audience by regularly sending out a mass text message campaign.
Saves time by scheduling texts and saves money by using our pay-as-you-go model.

Now that we know more about these two features, let’s explore how you can use them in your outreach methods.

How schools can leverage text messaging for communication

A sound school communication system allows for better synchronization between the school and parents, eventually impacting a student’s academic success. Let’s explore different ways in which text communication can help your school.

1. New parent sign-ups

The admission season is upon you, and there are so many new students and their parents to capture as leads and nurture! An easy way to gather information about parents and get them onto your school communication system is by making them opt-in to your SMS pipeline.

Get parents to text JOIN to your registered mobile number and direct their responses to your CRM system – and you’re done! Hassle-free data collection.

2. Admissions: SMS opt-in use cases for schools

Parents are always on the quest to find the best for their children. It could be the best products to use or the best school in the locality for them to attend. They do this by looking through your website, searching for you on social media, and reading reviews on Google.

Your school can gain an advantage over competitors by allowing parents to opt-in to your school’s text messaging service. You can ask parents to send a keyword, such as FAQ, INFORMATION, etc., to your school’s registered phone number, and your admissions department can take the conversation forward.

This way, you also build a list of verified phone numbers for future use.

3. Permission slips: SMS opt-in use cases for schools

Every year, the school outing is the most exciting and entertaining. As fun as it is, it is a coordination nightmare. Kids eventually forget to get their parents to sign the permission slips. Teachers do not know how to get everyone to return their permission slips on time before the travel logistics are finalized. The travel coordinator is left wondering how many kids to accommodate and how.

SMS opt-in can make this process so much easier for all parties involved. Parents can text TRIP to the school’s registered number, and you can acquire their permission and other details via autoresponders. Furthermore, one autoresponse can send the link to pay for the trip.

Inform them that more details on the trip will be sent to them soon. CallHub allows you to create a new contact list with an SMS opt-in campaign. Since you have this contact list ready, you can send mass texts to all parents informing them of details or notifications at a later point.

4. Attendance information: SMS opt-in use cases for schools

Knowing their child regularly attends school is essential for parents. An absentee student can be a problem for teachers, parents, and other students. You can set up an automatic SMS alert system to inform parents about their child’s absence.

You can allow parents to monitor their child’s attendance record weekly/monthly by asking them to opt-in for attendance notifications. They could simply text ATTENDANCE to receive regular attendance updates.

It eliminates the need for teachers to actively monitor student attendance and shifts the onus onto parents to ensure that their child is regularly attending school.

5. Notification to parents: SMS opt-in use cases for schools

School notifications for parents can range from an off day to information about changes in the fee structure. You could inform them about any safety drills scheduled in the school, phone lines not working, or system outages. Mass texting allows you to send scheduled and unplanned notifications in minimum time.

6. Fee balances and updates: SMS opt-in use cases for schools

Different schools offer different payment methods – yearly, half-yearly, or quarterly fee payments are the standardized ways to divide fee payments. Regularly following up with parents or sending home fee slips with a student may be time-consuming for your admin staff and ineffective in ensuring timely fee payments. Alternatively, parents might also want reminders and information about the fee structure and balance payment.

Setting up text alerts for fee payments or a keyword such as FEES eliminates additional administrative tasks and notifies parents about upcoming payments in advance.

7. Lunch money balance and updates: SMS opt-in use cases for schools

It is unfortunate when a child runs out of lunch money and realizes it at lunchtime at school. Use SMS to inform parents about lunch money balances and set up nudges to remind them about payment dues.

8. Results: SMS opt-in use cases for schools

Coordination on the result announcement day is a serious affair. Getting all parents to turn up and collect their wards’ results, ensuring parents receive report cards handed over to students, and many more concerns surface around this announcement.

A paper-free, hassle-free experience to declare results through text messaging is possible. Ask parents to text RESULTS to your registered phone number, and et voila, the school can send personalized report cards for each student.

9. Events: SMS opt-in use cases for schools

Do you have the yearly talent show coming up? Is prom around the corner? How do you inform students and parents about it and ensure everyone has received the notification?

Yes, set up an automated text message campaign full of details, including the date, time, place, and dress code. What’s more, parents and students could RSVP through text – your event attendee list is sorted!

10. Assignment updates: SMS opt-in use cases for schools

Set an assignment deadline that now needs to be pushed? Does the assignment need additional resources that students need to go through?

Assignment updates, reminders, important project deadline notifications, test information—all can be sent to students at the click of a button. This saves teachers from answering the same type of questions time and again individually through email.

11. Emergency information: SMS opt-in use cases for schools

The most important use of a text messaging system is during emergencies. Whether sending out a bad weather alert or informing parents about a safety threat, a quick SMS blast is the most accessible and reliable form of communication.

You can even share safety tips and other helpful information to ensure everyone is on the same page and doing their best. Get parents and students to opt-in for such alerts at the start of the academic year. Keywords such as ALERT or NOTICE can help you curate contact lists of those interested in receiving urgent notifications.

12. Hotline for questions from parents and students: SMS opt-in use cases for schools

School office administrators have several things to look out for – ensuring fee processing and coordinating events – it’s all a part of their job. However, answering phone calls from parents and students throughout the workday can hamper productivity, especially if the information required could have been shared via text. This is when text messaging can help them.

Setting up an FAQ system for parents and students and regularly updating the information according to upcoming events in the academic year will ensure they receive immediate updates. Shifting from calls to mass texts can provide the admin staff’s output is directed to other important, manual tasks.

13. Bullying/mental health hotline: SMS opt-in use cases for schools

As much as a school is an environment of learning and growth, it can also become a space for bullying. Apart from that, during volatile years of a student’s life, they might also need mental health support depending on their life circumstances.

When no one is immediately available to assist a student in distress, an automated system that can aid them within seconds can be a lifesaver – literally. Set up a system that can send instructions to students about coping techniques, emergency helplines, and more through SMS. Make keywords such as HELP, AID, etc., well-known around the school so that it becomes easy for students to access them.

14. Alumni relations: SMS opt-in use cases for schools

School alumni networks have gained even more popularity since including tech in this space. From helping out their alma mater to donating to the school to helping out students from the same school, there’s a lot that the alumni association can do for their school.

Maintaining and nurturing relationships with this segment becomes more manageable when a school cuts through the clutter of emails and reaches their phone directly. Nurture alumni relationships by updating them about school events, hosting alumni events, asking them to RSVP, etc.

15. Feedback system

Feedback systems are essential reminders that there is always room to grow and improve. You can collect feedback from students and parents on different topics. They are:

Input on new teaching hires.
Feedback on infrastructure, health, and hygiene.
Opinions on new school policies.
Polls before introducing new rules and regulations, changing fee structure, etc.

Engaging with SMS makes it easy to collect feedback on all these aspects of school functioning and improve school performance. Guess who is winning the best school in the district award? Yes, you!

Setting up an SMS opt-in service: SMS opt-in use cases for schools

Setting up an SMS opt-in service with CallHub is as easy as it gets! You can get started in a few simple steps. Have a look:

Create a free account: Head to CallHub’s website and sign up.
Choose a keyword that you would like to use.
Market the keyword through word-of-mouth, social media, your website, forms, etc. Once your intended audience uses the keyword to text you, they have automatically opted into your SMS subscription, and you can contact them in the future.
If you plan to run a more extensive, regular SMS campaign, subscribe to any of CallHub’s plans. Once that’s done, you can choose unlimited keywords to serve different purposes.
Set up auto-replies to avoid having to message manually. Auto replies will take care of the conversation for you.
Create follow-up prompts for expected replies to your auto-responses. An opt-in keyword will trigger auto-response A. “A” will prompt your contact to send in reply “B,” which triggers auto-response “C,” and so on until you get all the required information in this first conversation or the contact has taken the desired action.

And that’s it! You’ve successfully set up a text messaging service for your school!

Let’s begin. Log onto www.callhub.io and start today.

Feature Image Credit: Solen Feyissa