help your admitted students fall in love

Help Your Admitted Students Fall in Love

Month: February 2025

February 13, 2025

The month of February is synonymous with love, so what better way to spend the coming weeks than leveraging your CRM to help your admitted students fall in love with your college and say “yes!” to joining you this fall.

Leverage Point 1: Personalization

With application reading complete, it’s time to gear up for admitted student events! 🎉 We all know how critical getting students on campus is to securing deposits, so you’ll want to pull out all the stops when planning your admitted student days — including in your communications! Show your students that you care (and are paying attention!) by creating hyper-personalized messages leveraging dynamic content and/or Liquid markup. By utilizing dynamic content, you can create a single mailing that displays different, personalized information for each student on everything from their major and athletic interests to their advisor and academic school.

Pro Tip: Personalization can (and should!) go beyond email. Slate portals can leverage Liquid markup, so be sure to take full advantage of this powerful tool.

Leverage Point 2: Financial Aid Packages

It can easily be argued that nothing is more important to students and their families than the financial aid package. In addition to sending packages digitally (more on that here), consider importing key financial aid information to display on student records. Doing so will allow your admission counselors to have more meaningful conversations with students and further solidify the relationships they’ve been building.

Leverage Point 3: Automate, Automate, Automate

Make life easier for yourself, your counselors, and your admitted students by taking full advantage of your CRM’s workflow automations. Whether it’s on-campus orientation, program-specific visit days, or new student arrival, set up your events to send triggered reminders and follow-up communications. Your counselors will love having one less thing on their to-do lists, and students and their families will appreciate being kept in the loop as their event approaches.

Pro Tip: Consider attaching (or linking to) a campus map with directions to the location of the event.

Leverage Point 4: Campus Camps

Do you know what’s just as important as getting current admitted students to fall in love with campus? Planting the seeds for future classes. If your campus hosts summer camps (or any camps for that matter), you have a prime opportunity to get new names into your system! Include opt-in language on registration forms or try to work an admissions presentation into the camps’ schedules. No matter how you go about it, make sure those names end up in your database and added to your nurture campaigns.

Pro Tip: As part of camp check-in, consider providing attendees with a QR code that links to your inquiry form. It’s an easy way to get those names in the system!

We’re Here to Help

At Spark451, we understand that admissions teams are spread thinner than ever and that you may need a helping hand in order to implement new tactics or approaches. That’s where our flexible SparkAssist service comes in. Whether you want to learn with us to become an expert on all things Salesforce, Slate, or Element451, or hand us a project for one-time completion, you can. No project is too big or too small, including:

  • Drip campaigns development and automation
  • Responsive HTML email templates
  • Querying and reporting
  • Database efficiencies
  • Lead generation and strategizing origin sources

If you’re interested in learning more, please reach out to us!


Spark451 Takes Home the Gold (and the Silver, and the Bronze!)

Month: February 2025

Spark451 Creative ServicesBy Spark451 Creative Services|February 11, 2025

WESTBURY, NEW YORK — Higher education marketing firm Spark451, a Jenzabar company, is excited to announce that 15 of their recent marketing projects — launched in cooperation with their valued partner institutions — have received recognition at the 12th Annual Education Digital Marketing Awards, an esteemed competition recognizing excellence in education marketing.

“Receiving these awards is so much more than an accolade to us — it’s further evidence of the critical role creativity plays in producing high-performing work,” says Irene Scala, Executive Creative Director at Spark451. “We could not be more honored to have the chance to work with partners who trust us and our team of experts so thoroughly and, as a result, allow us to put forth work that is not only inspiring, but achieving remarkable results.”

This year’s winners include:

Catawba College


Entry Win: Gold
Entry Title: Recruitment Campaign
Category: Social Media Content – Campaign

Hartwick College


Entry Win: Gold
Entry Title: Website Design Adjustment & New Market Position
Category: Institutional Website – Update/Refresh

Indiana State University


Entry Win: Gold
Entry Title: Social Media Campaign
Category: Digital Advertising

LIM College - Fashion Week Template

LIM College


Entry Win: Gold
Entry Title: Fashion Week Email Template
Category: Email: Single or Multiple Campaign

Manhattan University


Entry Win: Gold
Entry Title: Video
Category: Digital Special Video: Over 2 Minutes

Mount Saint Mary College


Entry Win: Gold
Entry Title: Branding Campaign
Category: Digital Advertising

New York University


Entry Win: Gold
Entry Title: Storytelling Summit Presentation
Category: Miscellaneous Interactive Media

Cornell University


Entry Win: Silver
Entry Title: Cornell University Industrial & Labor Relations School
Category: Digital Special Video: Under 2 Minutes

New York University


Entry Win: Silver
Entry Title: NYU College of Global Public Health YouTube Ad
Category: Social Media Content – Single

University of Minnesota Morris


Entry Win: Silver
Entry Title: Digital Media
Category: Digital Advertising

Manhattan University


Entry Win: Bronze
Entry Title: Temporary Website
Category: Admissions Website or Microsite

Virginia Military Institute


Entery Win: Bronze
Entry Title: Senior Recruitment Campaign
Category: Social Media Content – Campaign

University of Maine Presque Isle


Entry Win: Bronze
Entry Title: Digital Media
Category: Digital Advertising

If you’d like to learn how Spark451’s award-winning team can help your institution gain a competitive edge, reach out today.


Blog Card: Access our latest webinbar about graduate school decisions: What drives students to take the leap

Graduate School Decisions: What Drives Students to Take the Leap

Webinar

Month: February 2025

Spark451 Strategy TeamBy Spark451 Strategy Team|February 7, 2025

You already know graduate school is a perennially attractive option for students seeking additional credentials, career advancement, or a career change. However, evolving technological habits and other factors can reshape what prospective students expect from their graduate school experience.

In our recent webinar, Director of Client Strategy Meryl McDonough and Associate Client Strategist Jenna Shipley released the findings of Spark451’s latest Graduate School Intenders Survey, which features feedback from more than 1,000 recent college graduates.

Watch the recording to gain insights about:

  • Which factors students value most when assessing grad programs
  • Students’ communication preferences and social media habits
  • Respondents’ employment status
  • Delivery format preferences
  • And so much more!

You’ll also have the opportunity to download the full report!

Watch the Webinar and Download the report