Breaking News: FAFSA made the 2024 admissions cycle one of the most challenging yet. Just kidding — we’ve all been weathering this same storm and its nonstop headlines since before New Year’s Day. We spent the spring wishing we’d had more warning, more control, faster systems, and clearer information to provide families. Promises have been made for smoother seas next year, but if we learned anything from the ’24 yield season, it’s to expect the unexpected and try to handle what we can, the best we can.
That said, there is something we can take back control over, and that’s communicating financial aid offers. Though launching the actual FAFSA form and having the IT infrastructure to package offers are out of the hands of most enrollment officers, there is one thing we can do to continuously get students and their families an aid offer faster: send it digitally first.
Sending financial aid offers to the inbox in addition to the mailbox is:
1: FASTER
Imagine pressing send on an email campaign the day all packages have been tested, reviewed, merged, and approved. No more waiting to get the first call to the financial aid office to know they’ve started arriving in mailboxes. Sending digitally gets aid offers to students weeks faster than mailing.
2: INFORMATIVE
Sending digitally gives you analytics that mail never could. At any given moment, you can know exactly who has downloaded their aid package and who has yet to take this important step.
3: ACTIONABLE
Tailor your admissions and financial aid representatives’ time using segmentation. Based on where you are in the cycle, your goals related to the financial aid offer probably shift. Early on, you might consider personal outreach to those who have yet to download their aid package, in hopes of making sure they know what is available. As the deadline nears, it may be better to focus on those who have already downloaded their package, or those who have accessed it multiple times, as they are likely still considering enrolling at your school.
4: ACCESSIBLE
As those same staff are reaching out, they have complete access to the same material the student received. Conversations are significantly easier when your staff can reference certain pages, lines, etc., when discussing details of an offer. No more referencing charts in SIS systems and hoping to translate them correctly.
Some schools have even chosen to send only digital offers, which can save thousands of dollars in print and postage costs. However, in a world where high school families are inundated with digital outreach, they are showing an increased affinity for mailed information. In fact, Spark451 hosts an annual college-bound survey for high school seniors and parents who just recently concluded their search process, and the results are clear: they want tangible materials now. While there may have been a moment where mail seemed antiquated, printed financial aid offers are likely here to stay.
You’re already creating an aid package for every student, so why not get it to them faster while simultaneously enabling your admissions team to have better, more informative, and actionable conversations with students? Why not send it digitally first?
If you’re interested in learning about Spark451’s personalized aid offers that leverage variable data, please reach out to us! Financial aid has always been a lynchpin of yield season, and while it may feel like yield just ended, it’s never too early to start planning for the next one — especially if you hope to have something new and ready to make a splash in the market. Spark451 is here to support you in making sure your team is set up for success.
