Boosting Alumni Engagement: Tools and Platforms That Work

You know this, but the day your students walk across the graduation stage does not mean it’s the end of your relationship with them. Your alumni are essential to your campus community—they can help recruit new students and make critical donations for campus updates.

You can’t just expect your alumni to stay connected with your campus, though. You need to find a way to keep them engaged and active off campus. Using alumni engagement tools is a smart way to keep an open communication line.

Let’s look at what an alumni engagement tool is and how it benefits your institution.

What is an Alumni Engagement Tool?

An engagement tool is software an institution can use to communicate with its alumni easily. Think of instant messaging, texts, and chatbots (both live and AI). With the addition of AI, this kind of software can act as an extra set of hands—you and your team can automate messaging, gain valuable insights about recipients’ behaviors, and respond to alumni messages using AI chat, even when you’re away from your desk.

Cadence, an alumni engagement tool, makes interacting and connecting with alumni a breeze. Let’s look at five benefits of using an alumni engagement tool.

Five Benefits of Alumni Engagement Tools

1. Streamlined and Targeted Communication 

We know that staying on top of messaging your alumni list can be a challenge. It can be even disheartening when you take a look at your engagement rates, and it’s, well, dismal. Alumni engagement platforms can change that.

Using an engagement tool, you can send targeted messages to your alumni based on their interests and activities. For example, if your campus has an important announcement relating to the business department, sending that announcement to those who have graduated from the business program might receive more engagement than sending it to your medical graduates whose interests lie elsewhere. 

Plus, an engagement platform helps streamline your communications by providing you and your team with a centralized location for sending updates and messages.

2. Strengthen Alumni Relationships

It can feel like your alumni population is the hardest to connect with simply because they’re not physically on campus. However, alumni engagement software can change that and help keep them aware of what is happening around campus. 

You can use engagement software to remind your alumni about important events. These constant reminders can prompt your alumni to return to campus to support your students in their current studies by attending and showing their support at performances and concerts or connecting with them at networking events. 

There are other ways you can use engagement platforms to strengthen the relationship between your campus and alumni, too. Your career services department can use communication software, like SMS messaging or live and AI chatbots, to help support alumni as they advance or change their careers. 

3. Better Fundraising Campaign and Interaction

Gone are the days of rounding up student volunteers to hit the phones and call alumni on Giving Day. Communication platforms make alumni and donor engagement even easier.

Fundraising is necessary for your institution’s long-term success. Incorporating a chatbot into your alumni pages or creating hyper-targeted text or WhatsApp campaigns is a great way to encourage alumni to donate.

4. Personalize the Alumni Experience 

Personalizing your messaging is the way to go if you want to improve the alumni experience and create stronger, lasting connections. Personalized messaging means you only send messages your recipients want to read because the content is tailored to their interests.

Think about it: boring, run-of-the-mill blanket messages are more likely to go to the trash bin than personalized messages with the recipient’s interest in mind. And, if you plan to send a customized message to your alumni, your best bet is to send an SMS message, especially considering SMS messages have an average open rate of 45% compared to emails, which is only about a 6% open rate.

An engagement platform helps you increase alumni engagement by segmenting your alumni into lists and analyzing their communications with your institution. Once you understand your alumni’s interests and preferences, you can take steps to refine your messaging further.

5. Gain More Alumni Support and Involvement

Your alumni want to be involved on campus post-graduation. However, they might not know of ways to get involved with your campus community. Live chat and texting are great ways to spread awareness about volunteering opportunities, networking events, or student-alumni meet and greets. 

Cadence: The Only Alumni Engagement Tool You Need on Campus

A specialized alumni engagement tool has many benefits. A communication platform like Mongoose allows you to stay in touch with your alumni and help them stay connected to your institution long after they graduate. 

If you’re ready to chat with us about how you can bring Mongoose to campus, book a demo with our team today! We’re ready to answer your questions and help you support your alumni and donor engagement efforts

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