Add Wings to School Referral Programs

Schools are well conversant with channels to promote referral programs. These typically include:

• Mention in monthly newsletters & magazines
• Promotional Signage in School events
• Advertising on fee collection portals. 

The promotional platforms are self explanatory and Schools generally have an agency to help them in marketing endeavors. They shape well crafted narrative and offers to entice the parents and larger communities soliciting participation. 

School referral programs has been around for long, adopted or at the very least experimented by many Schools to increase admissions. Besides, works as wonder pill for Schools struggling to attract right-fit parents given the framework of referral programs. That builds the chain of influence from existing network, thus reaching similar parents and communities. The trust & credibility of referrals brings higher conversions than any other marketing outreach tactic.

The primary goal of a School referral program is to increase student enrolments by tapping into the positive experiences and satisfaction levels of existing parents and communities. In quest to accomplish the primary goal, Schools often end-up benefitting with brand building endeavors through fostering positive community engagements and uplifting retention goals. 

It's not just the School that stands to gain with referral program, but parents and communities do get fair share of the benefits pie. The program framework is built as win-win proposition with parents and communities being rewarded in form of incentives.

 
There is no-set formulae to structure the incentive program, but varies based on Schools target personas. However, broadly these could be structures around following doll-outs:

• Tuition Discounts: School fee might be one of the biggest expense incurred by parents in their monthly bills. Researchers have shown parents tends to stretch purse strings when selecting Schools for their children. And, waiver in School fee can translate into big motivation for parents' to participate in referral programs.
• Shopping Discounts: This is another popular incentive dolled-out by many Schools to incentivize parents. In this model, School allots credits to parents that translates into shopping discount coupons for yearly book and uniform purchases or directly shop for products on Schools own shopping micro-site like School sports gear, mouse etc.
• Cash Rewards: Generally this model is adopted to reward students or parents who no longer directly connected to School. Henceforth, giving them cash rewards is another popular choice adopted by few Schools.
• Tiered Incentives: This specifically designed for students and communities who tend to bulk refer new admits and therefore incentive programs should be designed using clip levels rewarding bulk refers accordingly. 

Designing referral programs and crating offers are no longer the end-of-road to shaping successful referral programs. Up-till, recently while Schools have adopted or experimented with referrals programs, but lagged behind in leveraging technology to garner true potential of this initiative.

 
The lag in adoption of referral management system has costed dearly to schools that they've never even realized. The adoption of technology can help Schools digitize and organize programs better to grow participation multi-fold.

Here's where Schools need help to modernize their technology stack to unlock true potential of any referral program. We, at SkoolReady offer the apt technology solution to help you scale the participation number from parents and grow admissions multi-fold.

SkoolReady's easy-to-use, management system helps School digitize, organize and grow referral programs. Here's how it works:

• Publish referral programs online
• Invite participation from parents and School communities via e-mail & WhatsApp campaigns
• Enable referrer to generate unique codes/links to share within network
• Track referral based enrollment status and credit win points
• Set-up referral reward e-commerce shopping site
• Track reward credit points balance and redeemed history.

SkoolReady referral management modules help you manage multiple referral programs, track redeems across multiple platforms, set-up exclusive shopping sites and engage communities.

Don’t miss the opportunity to make the most of your relationships with happy and engaged families. After all, genuine parent referrals can be the most powerful enrollment tool you have.