Schools’ Web Portal: How HEM-SP can impact your student enrolments

This special feature is sponsored by HEM.

Increasing student enrolment numbers is a crucial goal for many schools, and finding the right tools can make this goal much more achievable. In addition to running ongoing marketing initiatives, schools need to be proactive when interacting with prospects. A robust school web portal makes these interactions more positive while improving your team’s productivity and workflow. 

When used to its full potential, a student portal can even delight prospects and contribute to your student enrolment efforts. Advanced and customisable features in HEM’s proprietary Student Portal, HEM-SP, allow schools to elevate their admissions management and deliver the ultimate digital booking experience for students. 

Here’s how your school can use this tool to boost student enrolment numbers. 

Want to digitalise and optimise your application process? Book a free demo today!

Digitise and streamline your school’s application process with HEM-SP

In today’s digital world, prospects have high expectations. They often seek to engage with high-quality content, experience a high level of service, or receive high-value resources. The same applies to the education sector, particularly when completing a student application form. 
 
Schools that use offline methods with outdated workflows are at a big disadvantage. Those who have digitised their application process can maintain a competitive edge by following industry best practices. It’s no longer enough to digitise the process simply. Schools are now expected to deliver a simple, engaging, and transparent booking experience, making submitting an online application form quick and painless.  A school’s web portal plays a key role here. 

HEM-SP makes this possible by allowing schools to digitise and customise every aspect of the application process—from account creation to document collection and payment integrations. Prospective students, parents, or agents can easily create secure accounts and save their applications. This makes it easy for schools to manage their application process while giving some prospects access to multiple applications simultaneously. Prospects can quickly fill out forms, upload supporting documents, and complete their payment online. 

Example: Instead of relying on email attachments, prospects can simply drag and drop essential documents when completing their online application: 

Enabling prospects to complete all of these actions makes it easier for them to complete and submit an application at your school. By speeding up the process and eliminating offline processes, prospects can engage more easily with your school and are more likely to commit to their enrolment.

Centralise your school’s admissions management

Understanding what is a student portal is a big first step when using it to boost your enrolment. This platform serves as a gateway that provides prospects and students with everything they need to manage their applications and education. Providing prospects with access to their account on your student portal makes it easy for them to keep track of their program of interest and application while also allowing you to centralise your school’s management. 

HEM-SP is an all-in-one admissions management and student information system that helps your admissions team, academic faculty, and support staff manage their operations in one centralised platform. Supporting various payment integrations, like Stripe and PayPal, and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, like Mautic CRM and HubSpot, can be upgraded and used as a more significant part of your admissions management and communication efforts. 

Below is how these integrations appear on HEM-SP, giving schools the flexibility to choose what better suits their needs:

These features are designed to streamline your school’s student recruitment process and support your students in a critical stage of their enrolment journey. Making it easier for your team to boost its productivity and personally take over tasks that genuinely matter when nurturing prospects into students makes HEM-SP a powerful tool in your student enrolment efforts. 

Boost enrolments with customised digital applications for students

What are the benefits of student portals? Simply put, one of the most significant benefits is the ability for schools to configure their settings and customise critical features.  A robust student portal allows schools to apply their branding and tracking codes, create unique accounts and tailored roles, and customise application forms, fields, and actions. 

Using HEM-SP, you can build perfect applications that seamlessly guide prospects towards the end of their enrolment journey. The forms can be customised to reflect the necessary information you need to collect—featuring anything from accommodation booking to campus selection. These applications can be easily designed to include everything relevant to your school, making it a hassle-free process for your admissions team to build and a smooth experience for prospects to fill out. 

Example: The HEM-SP application builder includes over 20 unique field types and can be customised depending on each school’s needs. The easy-to-use interface makes this a painless process: 

HEM’s school’s web portal applications can also be stepped and saved to create a more user-friendly experience for prospects. By delighting prospects in the final stages of their enrolment journey, you can create more positive interactions that lead to better student recruitment results. 

Create positive student experiences with a school’s web portal 

Applying the right enrolment strategies for schools is essential for future success, and your digital tools are significant contributors. You’ll want to use a student portal that effectively nurtures your leads toward application and enrolment, creating positive experiences that propel your prospects further down the admissions funnel.  

To help with those efforts, HEM-SP offers a quote builder and a Virtual Admissions Assistant (VAA) tool within its platform. The quote builder allows students to calculate the total price of their booking with your school, including accommodations, program costs, and other additions. They can use different currencies with the quote builder and get automatic price adjustments—preventing them from needing to make their calculations or getting in touch with your team for accurate insights.

Similarly, the VAA tool gives students an added sense of agency on the platform. They can use it to explore campuses, courses, start dates, and financial options at your school. Here’s how the VAA can provide prospects with crucial program information and start dates:

With the help of the VAA tool, prospects can more easily go through the admissions process and get relevant answers to some of their pressing questions. This can help them complete their application more confidently:

Conclusion: Improving your admissions team’s efforts

Investing in a school's web portal can be an effective way for your school to keep track of its applications and measure its success. Through the portal’s reporting and tracking features, your school’s team can quickly and easily monitor complete and incomplete applications, payments from incoming students, attendance, and other key records. 

This provides an ongoing view of your school’s progress in various areas, giving you the insight you need to improve your efforts. Taking active steps to track your progress, monitor your enrolments, and optimise your efforts can help you get more students. With the right tools and a strong student portal, you can begin improving your admissions team’s efforts and paving the way toward a prosperous future for your school. 

Interested in trying a demo of HEM-SP? Click here and fill out the form to discover!