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Setup Required to Manage Leads 🎥

Goals . . .

Primary Goal: Cover the setup tasks necessary to start managing leads

Secondary Goal: Explore optional/helpful Admissions features to inform your set up decisions

Roles . . .

Admissions Admin: grants access to Admissions >> Settings

Admissions: grants access to Admissions >> Leads and Admissions >> Inquiries

Staff: included with either of the above roles, grants access to Communications >> Communication Plans

What do we mean by Managing Leads?

A Lead is . . . a Person in Populi, who’s somewhere in the Admissions process.

Leads are eternal (kind of). Because you’ll want to make comparisons between your admissions processes in various years—in order to show successes, determine weaknesses—you don’t want to lose historic lead data.

Managing refers to . . .

  • Getting Leads into Populi
  • Categorizing, dividing them
  • Keeping them moving
  • Communicating (with and about Leads)

Using the Funnel Report to understand the structure of Admissions in Populi

The Funnel Report (Admissions >> Leads >> Funnel Report) helps you look closely at your admissions process so you can see strengths and weaknesses as you move prospects towards enrollment.

The Funnel Report . . .

  • Should be pointed at a relevant time frame (it defaults to the four trailing months - if you pull a report in July, it’ll choose a range starting in April and ending in July)
  • Is most useful when you compare one timeframe against another - for example: looking at your run-up to Fall 2020 in comparison to the run-up to Fall 2021
  • Shows you how many leads enter in each Status (Prospect, Inquiry, Application Started, Application Completed, Accepted, Confirmed, Enrolled), how many continue, and how many are lost - if you’re losing a lot of leads on Application Started, it may point out an issue in your application process that needs to be addressed, etc.

The term "Lost" on the Funnel Report means that these leads did not progress to another Status within the designated timeframe (did not move from Application Start to Application Completed, say), not that there's no chance that they will ever do so.

What’s Required

Deceptively straightforward . . .

1 - Have Leads

2 - Set their Statuses

However, you might get leads into Populi in three main ways . . .

1 - Via your initial data migration

2 - Mass importing leads yourself (more about this on this knowledge base article or in this video)

3 - Setting up your admissions forms (we focus on the Inquiry form in the video, but leads also originate from the Application form)

Note: It's also possible to add inquiries, manually, one at a time on Admissions >> Inquiries. This article contains more detail on that.

Setting up your Inquiry Form

1 - Go to Admissions >> Settings >> Inquiry

2 - Set form details - Will you collect addresses and intended course of study on the inquiry? - Save your changes

3 - Copy the Embed code for your inquiry

4 - Embed the code on your school’s website

5 - Visitors fill out and submit the inquiry

6 - The inquiry shows up on Admissions >> Inquiries

Additional notes about Inquiries:

  • Names on the Inquiries table that have a question mark icon next to them are not connected to profiles—click on the name and use the options on the right to associate the inquiry with an existing profile or to create a new one
  • Remember that a lead is basically a person in Populi at some point in the admissions process, whereas an inquiry is a status a lead can have—that status is usually based on that lead having submitted an inquiry

Set Lead Statuses

To set Lead statuses manually . . .

1 - From the Leads table, click on the profile’s name

2 - You’ll land on that profile >> Admissions >> Lead Info, where you can click Status

3 - Use the drop-down to change the lead’s status

4 - Save

If Leads are Eternal, how do I keep them from overwhelming the Leads table?

Because you want to keep your leads for reporting purposes, you won’t typically delete them. You’ll prevent them from dominating your current, relevant leads by setting old leads to Inactive. Then on Admissions >> Leads you’ll use the Active is Yes condition to filter out inactive leads. 

Communicate with Leads En Masse

1 - Go to Admissions >> Leads >> Summary

2 - On the right, click Actions and select Email Leads

3 - You’ll be taken to an email interface from which you can email the list of leads

Note: The resulting emails are sent as individual emails to each recipient and do not disclose the other recipients.

Communicate with the Admissions Team about Leads (one option)

1 - Go to the lead’s profile >> Activity Feed

2 - Enter a note about the lead

3 - Click Show visibility settings and check the boxes for any roles that should be able to view the note

4 - Click Add Note

Lead Statuses

The Prospect status is the most basic starting point. This is someone who hasn't submitted an inquiry, but has ended up a Lead one way or another. 

After that, Inquiry, Application Started, and Application Completed are all automatic, triggered off of someone submitting an inquiry, starting an application, and then finally clicking Submit on the application. 

When this Lead's application is set to Accepted by your staff, the status here will be updated. 

Confirmed is a fully manual status. If you have some kind of process by which you confirm that applicants will attend your school, you’ll manually set the lead to this status.

Enrolled is generally an automatic status. You have options you can control concerning when or whether they get set to this status (Admissions >> Settings >> Other Settings, Automatically mark leads enrolled and Automatically mark leads inactive). The default sets this status automatically when an active lead enrolls in a course in any term.

Probably or Optionally Required

These Knowledge Base articles will flesh out further details about things you might want to consider as you start setting up Admissions in Populi.

Application forms

Communication plans

Lead sources

Custom Fields

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