Audience Feature Overview

Problems solved by Audiences: One of the main issues campuses across the country are facing is students not checking email. With so many departments sending communications, student inboxes often become backlogged with emails not necessarily important to them, causing them to miss certain key pieces of information. Because segmenting emails to specific cohorts of students can be a difficult task for admins, they oftentimes have no choice but to send mass emails, perpetuating this over-communication problem.

The new Audiences feature eliminates this overuse of email by simplifying communication. Now, admins with access to the Campus Cloud will be able to segment students into different groups seamlessly without having to do the work manually. With the push of a button, admins with the appropriate authorization can send announcements to specific cohorts of students. For example, an administrator could send all final-semester students a reminder to apply for graduation before the deadline.

With Audiences, admins will also be able to track and assess how many students belonging to a specific cohort attended a certain event or service. For example, if an administrator wanted to see how many commuter students attended orientation, they could assess which students checked into the event, and then filter by Audience.

The 2 Types of Audiences

1. Dynamic Audiences

Dynamic Audiences requires little to no effort from administrators since the student information is pulled into the campus cloud via SIS integrations. With Dynamic Audiences, admins can create and add their student cohorts by selecting from a list of filters. For example, if an admin wanted to send a push notification to all first-year commuter students, they would simply select those filters and the list of students who match that criteria would be automatically generated.

1. Custom Audiences

Audiences also allows administrators to build their own “Custom Audience” by simply importing a CSV File or adding students to their list. Once your Audience is created, admins can use it to send announcements or assess students. These lists can also be easily selected at any time for future use.

Sending Announcements with Audiences

In order to send an announcement, administrators can either write a custom message to send to students, or choose a ready-made template. From there, they can either choose to send the message campus-wide (i.e. to every student), or to a specific group through the Audiences feature.

Admins can also choose what "type" of notification they are sending, such as: regular, urgent, or emergency. In case of an emergency, the notification will appear on the students' phone, and will require them to hold their finger on the message until it disappears, ensuring that it will not be accidentally dismissed.

Assess with Audiences

Another great feature that comes along with Audiences is the ability to assess which cohort of students attended which events. For example, if an administrator wanted to see how many first-year students saw a counsellor, they could segment this grouping using Audiences, and download the full report.

By segmenting students into appropriate groups and sending them content that is relevant to them, admins can eliminate the overuse and over-reliance of email as well as ensure that students are receiving all of the important information that they need in order to succeed.