Emergencies can occur quickly in schools from an excursion bus breakdown, a sports cancellation due to your hot-weather policy or a school-wide emergency. But with so many devices and platforms now available – how do you reach all your parents fast and reliably?
In an emergency, there’s no time to waste
With no time to waste, what do you use? Phone, email, social media? Imagine having to call every person individually or sending an email during an emergency. By the time the information reaches everyone it’s outdated.
Social media is ineffective
With 94% of people using social media from home and it reaching only 2% of your followers (organic reach), social media is not the answer. Besides – do you really want the world to know about your school emergency?
Messaging – but which App?
Rather than wasting precious time, a messaging service allows you to send up-to-date information and alerts. This process can be only a few clicks, or an integrated system can create messages via a smartphone app.
While some rely on a school app for emergency notification there is little certainty your message will get read. Let’s be clear, school apps are a valuable resource and where parents choose to find information, links and news articles. The average reaction rate for push notifications is 7.8% compared to SMS messages which have a 98% open rate within 3 minutes. Push notification reaction rates show users prefer to use apps during their own time rather than react to alerts.
What about email?
Data shows email open rates are only 20% and have an average response time of 90 minutes. Exceptions are your anticipated camp permission form which may have a good completion rate, but emails still don’t have the immediacy required.
SMS – the only reliable choice
The data is clear, the most effective message medium is SMS when you have an important or time-sensitive message.
Complete school communication
Emergency notifications are important, but unified communication across all devices and platforms is also needed.
OutReach+ enables you to communicate to your community with a preconfigured emergency template across all mediums. Text, email, landline, in-app and even social media can all be alerted with the same message at the same time. A message can even be sent via any smartphone giving control to the Principal or other leaders during an emergency.
How do you know who’s engaging with your communication?
With community analytics and delivery reports, you know who is using your app and who receives every message. OutReach+ and School Star can also send automated attendance messages to reduce your text costs with an auto switchover to SMS.
“It is so much easier when the messages go out by themselves and the ability to reply to parents instantly through the messaging system provides much better communication. I sent out our first message this morning to parents for students to collect their t-shirts they ordered. It was very successful.”
– Riverside High School, Administrator
Reach your community with certainty and scale
MGM offers a system that can be operated any smartphone giving control to the Principal or other leaders during an emergency.
Using re-configured templates mean sending an emergency message is quick and easy reducing stress during a crisis situation.
