8 Benefits of Using HubSpot for Schools

Why ought private schools to make use of HubSpot?

In this article, we will explore the top 8 compelling reasons why private schools and higher education institutions should consider utilizing HubSpot as a valuable tool for their marketing and admissions efforts. The benefits that HubSpot provides to the education sector are numerous and can greatly enhance the overall success of a school in attracting and enrolling prospective students.

HubSpot is an invaluable resource for private and independent schools as it helps drive higher-quality traffic to their website, convert that traffic into potential students, and effectively nurture those potential students into applicants. Traditional marketing strategies such as direct mail, radio, TV, and print ads have become less effective in reaching today's prospective students and their parents, who heavily rely on the internet for research. Therefore, it is crucial for schools to adapt to these changes and leverage tools like HubSpot to effectively engage with their target audience.

Now, let's delve into the top 8 reasons why schools should make use of HubSpot:

1. Boost website traffic from good-fit families: HubSpot's SEO and blogging tools enable schools to create content that answers the most frequently asked questions by prospective parents and students. By sharing this valuable content on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Linkedin, schools can increase their online visibility and attract potential families in local search triggers.

2. Generate leads from anonymous website visitors: With HubSpot's integration with Facebook Lead Ads, schools can quickly capture inquiries from parents who are interested in their mission and enroll them in an automated email campaign. The marketing automation workflows provided by HubSpot enable schools to effectively nurture these leads and move them further along the enrollment process.

3. Improve the admissions inquiry qualification process: HubSpot's progressive profiling allows schools to gather crucial data on potential students and their families over time. This simplifies the inquiry forms and significantly increases form conversion rates. Persona tools provided by HubSpot enable schools to segment their database into strong, moderate, and poor fits, allowing them to prioritize their efforts on recruiting the most desirable candidates.

4. Nurture relationships with parents and students who aren't quite ready to apply: HubSpot's automated email campaigns, lead scoring, and lifecycle stage progression help schools nurture families who are still in the early stages of their research process. This enables admissions teams to focus their efforts on inquiries who are closest to applying, while increasing the number of families who ultimately choose to apply to the school.

5. Educate potential families: Automated emails allow schools to provide crucial and compelling information about their institution. HubSpot's customization features, such as if/then branching, Smart Content, and personalization tokens, enable schools to tailor their communications to meet the specific needs of each family.

6. Increase retention: The inbound marketing strategies used to attract good-fit students and families can also be used to ensure a successful first year and beyond. HubSpot allows tasks to be assigned to admission counselors, enabling them to check in with parents and teachers and address any concerns promptly. Tracking student and parent website visits through HubSpot provides insights into families at risk of leaving, allowing schools to intervene and provide the necessary support.

7. Provide outstanding support and assistance to parents: HubSpot's optional ServiceHub allows schools to create a centralized support and ticketing system for parents. This ensures that queries are efficiently managed and promptly responded to, thereby enhancing parent satisfaction and retention.

8. Collect community feedback: HubSpot's optional ServiceHub enables schools to quickly launch surveys via email or their website. This feedback can be used to improve and optimize communication and protocols. The advanced targeting capabilities of HubSpot ensure that the survey is only seen by the intended audience, whether it be the current school community or potential families.

In conclusion, HubSpot offers a comprehensive suite of tools that can greatly benefit private schools and higher education institutions. From driving website traffic and generating leads to nurturing relationships and providing outstanding support, HubSpot empowers schools to streamline their marketing and admissions efforts at every step of the engagement process. Regardless of the size of the institution, HubSpot's starter and free tools provide a solid foundation that can be expanded upon as the school's digital marketing efforts become more sophisticated.

HubSpot helps private and independent schools attract higher-quality traffic to their website, convert that website traffic into prospective students, and nurture those prospective students into applicants.

Although many marketers use and like the platform, it's helpful to consider how much has changed in the past ten or so years in order to fully understand the benefits of inbound marketing and platforms like HubSpot.

Because prospective students and their parents now mostly rely on the Internet for their research, conventional marketing strategies like direct mail, radio, TV, and print ads are less successful.

Fortunately, tools like Hubspot and the inbound enrollment methodology can aid marketing and admissions staff in attracting and enrolling potential students in the most effective way.

8 Reasons Schools Should Use HubSpot

1. Boost website traffic from good-fit families

With the help of HubSpot's SEO and blogging tools, you can create content that answers the most frequently asked questions by prospective parents and their children about life at your school, how to deal with challenging social, emotional, and academic situations, and how to get ready for the application and admission process. (Best HubSpot Apps)

By sharing this content with potential families on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Linkedin and participating in the conversations it sparks, you can increase your presence in local search triggers.

2. Generate leads from anonymous website visitors

Using Facebook Lead Ads you can quickly capture inquiries from parents of mission-appropriate students and be able to enroll them in an automated email drip campaign with HubSpot’s marketing automation workflows.

You can quickly create fully customized, mobile-friendly landing pages using the drag-and-drop page builder to promote online open houses and on-campus admissions events.

You may ensure that every website visitor has a clear and simple way to engage with your school using the call-to-action tool, chatbots, and pop-up forms. This will help you identify many of the daily anonymous visitors to your school's website.

3. Improve the admissions inquiry qualification process

With the help of progressive profiling, you can over time gather crucial data on your potential students and their families, simplify inquiry forms, and significantly increase form conversion rates.

Persona tools enable you to divide your database into strong, moderate, and poor fits, allowing you to prioritize your efforts around those you wish to recruit.

4. Nurture relationships with parents and students who aren't quite ready to apply

With automated email campaigns, lead scoring, and lifecycle stage progression, you can allow automated programs to nurture families who are still in the earliest stages of their research process, enabling admissions teams to focus their efforts on inquiries who are closest to applying while increasing the families who ultimately choose to apply to your school.

In addition to sharing information about your school's unique importance proposition, the profile of a graduate, and compelling stories from current students, their parents, and successful alumni, each email can provide resources that answer the most frequently asked questions by families.

5. Educate potential families

Automated emails let you provide the most crucial and compelling details about your institution, as we previously mentioned. However, there are situations when parents want extremely specific information that might not be relevant to the majority. You can customize your communications to meet the particular needs of each family by using if/then branching, Smart Content, and personalization tokens.

Email templates will allow you to have pre-written scripts that Admissions staff can use to give quick, 1-1 responses to just about any inquiry that might come their way, especially for those who are closer to enrollment and need a more personalized touch.

6. Increase retention

The inbound marketing strategies enrollment marketers use to attract good-fit students and families can be also used to ensure a successful first year and beyond. 

Using HubSpot, tasks can be assigned to admission counselors to check in with parents and teachers, addressing any concerns promptly. HubSpot can also track student and parent website visits, providing insights into families at risk of leaving, such as sudden interest in financial aid, etc. 

7. Provide parents with outstanding support and assistance

You can create a centralized support and ticketing system for the parents at your school using HubSpot's optional ServiceHub. Depending on the kind and category of a query, you may use a shared support inbox to automatically create and assign tickets to members of your IT staff or to whoever is responsible for a reply.

This activity is logged on a contact record, which gives admissions access to all concerns a family expresses and enables them to quickly identify and manage retention issues.

8. Collect community feedback

You can quickly launch surveys via email or your website by using the optional ServiceHub. For example, you can ask them about the effectiveness of teacher-to-parent communication, and so on. You can improve and optimize your communications and protocols by frequently polling and surveying the current school community or the wider community of potential families.

You can make sure that the survey is only seen by the people you want using HubSpot's smart audience targeting. With this sophisticated targeting, a parent of an enrolled student will see one poll while an unknown prospective family might see another.

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If you're ready to take your school's marketing and admissions efforts to the next level, it's time to get started with HubSpot. With its comprehensive suite of tools and features, HubSpot can help you attract higher-quality traffic to your website, convert those visitors into prospective students, and nurture those prospects into applicants.

With HubSpot's SEO and blogging tools, you can create content that answers the most frequently asked questions by prospective parents and their children about life at your school, the application process, and more. By sharing this valuable content on social media platforms and participating in relevant conversations, you can increase your school's presence in local search results and attract more good-fit families to your website.

But HubSpot doesn't just help you attract traffic - it also helps you convert those visitors into leads. With tools like Facebook Lead Ads and marketing automation workflows, you can capture inquiries from parents and enroll them in automated email campaigns. You can also create customized landing pages and use call-to-actions, chatbots, and pop-up forms to engage with website visitors and identify anonymous visitors.

HubSpot also streamlines the admissions inquiry qualification process. Using progressive profiling, you can gather crucial data on potential students and their families over time. Persona tools enable you to divide your database into strong, moderate, and poor fits, allowing you to prioritize your efforts and focus on the most promising leads.

Once you've captured leads, HubSpot helps you nurture relationships with parents and students who aren't quite ready to apply. Automated email campaigns, lead scoring, and lifecycle stage progression enable you to provide valuable resources and information to families in the early stages of their research process. This allows your admissions teams to focus their efforts on those who are closest to applying, while increasing the number of families who ultimately choose to apply to your school.

HubSpot also allows you to provide outstanding support and assistance to parents. With its optional ServiceHub, you can create a centralized support and ticketing system for parents, ensuring that their queries are efficiently managed and promptly responded to. This enhances parent satisfaction and retention, and helps you identify and address any concerns or issues that may arise.

And finally, HubSpot enables you to collect community feedback. With its survey capabilities, you can quickly launch surveys via email or your website to gather insights and improve your communication and protocols. The advanced targeting capabilities of HubSpot ensure that the survey is seen by the intended audience, whether it's your current school community or potential families.

So, if you're ready to revolutionize your school's marketing and admissions efforts, it's time to get started with HubSpot. Its powerful tools and features will empower you to streamline your efforts, attract the right families to your school, and ultimately achieve your enrollment goals. Don't wait - get started with HubSpot today!

While larger schools might easily afford and justify HubSpot’s full suite of tools given the impact it will play on admissions and enrollment, smaller schools might not have the resources to implement a platform costing $800+ per month.

The starter and free tools from HubSpot can help with that. You can gradually use more of HubSpot's various tools and capabilities as your efforts become more sophisticated.

In the end, HubSpot enables you to streamline relationships with families at every step of their engagement with your school. It is the best suite of tools school marketers should consider for their digital marketing efforts.