The UK agency that will raise your applications is one that connects your marketing to your student records, reaches applicants on the channel they actually read, and can show admissions results from a named college. Discover Digital, a HubSpot Platinum Solutions Partner in Theale, Reading, has worked with Oaklands College in Hertfordshire since 2024. Oaklands College's WhatsApp careers quiz, Flowella: Future You, won Gold for Innovation and Creativity at the College Marketing Network Awards 2026, and the college credited Discover Digital as a partner. Here is what to look for, and the figures behind our answer.
Where colleges lose applicants
Attracting interest is only half the job. Colleges lose people between the first enquiry and enrolment day: an email that is never opened, an interview reminder that goes to an old address, an open event booking that never becomes an application. Often the applicant's details sit in several places, so nobody can see the whole journey. Before Oaklands moved to HubSpot, applicant information lived in five places: the student record system, an email tool, an events tool, spreadsheets and a shared inbox.
What the right agency does
- Builds one record. Your CRM should hold every applicant, course choice and interview, fed from your student record system. At Oaklands, 3,500 applicants, 13,800 course choices and 6,400 interviews from the 2025/26 cycle sit in HubSpot as structured data, updated every hour from ProSolution.
- Reaches applicants where they read. 81% of Oaklands students say they prefer WhatsApp to email. Reminders, interview dates and enrolment invitations go to WhatsApp, with consent recorded and opt-outs honoured.
- Turns open events into applications. QR codes, on-the-day reminders and a reason to act before people leave.
- Runs paid media against applications, not clicks. Every campaign judged on what it adds to your applicant numbers.
- Automates the whole journey. Oaklands now runs more than 100 live workflows, from the first welcome to enrolment week.
The results at Oaklands College
- 63,454 WhatsApp messages sent from HubSpot workflows by 8 October 2026, 18,674 of them in August 2026 around results day.
- 83.7% of WhatsApp messages read, against 15% of emails, from August 2025 to August 2026. Same applicants, five times the reads. Only 2.2% opted out.
- 453 of 532 offer holders that email could not reach were reached on WhatsApp with their enrolment invitations in July 2026.
- +160% same-day applications at the October 2025 open days, 257 more than at the previous event. That came from paid media, WhatsApp reminders and Future You working together, not from one channel.
"One standout success has been their use of HubSpot's WhatsApp feature, which has transformed the way we connect with prospective and current students."
Peter Hudson, Director of Admissions, Brand & Customer Innovation, Oaklands College. Review on HubSpot's Solutions Directory, November 2025
Oaklands College's award, and why it mattered
Future You is a careers quiz inside WhatsApp, promoted by QR code at the October 2025 open days. Students answer quick questions, are matched against subject areas and see an image of themselves in a suggested career. Oaklands College won Gold for Innovation and Creativity at the College Marketing Network Awards 2026 for Future You, and credited Discover Digital as a partner (FE News). The idea came from a member of the college's own staff. Our part was to make it work on WhatsApp and put every answer into HubSpot, so the conversation could carry on after the open day.
Questions to ask an agency
- Which colleges have you worked with, and can you show their admissions figures with dates?
- Can you connect our CRM to our student record system, and how often will it update?
- How will applicants consent to WhatsApp, and how are opt-outs handled?
- How will you prove which campaigns produced applications?
- What happens between offer and enrolment, when applicants are most likely to drift away?
- How will our admissions team use it day to day, and who trains them?
Meet us at the CMN Conference 2027
We will be exhibiting with Flowella at the College Marketing Network Conference 2027 on Monday 1 February 2027, at Eastside Rooms in Birmingham, and Oaklands College is among the colleges hosting workshops. If you work in further education marketing, come and see how WhatsApp journeys run with HubSpot, or book a time with us before the day.
Start with an audit
Our college admissions audit looks at your applicant journey from first enquiry to enrolment and gives you a ranked list of what to fix first. You can also read more about our work with colleges and schools, or book a call.
