Education

Your next student is choosing a course at 23:47.

Colleges and independent schools, on HubSpot and WhatsApp. One record for every applicant. Reminders they read, on WhatsApp as well as email. Answers when your team has gone home.

Book a callChat on WhatsApp
A young woman at a table late at night, reading her phone beside an open laptop

+160%same-day applications at Oaklands College's October 2025 open days

Results

Three schools and colleges. Real numbers.

From admissions to ticketed events to open mornings.

  • 63,454WhatsApp messages sent for Oaklands College by 8 October 2026
  • 453Oaklands offer holders email could not reach, reached on WhatsApp
  • 253ticket purchases tracked to Capel Manor's spring 2026 Meta campaign
  • 80%+rise in open morning attendance at Brockhurst and Marlston House

Oaklands College: Flowella reporting to 8 October 2026, and enrolment invitations, July 2026. Capel Manor College: campaign review, July 2026. Brockhurst and Marlston House Schools: Discover Digital blog, 23 June 2026.

How it fits together

From first click to first day.

Enquiries arrive late at night, from a phone. From then on, every message is triggered by the applicant's record, and every reply goes back on it.

  1. Find

    First contact

    • Google and Meta ads by course
    • Open event pages in HubSpot
    • QR codes at open days
    • Enquiry and booking forms

  2. Record

    HubSpot

    • One record per applicant
    • Student records, synced hourly
    • Course choices and interviews
    • 100+ live workflows
    • One applicant inbox

  3. Reach

    Email and WhatsApp

    • Open day reminders
    • Interview dates
    • Offers and enrolment
    • Student and parent, separately
    • Future You careers quiz

  4. Measure

    Results

    • Read rates by channel
    • Applications by event
    • Enrolment no-shows followed up

Based on our work with Oaklands College, 2024 to 2026. WhatsApp runs through Flowella, our sister company.

On WhatsApp

What an applicant sees.

Reminders go out from HubSpot workflows, in the app applicants already read.

  • Booked on a HubSpot page, reminded on WhatsApp
  • Student and parent messaged separately
  • Every reply on the applicant's record
  • Opt-outs honoured automatically
Admissions teamBusiness account

  1. Hi Sam, your open day place is booked: Saturday, 10am, main campus. Would you like a parent to get these reminders too?18:02

    Yes, add a parentNo thanks

  2. Yes, add a parent18:04

  3. Done. They will get the same reminders. Reply here any time with a question.18:04

  4. See you at 10am, Sam. Scan the QR code at reception for our careers quiz.08:30

    Get directions
An example conversation, written for this page.

The work

Pages that fill open days.

Each open event gets its own HubSpot page with booking built in, so the college can see which campaigns bring people through the door.

Oaklands College November 2024 open days page, with a booking card for each campus
Open days at Oaklands College: two campuses, one page, a booking button each.
Oaklands College NextGen Engineers skills and apprenticeships summit page, with the date and campus
A skills and apprenticeships summit, with the date and campus up front.
Oaklands College Lambing Weekend 2025 page, with a calendar of time slots to book
Lambing Weekend 2025: a community event, booked by time slot.

WhatsApp against email

Same applicants. Five times the reads.

At Oaklands College, open day reminders, interview dates and offers go out on WhatsApp as well as email.

  • WhatsApp messages read83.7%
  • Emails read or opened15%

5xmore messages read on WhatsApp than email, by the same applicants

August 2025 to August 2026. Oaklands College case study (2026) and Flowella reporting.

Services

What we build for admissions teams.

  • One applicant record

    Student records in HubSpot every hour, with course choices and interviews as data, so a reminder can quote the interview date.

    CRM integration on Azure

  • WhatsApp beside email

    Open day, interview, offer and enrolment reminders to the student and a parent. Every reply lands on the record.

    WhatsApp Automation

  • AI that answers after hours

    A Breeze Customer Agent trained on your website answers routine questions, and hands over to a person when it is unsure.

    AI for HubSpot

  • Paid media by course and event

    Google and Meta campaigns by subject and by event, judged on applications in HubSpot, not on clicks.

    Paid media

“We've been working with Discover Digital since October 2024, and they have been an invaluable partner in helping Oaklands College enhance our student recruitment/engagement and marketing effectiveness.”

Peter HudsonDirector of Admissions, Brand & Customer Innovation, Oaklands College. Review on HubSpot's Solutions Directory, November 2025.

All three reviews on HubSpot's Solutions Directory

Case studies

Education work.

Questions from colleges and schools.

Can HubSpot connect to our student records system?

Yes. For Oaklands College we built an integration on Microsoft Azure that brings the full applicant list from ProSolution into HubSpot every hour. Records are matched on the student ID, so a changed email address does not create a duplicate. See CRM integration.

Will students opt in to WhatsApp?

They opt in themselves, for example by scanning a QR code at an open event. In the Oaklands College case study, 81% of students said they preferred WhatsApp to email, and the college’s annual review recorded a WhatsApp opt-out rate of 2.2%. Read what 63,000 messages taught one college.

Can we message parents as well as students?

Yes. Students and parents are held and messaged separately in HubSpot, so each gets the reminders that matter to them.

Do you work with schools as well as colleges?

Yes. Alongside further education colleges we work with independent schools, on open morning booking, admissions campaigns and WhatsApp.

Can we buy through G-Cloud?

Yes. Our HubSpot services and Flowella are both listed on G-Cloud 15: see the HubSpot listing and the Flowella listing on the Digital Marketplace.

How much does it cost?

HubSpot support starts at £496 a month for 4 hours, and project work is £992 a day, plus VAT. See pricing for the details.

Next step

See where your applicants drop out.

Our admissions marketing audit for colleges follows your applicants from the first ad to enrolment day: the open event, the enquiry, the interview and the offer. Then we show you where they drop out, and what to fix first.

For an independent school, ask about our admissions audit for independent schools.

Ask about an admissions audit

Reach applicants where they read.

Tell us how applicants find you and where they drop out. We will show you what HubSpot and WhatsApp could change before your next intake.

HubSpot support from £496 a month, plus VAT. See pricing

Chat on WhatsApp

Book a call