HubSpot for Higher Education

The global pandemic has accelerated a trend that’s been happening for many years in higher education.

More schools are closing their doors each year because they can’t meet enrollment numbers. At the same time, colleges and universities are spending over $85 billion on software technology tools…they need this technology working better for them in order to overcome the outreach and enrollment challenges they’re facing.

Today’s prospective students engage with content at a rate that most schools can’t keep up with. That’s why HubSpot built a CRM and marketing platform totally different than others on the market.

Most institutions still operate under two outdated realities:

1. A linear prospective student journey
2. A highly-siloed handoff between marketing teams and enrollment managers

But the reality is that your prospective student experience is anything but linear, right?

They might hit the website and browse content — but not submit an inquiry form. Enrollment management might reach out to them— but the timing might not be right for them to start their application. They might even start their application — but still need more education to reinforce their initial decision to apply and be confident they want to attend your school.

HubSpot’s been around since 2006. They wrote the book on inbound marketing and identified the core elements that help successful institutions stay ahead of the curve and attract quality students:

• Content to reach prospects where they are at in their search journey
• Automation to streamline the process
• Reporting/insights to understand what’s working and what isn’t 
• And of course, an underlying layer of data to capture all of this and connect top-funnel efforts down to actual enrolled students

There are dozens of software tools built to manage applications and the admissions process, but there is a growing problem that’s really common across institutions of all sizes.

The problem is application-based CRMs aren’t powerful enough to provide schools with all core elements of enrollment marketing.

And while admissions teams may have enough to get by and process applications, marketing teams are left in the dark and don’t really know which content and messaging is leading to qualified applicants and enrolled students.

This leads to a cobbled together stack of tools used separately by institutional marketing and admissions departments, all with the goal of communicating with prospective students.

The result is poorly integrated communications, brand confusion, redundant messaging, and frustrating experiences for prospective students.

FACT: The vast majority of schools can’t connect top-funnel marketing efforts to actual enrolled students. This leads to wasted investment in major marketing efforts that are only held accountable to vanity metrics rather than bottom-funnel ROI.

HubSpot took all of the critical elements of customer experience management — Content, Messaging, Automation, Reporting and Data — and crafted them into one unified code base … with a single student’s experience at the center of it all.

HubSpot offers institutions enhanced content marketing and prospect engagement capabilities…along with more robust reporting and data insights throughout the entire prospective student journey.

Higher education Institutions that use HubSpot are able to bridge major gaps between departments, particularly when outdated systems are lacking and severely limiting teams.

We know every institution already has some sort of basic CRM. But HubSpot was built to be a smarter CRM platform, that can more easily be customized to a school’s unique needs.

Every use case is unique. Some institutions need help with multiple elements of customer experience, whereas others others pick and choose where they need most help. And as you can see, HubSpot’s product suite is set up with those core elements in mind – each constructed with a different mix.

My job is to help narrow down which HubSpot tools you’re a fit for.

Many schools start with Marketing Hub to take their entire enrollment marketing program to the next level. 

By empowering their admissions and mar-com departments with Marketing Hub schools are able to align awareness-stage content and marketing initiatives with high-converting prospect engagement tactics that build their inquiry pools with qualified prospective students.

Marketing Hub also helps schools identify what marketing efforts are ACTUALLY producing the applicants and enrolled students they need, and make smarter decisions to eliminate wasted spend on underperforming marketing efforts and/or vendors that are getting by on vanity metrics.

Marketing Hub is typically utilized by…

• Enrollment management teams (undergrad, grad, and continuing education)
• Marketing/Communications teams
• Advancement/Alumni Relations teams

And Marketing Hub can be scaled up or down depending on the size of your school, department, or college…or whether your operating with a centralized or decentralized admissions process.

Many schools add Sales Hub when they need better tools for their enrollment management teams to identify and engage with high-interest prospective students. 

By using Sales Hub tools such as live chat, email sequences, and custom admissions pipelines for each school/program, enrollment teams are better able to focus their time on the prospects who are demonstrating high interest behaviors (tracked across a variety of touchpoints). 

Sales Hub enables schools to execute highly personalized, 1:1 communications with prospects, inquiries, and applicants all the way up to the point of enrollment.

Many schools add Sales Hub when they need better tools for their enrollment management teams to identify and engage with high-interest prospective students. 

By using Sales Hub tools such as live chat, email sequences, and custom admissions pipelines for each school/program, enrollment teams are better able to focus their time on the prospects who are demonstrating high interest behaviors (tracked across a variety of touchpoints). 

Sales Hub enables schools to execute highly personalized, 1:1 communications with prospects, inquiries, and applicants all the way up to the point of enrollment.

Sales Hub is typically utilized by…

• Enrollment management teams (undergrad, grad, and continuing education) engaging with inquiries and applicants to help them through to completing their applications and/or finally enrolling.
• Advancement/Alumni Relations teams engaging with alumni and donors.

Many schools add Sales Hub when they need better tools for their enrollment management teams to identify and engage with high-interest prospective students. 

HubSpot’s CMS Hub is for schools that want to make it extremely easy for each school or department to manage and update their part of the institution’s website.

CMS Hub replaces outdated and clunky website management platforms and helps schools build and manage modern websites that are optimized for SEO. 

By using Sales Hub tools such as live chat, email sequences, and custom admissions pipelines for each school/program, enrollment teams are better able to focus their time on the prospects who are demonstrating high interest behaviors (tracked across a variety of touchpoints). 

Sales Hub enables schools to execute highly personalized, 1:1 communications with prospects, inquiries, and applicants all the way up to the point of enrollment.

HubSpot’s CMS Hub is for schools that want to make it extremely easy for each school or department to manage and update their part of the institution’s website.

CMS Hub replaces outdated and clunky website management platforms and helps schools build and manage modern websites that are optimized for SEO. 

IT and Marketing departments are able to oversee and manage the CMS at the highest level, and easily enable departments to update content and control user permissions…all while maintaining the school’s brand integrity.

In other words: no more rogue sub-websites built by schools or program directors that don’t align with your institution’s brand and messaging standards.

And keep in mind that HubSpot is able to integrate with other platforms, so it can sync up with your SIS (Student Information System) and/or application system.

Educational Institutions Using HubSpot

Cornell University’s admissions team needed more inquiries for its MPA program, but didn’t have the conversion opportunities to capture them. The marketing team didn’t have enough content to attract new leads, and organic search rankings were at an all-time low.

By implementing HubSpot and launching a variety of thought leadership content geared towards specific target audiences, Cornell was able to rank for critical keywords and attract quality prospects. 

Beyond attraction at the top of the funnel, Cornell was able to nurture interested prospects through event marketing and content marketing using more sophisticated email workflows, which ultimately led to a massive increase in inquiries, applicants, and enrolled students.

University of San Diego’s School of Leadership and Education Sciences was unsatisfied with the results from a few different vendors who were running digital advertising campaigns for them. 

They relied on a few major events to drive their applicant pool, but RSVPs and attendance were at an all-time low.

They made the decision to purchase HubSpot’s Marketing Hub and Sales Hub platforms and involved both their marketing and admissions teams, which enabled them to achieve their best-ever student recruitment at events and ultimately led to exceeding their enrollment goals.

USD’s School of Leadership and Education Sciences was able to achieve their best-ever event registration and attendance while also spending less on paid advertising than before they had HubSpot. 

By publishing content through HubSpot and implementing smarter email nurturing, USD’s was able to…

• Quadruple traffic coming in from organic search
• Rank for more keywords that are relevant to their programs
• Drive top-funnel prospects to engage with more content with pathways that led to more completed applications
• Move budget from vendors and marketing initiatives that were underperforming and re-allocate toward content and tactics that generated better ROI

Three years ago, Kent State University had a great-looking website that didn’t generate enough inquiries to fill the 300 degree programs spread across 11 different colleges.

They were also highly limited by outdated technology that made it very difficult for their marketing and admissions departments to publish engaging content targeting dozens of different prospective student audiences. 

By implementing HubSpot they were able to quickly produce a wide variety of content resources, blog articles, and landing pages that directly generated a 10X larger inquiry pool.