How Learning Matters Educational Group Exceeded Enrollment Goals with HubSpot
SmartBug Media helped Learning Matters Educational Group (LMEG) streamline marketing operations and exceed enrollment goals through HubSpot implementation and targeted campaigns.
The Problem
Disjointed Marketing and Technology Limitations Threaten Growth
Marketing teams often have ambitious goals, but LMEG had a particularly steep enrollment goal to achieve within a very short period of time.
Due to charter school licensing restrictions that governed new schools and the traditional start of the school year, LMEG had less than three months to turn thousands of leads stored across multiple systems to reach their student enrollment goal.
Exacerbating the problem, LMEG had to coordinate the process across multiple sites with a geographically disbursed marketing team—and without a marketing and customer relationship management (CRM) solution tuned to the education industry.
LMEG encountered several obstacles in its marketing and enrollment efforts, including:
1. The lack of a centralized platform that would provide the marketing and enrollment functionality needed to build, track, and maintain a strong pipeline of enrollees.
2. The absence of a system to track leads and measure marketing success across the lead journey.
3. The need for an automated and scalable method to handle growth across schools within and across state lines.
4. Unique data processing and API requirements based on state laws and system requirements, such as separate personalized learning plan (PLP) systems for each state.
Drawing on her marketing background, Destiny Irons (Director of Communications at LMEG) knew that HubSpot could be the solution. However, LMEG would need to find a proven partner to not only achieve its ambitious enrollment goals but also develop a customized API to integrate its existing PLP and marketing solutions with specific requirements of its state-level student information systems.
In the education sector, technology adoption often lags behind other industries. This left us facing a huge challenge in establishing and coordinating our marketing and enrollment processes ... We were really struggling before we found HubSpot and SmartBug. Our marketing data was inconsistent to non-existent.
What we created together hasn’t been done before ... We needed a way to capture student information, create family links, and close the loop from initial interest to enrollment—all within one platform—and within a very short period of time.
Custom API Linking School Application with HubSpot
Developed a custom API, enabling ThrivePoint to capture detailed student information from its PLP system and seamlessly import it into HubSpot.
By connecting the school application system to HubSpot, ThrivePoint gained the ability to monitor and update student enrollment statuses automatically.
The Results
Exceeding Enrollment Goals Through Streamlined Marketing
Once in place, LMEG's marketing efforts and custom API yielded impressive results. Most importantly, LMEG surpassed its enrollment goal in less than three months and more than doubled its initial target by month five.
These outcomes also highlight the success of the organization’s new marketing operations, showcasing how proven marketing strategies and custom API implementation can work together with centralized processes, targeted advertising, and HubSpot's integrated tools.
Utilized lead nurturing to convert 35% of potential students into Enrolled Students
Reduced the Enrollment Team's manual outreach by more than 50% by nurturing via email before being put on the enrollment call list, allowing the Enrollment team more time to focus on students who needed their assistance.
