Nexa Cognition Blog

RevOps Engineering for Education: Boost Admissions & Efficiency with HubSpot CRM

Written by Lucy Hardy | May 21, 2025 1:12:45 PM

In an increasingly competitive landscape, education providers face rising pressure to attract, engage, and retain students. Yet for many institutions, growth feels like a constant uphill battle. Teams operate in silos. Reporting lacks clarity. CRMs are misused or bloated. And digital marketing agencies often overpromise and underdeliver.

Sound familiar?

At NC, we believe there's a smarter way forward. It's called RevOps Engineering — a strategic approach designed to help education institutions streamline their operations, enhance the student journey, and drive consistent, scalable growth.

At the core of this approach is HubSpot CRM, your single source of truth.

 

What Is RevOps Engineering?

Revenue Operations (RevOps) aligns marketing, admissions, student support, and operations under one unified strategy, one system, and one set of metrics. It removes friction and ensures every team is working towards the same goals using the same data.

RevOps Engineering is our unique implementation of this principle. It brings greater precision, process, and performance to education organisations that are serious about growth.

It's not just about better tools — it's about building smarter systems.

 

Why the Education Sector Needs a New Approach

According to McKinsey, education institutions that embrace digital transformation see up to 20% improvement in operational efficiency and 30% faster lead-to-admission conversion rates.

But here’s the catch: technology alone doesn’t deliver outcomes. Disconnected teams, manual processes, and unclear reporting still hold many institutions back.

RevOps Engineering solves this by:

  • Creating shared visibility across departments
  • Automating manual workflows and communications
  • Delivering real-time, accurate reporting
  • Building personalised journeys for prospective and current students

 

Why HubSpot CRM Is the Ideal Foundation

Any RevOps strategy needs a reliable central nervous system — and for us, that’s HubSpot CRM.

Here’s why:

  • All-in-one ecosystem: marketing, admissions, student service, and ops in one place
  • Customisable dashboards: real-time reporting your teams can actually use
  • Automation-ready: sequences and workflows reduce admin across student lifecycle
  • User-friendly: easy adoption by staff and faculty
  • Integrations: links easily with education platforms (e.g. Moodle, Zoom, student portals)

With HubSpot at the core, your institution can operate with complete clarity.

 

The RevOps Engineering Blueprint

Our model follows three iterative, high-impact stages:

1. Systemise: Build the Foundation

We begin by aligning people, processes, platforms, and data into one unified structure.

Key activities:

  • Map lifecycle stages: enquiry → applicant → enrolled → alumni
  • Configure pipelines for admissions and engagement
  • Clean and import student data
  • Standardise fields across departments
  • Set user roles and permissions

Outcome: one CRM, one language, one shared view of every student.

 

2. Optimise: Refine for Performance

Once the system is in place, we identify bottlenecks and enhance efficiency.

Key activities:

  • Track funnel conversion rates across campaigns and outreach
  • Automate nurture journeys, admissions handoffs, and follow-ups
  • Use attribution reporting to calculate ROI on open days and digital spend
  • Surface trends and underperformance in real time

Outcome: fewer manual tasks, faster conversion, more accurate forecasting.

 

3. Accelerate: Scale with AI and Automation

With a strong foundation, we unlock growth by layering automation and AI.

Key activities:

  • Deploy AI-generated email sequences tailored to student behaviour
  • Predict which leads are most likely to convert
  • Build smart chatbots to handle FAQs and drive applications
  • Automate reminders, renewals, and event invites

Outcome: a smarter, self-optimising engine that helps your team do more with less.

The Challenges Education Institutions Face with Agencies

Many education providers have been burned by digital or CRM agencies that:

  • Focus on activity, not outcomes
  • Offer generic marketing tactics with no understanding of the education journey
  • Leave institutions with expensive systems they don’t use properly

At NC, we're different.

  • We are transparent, strategic, and results-focused
  • We don’t sell tactics, we build systems that deliver outcomes
  • We architect every solution around your goals and HubSpot as your single source of truth

We don’t just help you "do HubSpot". We help you build an education engine.

 

What Makes This Different?

Most agencies activate features. We engineer outcomes.

  • We don't optimise ads in isolation. We optimise the full funnel: from first enquiry to enrolment and beyond.
  • We don't build dashboards no one uses. We build reports your leadership trusts.
  • We don’t push software. We engineer adoption, alignment, and acceleration.

Our clients often come to us after they've tried the typical routes. They stay because we deliver what others don't: scalable, sustainable results.

 

Real Results, Real Impact

From institutions we’ve worked with:

  • +3x CRM adoption across departments
  • -40% reduction in time from enquiry to enrolment
  • +50% improvement in campaign attribution and ROI clarity
  • Up to 90% forecast accuracy on student intake
  • 10+ hours saved per staff member per week on admin

These aren’t one-off wins. They’re the outcome of strong systems.

 

Is RevOps Engineering Right for You?

This model is a great fit for:

  • Universities, colleges, and training providers struggling with disconnected tech
  • Institutions wanting to scale outreach or admissions but hitting internal bottlenecks
  • Leadership teams that need clearer reporting and accountability
  • Education marketers overwhelmed with tools but underwhelmed by results

If you're unsure whether your team is making the most of HubSpot or still using spreadsheets to track leads, it's time to talk.

 

Book Your Free RevOps Blueprint Workshop

We offer a free session to help you:

  • Audit your current CRM, outreach, and student journey
  • Map out where opportunities are being lost
  • Visualise a smarter, more connected approach
  • Receive a RevOps Engineering blueprint tailored to your organisation

Book Your Free Workshop

 

Final Thought

The education sector is changing. Learners expect more. Teams are stretched. Results matter.

The institutions that will thrive in this environment won’t be those with more tools — they’ll be those with better systems.

RevOps Engineering puts HubSpot at the centre of a smarter, faster, more accountable growth engine.

If you’re ready to turn your CRM into your most valuable asset, we’re ready to help.

Let’s engineer your outcomes.