Marketing in education

The way schools and colleges approach marketing has dramatically shifted in recent years, with technology and data playing a pivotal role.

Gemma Price, CEO of HubGem Marketing, has been at the forefront of driving this change, helping education providers adopt leading tools like HubSpot to turn disparate systems and siloed data into clarity.

In our latest expert interview, Gemma shares her career journey, insights into the state of education marketing and how schools can harness new and emerging technologies to improve efficiency and communication.

Introducing Gemma Price

Gemma
I am the CEO of HubGem Marketing and a digital marketing and CRM specialist with a background in working with education organisations, non-profits and start-ups.

I have always been a communicator and for as long as I can remember have loved tech. Bringing these two things together to help businesses grow is my real passion and the reason I launched HubGem.

HubGem Marketing is an accredited, multi-award-winning HubSpot partner. We specialise in implementing HubSpot for schools, colleges, universities and training providers and are proud to serve over 130 education providers globally.

How did you get into marketing and marketing tech?

Gemma
I started at Lincoln College, where I was involved in marketing. My role was a bit like a roving reporter - I went around the college gathering news stories and turning them into marketing content like films and emails. I've always been a bit of a tech nerd, so the technology behind it all excited me.

When I moved to Minster School, there was a lot of room for improvement in technology. I had the opportunity to introduce new systems, measure their impact and see what was working - that was thrilling. When I came across HubSpot, it felt like a big opportunity to take marketing to the next level.

What is the current state of marketing in the education sector?

Gemma 
It's certainly been on a journey. In the past couple of years, there's been a significant step forward, particularly in independent schools and colleges. Universities have often been ahead due to larger budgets but the focus now is on making data work for organisations.

The shift has been from just pushing out lovely content, to using data for personalising journeys, reviewing what's working, and improving. For instance, a few years ago, schools might post on Facebook and have no idea about conversions. Now, they’re using insights to target their audiences effectively and there’s a growing expectation for data-driven results.

COVID, for example, highlighted the need for always-accessible data. Schools couldn’t pause admissions just because their doors were locked, so resilient, connected and accessible data became essential.

More recently, government policies like VAT on independent school fees, increased competition and changes in the international education market have forced education providers to adapt. Marketing, once a lower priority for some, has become crucial for staying competitive.

Daniel 
That really resonates. It’s no longer about just pushing out content and hoping for the best. There are countless activities you could pursue, but it ties back to that timeless challenge: '50% of my advertising spend is wasted, I just don’t know which half.’

What areas of improvement do you see for independent schools?

Gemma 
Processes and data flow remain key areas for improvement. Capturing data at the right points in the customer journey, ensuring it's secure and connected, is essential. Many schools still rely on outdated methods like spreadsheets or PDFs, which create bottlenecks.

Mapping the customer journey - from marketing to admissions to onboarding - needs a seamless flow of data. It's things like not asking the parents for their information multiple times. We've all been there, where you've supplied your information in the way that you've been asked, and then you get to another team and they ask you again and you’re thinking: ‘I've already given you this’. It's bad. We need to keep the parent at the heart of the journey. The customer needs to be first. Teams need to align and communicate effectively to keep the customer - in this case, parents - at the centre of everything.

Daniel
Yes, absolutely. Poor data management creates barriers. How many times have we seen really good marketing communications coming out of a school and then the enrolment process is just awful, you know? To the customer, it's just an interaction with the school. So it's getting that consistency, but viewing it from the point of view of a student and their family.

How has HubSpot helped schools improve marketing and departmental silos?

Gemma 
The situation that we see a lot before we implement HubSpot is lots of discrete solutions. So one day someone in marketing has said ‘we need to send a marketing email’ so they sign up to something like MailChimp and then the next day it’s ‘oh, we need to do a social media campaign, we'll make sure that we're scheduling social’ and then admissions set up a few forms and before you know it you've got 50 different systems and it’s not clear how you would pull all that data together. 

HubSpot allows aligned teams to work on a single, connected platform. It’s easy to use, which is a big plus. For instance, marketing can track how social media efforts translate to open day sign-ups and admissions can see how long it takes for a lead to convert into an enrolment. Then integrating HubSpot with school management systems like iSAMS ensures data flows seamlessly, giving a holistic view of the customer journey.

Daniel
If your information is fragmented, when you're setting the budgets for the next year you can't answer the simple question of what worked really well, what didn't and how we're going to allocate resources to get more out of the same. Surely it makes it very hard to make an informed decision?

Gemma 
Exactly. Fragmented systems create inefficiencies and prevent schools from gaining valuable insights. Schools often resort to connecting multiple tools without considering if they’re fit for purpose, which can make change feel daunting. Having a flexible system like HubSpot allows for adaptability without the need for constant overhauls. It becomes a lot easier for the people that spend the money and make the decisions and strategic moves to run that business. They have the data they need easily. And I think that's ultimately one of the key things that pulls it all together.

I think the education sector is now realising that HubSpot is so good because it’s not education specific software. Because it's not sector specific it has a bigger development team, bigger budgets, bigger everything, but it is flexible and can be applied in education very, very well.

How has AI changed marketing in education?

Gemma 
AI is becoming a game-changer. It’s not just about analysing CRM data anymore; it’s about gaining insights from unstructured data, like emails and call transcripts. AI tools in HubSpot, for instance, can identify trends and help schools be more proactive in their strategies.

The narrative around AI has also changed. Take a typical school admissions office; you'll have your registrar and a couple of admissions assistants, people you might think are quite far removed from tech and now they're saying, ‘can AI help us here’? I think people feel a bit excited and a little bit nervous about what that's going to bring.

The institutions that have better understanding and more data will be able to make the most of this new technology. A connected system that has all of the different types of data is going to give you much more insight into the journey, insight that you can then make decisions from, and I think that's a big shift.

Daniel
That's true. But the overall budget remains the same; you can't magic up an extra 20% to do 20% more with an LLM subscription, so having it packaged into your existing software is a real advantage because then you're looking at doing more for the same, or more for less.

AI is definitely transforming the landscape. But it’s important to use it wisely - as a tool that supports creativity and decision-making, rather than replacing the need to think critically.

What challenges and opportunities lie ahead for education marketing in 2025?

Gemma
There's been lots of change, not just in the UK, but at a global level. Most of the big economies have had recent elections. There's a lot going on and I think if I was to get out my crystal ball, I would say that 2025 is where the dust settles a little bit and people have to adapt to the decisions that have now been made. I think there'll be lots of education providers looking at where they're at now and what they need to achieve. 

For example, I think web presence for schools and colleges is going to feel quite different, because it may well be that an AI bot is finding the answers and feeding them back. It's one thing doing a lovely video for your homepage that shows your facilities, but if the AI bot is not able to see the value because it doesn't have the emotional attachment to say, a beautiful cricket pitch, I think that's going to look quite different.

Daniel
Building on that, there is another element, perhaps particularly with colleges, because colleges are dealing with a lot of changes coming from central government; changes to policy, changes to apprenticeships, changes with T Levels. And those changes seem to be getting quicker and quicker and quicker.

It's no longer once in a decade we're going to change our core systems, because every two or three years there's a major change and every year there's probably a step change. So maybe it's that the pace of the sector has increased as well.

Finally, what’s next for HubGem in 2025?

Gemma
I'm always excited at the start of a year but I think 2025 feels like a really exciting one because we've made a huge, huge shift in the last year. We've been looking inwards at what we can do better for our customers, so we've been looking at our onboarding and what's included and how we can improve that further. 

We ran a big strategic project at the start of 2024 called Project Growth where we looked at all the customer feedback and we made lots of improvements and we're just really now starting to see the longer term impact of these. 

We are also looking at some other ways that we can support our customers, including introducing a subscription service to foster community and knowledge-sharing and provide tools to maximise the value of HubSpot. Our goal is to help schools and colleges not just implement HubSpot but continuously refine how they use it to stay ahead in an ever-evolving sector. We want to ensure they’re equipped with the insights and tools needed to achieve their goals.