A prospectus request is one of the clearest buying signals an admissions team receives. The prospective student or parent raised their hand and asked for information. Without a CRM tracking that request, the signal disappears into an inbox and the follow-up depends entirely on an individual staff member remembering to act.
Create a “Prospectus Requested” stage at the top of your admissions pipeline. Every request from your website form, email, or WhatsApp funnels into this stage automatically via an integration or manually by the team.
Add two custom properties to the deal or contact record: “Prospectus delivery method” (email, post, or WhatsApp) and “Prospectus sent date”. These let you filter by delivery method and measure how long follow-up takes from request to send.
Set up an automated email sequence that triggers three days after the prospectus is sent. The first message asks if they received the document. The second, a week later, offers to answer any questions about the programme. A third message, two weeks out, links to an upcoming open day or information session.
Use lead scoring or programme type to flag high-priority prospects. For students enquiring about flagship programmes or full scholarship options, create a personal call task for the admissions officer, triggered automatically when the prospectus is logged as sent.
Report on how many prospectus requests convert to applications, broken down by programme and delivery method. This tells you which channels generate serious interest versus passive browsing.
Why does prospectus tracking belong in the CRM and not in email?
Email tracks messages sent and opened. A CRM tracks what happened to the person after they opened it. The difference matters when you have a hundred prospectus requests in a month and need to know which ones converted, which ones need follow-up, and which ones came from a specific source like an education fair.
Admissions teams that rely on email alone for prospectus management tend to miss re-engagement windows. The prospect requests information in March, the admissions officer follows up once, hears nothing, then closes the thread. With a CRM, that contact stays in the pipeline and surfaces again before the next intake opens, rather than being lost entirely.
How do you handle prospectus requests that come through WhatsApp or LINE?
The key is creating a CRM record at the point of the WhatsApp or LINE conversation, not after. If your team is using a CRM integrated with messaging channels, the conversation thread is logged automatically. If not, train the team to create a contact and note the request in real time, before the conversation ends.
For schools with high WhatsApp volume, a form embedded in a WhatsApp Business auto-reply message is a practical middle step. The prospect fills in a short form. The submission creates the CRM record and triggers a task for the team to send the prospectus. It adds one step but gives you a structured record instead of a chat log.
What information should the CRM capture at the point of request?
At minimum: name, contact method, programme of interest. Add how they heard about the school as a fourth field. These let you segment by programme and source. They also give you enough to personalise the follow-up sequence without a long form. Additional useful fields include intended start date, student age or year group (for schools), and whether a sibling already attends.
Keep the capture form short. A prospectus request form with more than six fields will reduce submissions. Collect the rest through the follow-up conversation or by linking to a fuller application form once interest is confirmed.
How do you measure whether your prospectus follow-up is working?
Track three ratios over time. Request to contact: how many prospectus requests result in a two-way conversation. Contact to application: how many conversations convert to a completed application. Application to enrolment: how many applications complete the process.
If request-to-contact is low, the problem is in the follow-up speed or messaging. If contact-to-application is low, the problem is usually in the quality of the information provided or the perceived fit between the prospect’s needs and the programme. See the enrollment funnel metrics guide for a full breakdown of how to track each stage.
Can you automate the prospectus send itself?
Yes, if you are sending a digital prospectus. Set up a workflow that triggers when a contact is created with the “Prospectus Requested” stage: the workflow sends the PDF via email automatically and logs the send date as a contact property. Enrolment into the follow-up sequence triggers from there. The admissions officer receives a notification so they know the send happened but does not need to act unless the contact replies.
For printed prospectuses, the workflow can create a packing and dispatch task rather than sending an email. The task is assigned to the relevant staff member and logged against the contact record. It is marked complete when the post is sent. The same follow-up sequence runs from the dispatch date. See the HubSpot for schools guide for how to set this up in HubSpot.
Frequently asked questions
What is a realistic conversion rate from prospectus request to application?
Conversion rates vary widely by institution type and market. Rather than targeting an industry benchmark, establish your own baseline over two to three intakes and work to improve it incrementally. A structured CRM process almost always produces a measurable improvement over untracked email management.
Should prospectus requests and general enquiries be in the same pipeline?
It depends on your volume. Schools with high enquiry volume often benefit from separating them: prospectus requests show stronger intent and warrant faster follow-up than a general “tell me more” enquiry. If your volume is low, a single pipeline with a distinct stage for prospectus requests is simpler to manage.
How long should the follow-up sequence run?
A three-to-four message sequence over three to four weeks covers the typical decision window for most programmes. After that, move the contact to a longer-term nurture list segmented by intended intake date. Prospects who request a prospectus in March for a September start do not need weekly messages, but should hear from you again in June when registration opens.
What if the prospect requests the prospectus but never opens the email?
Use a different channel for the follow-up. If the original prospectus went by email and there is no open after 48 hours, trigger a WhatsApp message asking if they received it. Most education prospects have higher WhatsApp open rates than email, and a short personal message often restarts a conversation that the email did not.
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