How Nido Marketing’s Montessori CRM Transformed Hollis Montessori’s Admissions Pipeline

About Hollis Montessori

Hollis Montessori School was founded by a group of parents who were inspired by the educational methodology of Dr. Maria Montessori.

The school opened its doors in September 2008 in Hollis, New Hampshire as a non-profit, non-sectarian Montessori school. Initially offering Primary and Elementary programs, the Upper School program launched in 2011, completing the vision to offer a full arc of Montessori education from age 3 through ninth grade. 

Hollis is recognized by Association Montessori International. They are the only AMI Montessori school in New Hampshire.

Enter Nido Marketing

When Hollis Montessori learned about Nido Marketing in late 2017, they felt that it was a perfect match for their current marketing needs. They were impressed that Nido Marketing was created by Montessorians, for Montessorians, and clearly understood the unique challenges of Montessori schools. Hollis immediately benefitted from many of Nido Marketing's services, including weekly blogs and daily social posts written and curated by trained Montessori guides.

Fast forward to 2020, their attention turned to finding a way to streamline their admissions process. Hollis Montessori already had a great website, they just needed an easier way to manage their admissions process. Their current home-grown system included four different apps, including a custom database, Acuity Scheduling, Mailchimp, and Zapier to hook it all together. When Nido Marketing introduced the Montessori CRM that would replace all four of those apps, they knew they had to try it.

For Nido Marketing, the vision was clear: create a streamlined admissions pipeline that would work through automation within Hollis' website in order to make the overall admissions process easier for both prospective parents and the school.

What Exactly Is A CRM?

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Manager, and for Montessori schools, customers are the families and prospective families you serve. Nido Marketing's Montessori CRM is a cloud-based software application designed to facilitate and automate communications with parents.

So what does it actually do?

Automatically Respond to Inquiries

Nido Marketing customizes your website’s general inquiry form in the CRM and then embeds it so that it is seamlessly integrated with your website. These forms trigger automations that:

• Respond via email or text thanking the visitor for their interest and letting them know that you’ll be in touch soon.
• Organize the visitor’s contact information and any other information captured on the form for your future reference
• Tag them as a “lead” or a “prospect” - or any tag that makes sense to you!
• Automatically remind you to follow up with them by a specific date.
• Track them through your admissions pipeline

For Hollis Montessori, the fact that these automations were fully customizable was the most valuable feature! They were able to create forms that worked with their existing enrollment process in a way that functioned effectively for them. 

Schedule Tours and Send Reminders

Nowadays, it is so important for prospective parents to have the ability to schedule a tour immediately and as easily as possible directly from your school website. With the Montessori CRM, Hollis Montessori was able to define their tour schedule and allow website visitors to schedule a tour at Hollis based on their availability. The CRM automatically confirms the appointment, adds it to the school's Google calendar, and sends reminders to the prospective parent either by email or text message. It also allows them to reschedule or cancel the appointment. Automatically. 

This means no more back and forth when it comes to parents scheduling a tour. Also, by giving parents the opportunity to easily re-schedule and sending reminders, you can minimize the chances of a last-minute tour cancellation or no-show.

With the tour scheduling automation, Hollis Montessori experienced an increase in tours!

Deliver Information Directly to a Parent's Inbox

Hollis has valuable information such as tuition rates, blogs, and other helpful Montessori content, that they want to share with families from their website. In marketing, this is known as a lead generator - compelling information that requires the visitor to enter their contact information to access. By offering valuable content via a form request, Hollis delivers it directly to their inbox. In return, Hollis gains prospective parent's contact information so they can reach out to them with valuable information about their school. 

Because of the customization feature, Hollis was able to create a form for this data collection based on their individual needs!

Hollis launched a specific Email Nurture Campaign based on the contact information that they collected from each prospective parent. They were able to introduce themselves, their school, and what set their Montessori programs above other educational programs in their area.  All of these emails are personalized and sent automatically based on a schedule that they defined thanks to the CRM.

"The Nido CRM also enables us to categorize prospective families according to entry year, which allows for more than one targeted marketing campaign."
-Karen Bridgeo, Hollis Montessori

Track Students through your Admissions Pipeline

Hollis Montessori, like most Montessori schools, has several prospective families at different points within their admissions pipeline at any given time.

Some just scheduled a tour, others have submitted an application, and others are getting ready to file their enrollment forms.

Hollis is able to easily track all prospects and applications through their admissions pipeline with the Montessori CRM. At one glance, they can see at what stage all of their prospective students are so that they can stay on top of it and maximize their overall enrollment. 

In just the past few months, Hollis Montessori has processed 31 new enrollments with Nido's Montessori CRM!

"The organization and personalization of the Nido CRM make my job easier, in that all information is in one place. The user interface is intuitive and whenever I've had a question or a problem to solve, responses and assistance is immediate."
-Karen Bridgeo, Hollis Montessori

A Fully Automated School

With Nido Marketing's CRM, Hollis can focus more of their time doing hands-on work for the families they serve. They know that their admissions pipeline is organized, automated, and easy to stay on top of.

If they ever want to make a change, it is easy to customize new forms and get in touch with Nido Marketing's tech team for any additional support. 

When asked what she would encourage other Montessori schools to do, Head of Admissions at Hollis Montessori, Karen Bridgeo responded: 

"Go for it. It might be unfamiliar and a change from what you are accustomed to working with. It did not take long to learn, and the tech support is fantastic. You will wonder how you got by without using the CRM."