Cognita Schools Brazil has an enrollment conversion rate above 51% with ActiveCampaign’s CRM

Overview

Operating in Brazil since 2012 and spanning across 17 countries globally, Cognita Schools is a consortium of primary education institutions that has its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The operation in Brazil is part of the LATAM network, encompassing 6 schools located across various states nationwide, stretching from the northern state of Amazonas to the southern Paraná.

The operating model of Cognita Schools in Brazil involves acquiring existing schools, most of which were previously family-run. As a result, each school operates independently, tailoring its approach to its specific needs and historical circumstances. This means that lead generation activities were also different for each location.

With Marcus Barroso assuming the role of Marketing and Admissions Manager in October 2022, and given the ambitious targets for both new student admissions and retention of existing students, the need to standardize and streamline lead generation became increasingly apparent.  And that’s how ActiveCampaign became the official CRM for Cognita Schools Brazil in May 2023.

A Fruitful Collaboration: Cognita Schools Brazil and ActiveCampaign

Marcus settled on ActiveCampaign’s CRM after exploring other options. According to him, “We opted for ActiveCampaign’s CRM because the company provided plans and pricing that were more cost-effective. In other words, more features at a more affordable price point.”

The Cognita Schools Brazil operation requires a high level of customization right from the start of the customer journey. To set up the CRM and develop highly customized forms aligned with Cognita’s needs, the team turned to Leandro Delamare, CEO of ICube Consultoria, an ActiveCampaign partner. 

In under a year of using the platform, Cognita Schools successfully standardized and streamlined lead capture across all six schools within the Brazilian group. As a result, they managed to increase their market share, which indicates growth in their student base for the year 2024, both in terms of attracting new students and the overall number of students within the group.

Marcus emphasizes that “During the 2024 enrollment cycle, the first in which Cognita utilized ActiveCampaign processes, we experienced growth in new enrollments that exceeded the market average, compared to the same period in the previous cycle.”

Thus, the team expects healthy growth in 2025, building upon a stronger and more structured student base.

Highly Customized Forms

Cognita Schools Brazil would not have been able to grow and evolve with basic lead capture forms. Marcus insists, “Basic forms could not accommodate the level of intricacy required by our operation. The ActiveCampaign platform effortlessly enabled us to achieve the high level of customization that we have today.  ActiveCampaign’s CRM, coupled with Leandro’s support in developing and implementing all the required form customizations, made all the difference for Cognita.”

Today, over 100 forms have been created for various use cases in each school, including enrollment forms, school visit forms, scholarship exam forms, and event forms, among others. 

Leandro Delamare highlights that the forms are tailored to each school grade, addition to morning, afternoon, semi-full-time and full-time periods. According to Leandro, “Establishing a template was labor-intensive, yet an immensely rewarding experience. Once we managed to strategically structure these templates within ActiveCampaign’s CRM, we were able to streamline the enrollment process across all schools.” 

With the forms in place, Cognita has seen the number of leads increase. Marcus reports, “Since introducing ActiveCampaign forms, there has been a considerable increase in the number of leads compared to the previous year.”

Learn more about ActiveCampaign forms.

Custom Fields as a Distinguishing Feature

Another crucial aspect of the forms utilized by Cognita is the incorporation of custom fields with validation stages. This means that every requested piece of information must adhere to a specific pattern according to the field. For instance, the CPF (Brazilian Tax Identification Number) must be a valid number. It is not possible to add “000.000.000-00”. As a result, the majority of leads received are from individuals genuinely interested in enrolling in the school. 

Furthermore, the way the user fills out the form directs them to another pipeline. For instance, one of the schools offers additional activities. When the form is completed and the activities have been chosen, the student will be automatically enrolled in the corresponding pipeline for each selected activity as part of the onboarding process. 

For Marcus, “This level of customization developed by Leandro within the ActiveCampaign platform enables the team to monitor the student’s journey, as well as the activation of pipelines based on the selections made in the form. This is crucial for our continuous improvement process. Ultimately, we will be able to replicate successful strategies across other schools.”

Mapping Out the Entire Journey

The intelligent use of forms, along with other CRM features, allows Cognita Schools Brazil to map out the entire customer journey, starting with the form for registering interest, which collects many relevant details for lead classification.

In the past year, the focus was on increasing lead generation to facilitate the subsequent increase in conversion rates. Despite standardizing the enrollment process, the path to conversion may vary depending on each school. Consequently, Cognita provides various options (and forms) to ensure that the experience for both families and individual students is tailored to their respective needs.

In summary, the customer journey at Cognita Schools Brazil consists of 4 main stages:

1. Lead: Completion of the enrollment interest form
2. Qualification: Lead nurturing through WhatsApp automation or email marketing campaigns
3. School Visit: Various types of visits are offered according to the peculiarities of each school
4. Conversion: Completion of enrollment

In the past year, Marcus reports, “By structuring the journey in the ActiveCampaign CRM, we were also able to observe an increase in the visit-to-enrollment conversion rate, which exceeded 51% in 2023.” 

Next Steps

In less than a year of using the ActiveCampaign platform, we can already see significant improvements in Cognita Schools Brazil’s operations.

Marcus emphasizes that the company is ready to move forward in the partnership, with a focus on the following steps:

• Managing leads more effectively, with the support of artificial intelligence.
• Capturing highly qualified leads, using custom fields capable of filtering said leads
• Continuous cleansing of the database to maintain hot leads in the nurturing process
• Further improvement of communication via WhatsApp 
• Expanding the standardization of processes to other LATAM countries, such as Chile, Mexico, and Colombia

Did you enjoy learning about the story of Cognita Schools Brazil? How about trying out a free ActiveCampaign trial to discover how your business could be optimized? We’d love to help your company grow too!