Marketing
NEW
New in Admissions+:
Communications Area
A first look at the complete communications hub coming to Admissions+. Built to send, track and automate every message to families.
Tim Dixon
Co-Founder, Applicaa
Maria Fernandez
Head of Independent Schools, Customer Success
William Allen
Account Executive, Applicaa
About us
Built for independent schools. Trusted across the sector.
200+
independent schools and colleges using Admissions+
UK & Int'l
from boarding schools to international campuses
10+ years
building for independent school admissions
500K+
applications processed each year
MIS Integrations
iSAMS
SIMS
Arbor
Bromcom
Open API Integration
Schools we work with
Alleyn's School, London
Bradford Grammar School
Bristol Grammar School
The Girls' Day School Trust
25 schools across the UK
Manchester High School for Girls
Purcell School
Plus independent schools across the UK and internationally
Today's agenda
What we'll cover
01
Welcome & introduction
Who we are and what we'll cover
3 min
02
Why we built the Communications Area
The patchwork comms stack indie schools live with
5 min
03
Inbox
Centralised email for the admissions office
8 min
04
Templates
Email, SMS & notification templates
8 min
05
Campaigns
What's driving offers and enrolments
8 min
06
Automations
Trigger-based, scheduled and system sends
8 min
07
Settings & compliance
GDPR, consent, quiet hours, audit trails
5 min
08
What's next + Q&A
Roadmap and your questions
10 min
The problem
The patchwork admissions tech stack
Email Inbox
Enquiries arrive and get lost in threads
Events Tool
Open day RSVPs in a separate system
Spreadsheet
The unofficial CRM that holds everything together
Application Portal
Another login for families
MIS
Where enrolled pupils finally land
×
×
×
×
One platform. One journey. One login for every family.
Why now
Why we built the Communications Area
Indie school admissions teams talk to families dozens of times — open mornings, taster days, 11+ and 13+ assessments, offers, sibling enquiries. Most of that conversation is invisible to the rest of the team.
×The reality today
- Enquiries sent to personal inboxes, never reaching the team
- No visibility on which family received the open morning invite
- Manual tracking of taster day RSVPs in a shared spreadsheet
- Comms disconnected from the family's application record
- No central inbox — registrar covers absences from memory
- Hours on repetitive emails for assessment dates and welcome packs
✓What you get with the Communications Area
- One communications hub inside Admissions+, used by the whole office
- Every message linked to the family and pupil record automatically
- Full delivery tracking: sent, delivered, opened, clicked
- Team inbox with assignment, status and handover notes
- Reusable templates with drag-and-drop builder and mail merge
- Automations handle reminders, follow-ups and waiting-list updates
Overview
Five areas. One platform.
Everything your admissions team needs to communicate with families, all in one place.
01
Inbox
Centralised emails from prospective families
02
Templates
Email, SMS and notification templates
03
Campaigns
Organised, trackable outreach
04
Automations
Triggers and scheduled sends
05
Settings
Compliance, GDPR and audit
Each section includes a live demo from Maria.
Inbox
Your admissions office's shared inbox
Every inbound family email in one place — linked to the right pupil, assigned to the right registrar, never lost when someone's on half-term.
Search & filter
- Search by parent, pupil, subject or keywords ("taster day", "13+", "scholarship")
- Filter by status: Open, Pending, Done, Unread
- Filter by assignment to see only your own threads
- Drill into a year group, entry point or open event
Manage & respond
- Assign emails to specific admissions staff
- Link emails to the applicant, sibling, or family record
- Reply from the platform using templates and merge fields
- Full activity log with timestamps and handover notes
Templates
Build once, send perfectly every time
Email, SMS and notification templates with drag-and-drop builder, live mail merge and full delivery tracking — branded to your school.
Email templates
- Drag-and-drop builder with live preview
- School branding: crest, colours, signatures
- Basic (manual) or Enhanced (automated)
SMS templates
- Short messages with merge fields
- Assessment reminders, gate-list updates
- Quiet hours respected automatically
Mail merge with live preview
- Real family and pupil data pulled in
- See what each parent will receive
- Conditional fields (sibling discount, boarding/day)
Delivery tracking
- Sent, delivered, opened, clicked, forwarded
- Folders, favourites, follow-up scheduling
- See who engaged with your open morning email
Templates · in practice
Built around how independent schools communicate
Three examples from your admissions year.
Open Morning
"We hope to see you on Saturday"
Branded invitation merged with pupil name, year of entry and a personal note from the Head.
11+ & 13+ Entry
Assessment day instructions
Auto-personalised with arrival time, room number and what to bring — sent 48 hours before.
Sibling Discount
"As an existing family…"
Different template fires for families with siblings already in the school — including discount terms.
Campaigns
Track the impact of every campaign
See which open mornings, taster days, emails and 1-to-1 meetings are actually driving offers, acceptances and enrolments.
Activities tracked
Every touchpoint logged
Offers attributed
Linked to source activity
Acceptances
Mapped back to source
Enrolments
The full family journey
What you can track
- Open mornings, taster days, scholarship masterclasses, tours
- Emails: outreach, follow-ups, nurture sequences
- SMS: assessment reminders, confirmations
- Enquiry forms and 1-to-1 meetings
Measure real outcomes
- Offers received after each open morning
- Acceptances from each campaign
- Full attribution back to first touchpoint
- Compare year-on-year and by entry point
Automations
Let the platform do the routine work
Set up triggers, schedule messages and let the system handle predictable family comms.
Custom automations
- Team-configured using your own templates
- Enable/disable with a toggle — no developer needed
- e.g. auto-send taster day RSVP confirmation
System automations
- Default system messages built in
- Info buttons explain what each one does
- e.g. confirmation when an enquiry form is submitted
Scheduled messages
- Future-dated sends with recipient tracking
- Set it in August, send in September
- Monitor delivery status from the dashboard
Trigger types
- When a family acts (RSVPs, submits form, accepts offer)
- When staff act (issues offer, marks assessment complete)
- At a set time (7 days before open morning, offer deadline)
Settings & compliance
Built-in safeguards
GDPR, consent management and audit trails baked into every communication.
Consent & GDPR
- Marketing categories with consent toggles per family
- Automatic unsubscribe links in all emails
- STOP keyword handling for SMS
Configuration
- Default sender and reply-to per school or division
- School crest, headers and footers in templates
- Branding profiles (Senior, Prep, Nursery)
Safeguards
- Confirmation prompt before large sends
- Test email required before any bulk send
- SMS quiet hours; full audit trail
Family-level controls
- Honour parents' contact preferences per channel
- Suppress marketing for accepted families
- Audit-ready exports for DPO requests
What's next
Roadmap for the Communications Area
Here's what's launching with the Communications Area in June, and what's following on the roadmap — all designed around how independent schools actually communicate with families.
Launching June 2026
- Centralised inbox
- Email, SMS & notification templates
- Drag-and-drop email builder
- Mail merge with live preview
- Campaign tracking and attribution
- GDPR & consent management
On the roadmap
- Advanced workflow automations and AI-powered triggers
- Message sequencing workflows
- Emma — AI admissions assistant drafting family replies
- Newsletter builder with full school branding
- Two-way SMS conversations inside the inbox
Launch date confirmed once we've gathered feedback from current clients in our focus group — making sure we've covered every angle for the independent school sector.
What is next
AI is powerful.
But it is disconnected.
💬
How most schools use AI today
- Open ChatGPT
- Copy-paste context in
- Get a draft email
- Copy it somewhere else
- Repeat tomorrow from scratch
It has no memory. It knows nothing about your families.
🏫
What we are building
- AI that lives inside Admissions+
- Knows every family in your pipeline
- Drafts the right follow-up for the right family
- Runs tasks while you focus on relationships
- Nothing goes out without your approval
You direct it. It delivers. You approve.