Still relying on mass sends to move your pipeline — and seeing little change?
Too often, for prospective students, their initial excitement is often muted—and their doubts amplified—by slow, generic communication. It’s the frustrating cost of transactional emails that don’t connect.
At the Film Scoring Academy of Europe (FSAE), the goal was simple: free admissions from repetitive, time-consuming admin tasks and implement an email workflow that felt personal, not mechanical.
The result was an automated nurture model that kept the human touch — achieving a 32.3% open rate and a sharp rise in booked calls.
Foundations of the Customer Journey: Building the Engine Behind the Experience
Before automation, FSAE focused on building the core infrastructure — unifying tools, teams and data into one connected architecture that could turn interest into action.
- User research: mapping the real student journey with input from students and the admissions team.
- Brand refresh: updating visuals and messaging to reflect premium value.
- Website rebuild: transforming it into a conversion-focused experience.
- Tracking setup: enabling full-funnel visibility.
- Paid Social + Google Ads: driving qualified prospects within one connected funnel.
With the groundwork complete, the next step was clear — carry that same seamless experience into admissions through automation that still felt personal.
1. The Challenge: A High-Value Promise, Stuck in a Manual System
The Academy’s admissions process was built on good intentions but constrained by manual workflows.
As enquiries grew, the team found themselves buried in emails — response times slowed, and messages began to lose the personal tone that defined the brand.
For aspiring composers that delay created distance. Their first interaction with a world-class academy felt more administrative than inspiring.
2. Engineering Empathy: The Strategy Behind Human Automation
Our starting point was simple: this isn’t about closing a sale; it’s about joining someone’s creative journey. Automation had to empower, not push. Every message needed to give aspiring composers a small, tangible glimpse of what it feels like to grow inside FSAE.
We designed the system to act less like software and more like a knowledgeable, always-available admissions guide — helpful, relevant, and human.
Strategic groundwork:
- Know your composer: we analysed past conversations, student interviews and FAQs to uncover the real motivations and hesitations behind each decision.
- Forms as dialogue starters: optimised to invite conversation rather than collect data, signalling genuine care from the first interaction.
- The CRM bridge: configured as the operational link — instantly turning form data into segmented insights that powered follow-ups and nurturing flows that felt timely and genuinely personal.
You can’t automate what you don’t understand.
3. The Solution: Designing Automation That Feels Human
With the strategy clear, we moved from planning to building. Using HubSpot’s Marketing Hub, we designed a framework for guidance at scale — automation that supports, not replaces, human connection.
- Mapping the Journey: Every interaction is a moment to win or lose trust.
We mapped the student journey and its integrations — from lead to enrolment — ensuring each touchpoint delivered the right message at the best time. - Human Emails, Automated Flow: This is where the strategy came alive.
Each note acted as a contextual guide, written to answer the one question every student has: “What’s in it for me?”
That single focus turned automation into conversation — relevant, timely, and human. - A Predictable, Focused Pipeline: Response times stabilised. Admin work dropped.
Admissions could finally focus on qualified prospects while automation handled the rest — creating a consistent, measurable flow from first click to enrolment.
4. The Outcome: Less Admin, More Engagement
This shift resolved the Scale Paradox — driving measurable gains in both efficiency and engagement.
Automation took care of repetitive work, freeing the team to focus on real conversations that built trust and moved qualified students forward.
And the results spoke for themselves:
For context, the average email CTR in 2024 was just 3.25% (GetResponse).
Bottom Line: Scale the Structure, Keep the Soul
Within FSAE’s growth ecosystem, email became the quiet driver that kept everything connected.
By turning a manual workflow into a relevant, human-centred experience, the academy achieved two outcomes that matter most:
- Higher engagement and trust — keeping the brand consistent as it scaled.
- A sharp rise in booked calls — directly supporting sustainable enrolment growth.
Stop automating for speed. Start automating for meaning.
And this is just the start. In our full case study, we reveal the complete approach — from CRM integration to human-led automation design — so you can build a predictable marketing engine that scales with purpose, precision, and empathy.
📄 Want the full breakdown? Download the complete case study here.
