Digital for education centres: from the first enquiry to the course renewal.
The parent looks for a course on Instagram, the teenager on Google. Both want to see the schedule and the price and book a trial lesson right now. We build a system where no enquiry gets lost: a website with a schedule, seasonal advertising, a CRM with reminders and the 1Study platform for online teaching.
Six areas of work for education centres.
Schedule, trial lesson booking, courses, teachers, Kaspi payments, two languages. A landing page for a course or a full centre website.
from ₸300,000Mobile appSchedule, homework, Kaspi payments, push notifications, student account. 1Study as a ready-made platform or a custom app.
from ₸2,500,000CRM & automationTrial lesson funnel, group attendance, renewals, WhatsApp reminders, enquiries from Instagram and the website.
from ₸350,000SEOPages for courses and districts, 2GIS and Google maps, reviews, Kazakh version. Results in 3–4 months.
from ₸200,000/moTargeted adsInstagram and TikTok for parents and students, seasonal offers, trial lesson booking via WhatsApp and CRM.
from ₸150,000/moSearch adsGoogle Ads for programme and city queries, course landing pages, call tracking, cost per booking.
from ₸150,000/moThe education market in Kazakhstan is far from uniform: language courses, UNT and IELTS preparation, IT schools, early childhood development and online schools each have their own audience, their own decision cycle and their own seasonality. Language courses sell through Instagram and 2GIS, UNT prep through search in August, IT courses through targeted ads aimed at young people and search ads for professions. That means there is no one-size-fits-all solution: you need a system built around your centre's format.
What they all share is a funnel built around the trial lesson. People do not buy a course straight away: they book a trial class, attend it and only then decide. So the main job of marketing is not to sell the course but to bring people to the trial lesson. And the job of the CRM is to keep track of the booking, send a reminder about the class and follow through to payment.
Below are the six areas we cover for education centres and online schools. Each has its own page with features, integrations and prices. Plus our own platform, 1Study, for those who teach online.
What education centres come to us with.
- Trial lesson requests arrive via WhatsApp, Instagram Direct and phone all at once — the administrator cannot keep up, some enquiries get lost and nobody knows the real conversion to payment.
- The schedule lives in Excel or in the administrator's head: a student cannot check available places and book on their own, and every schedule change means a call or a message.
- Ads run all year with the same budget, even though 60–70% of new students arrive in August–September and January; in the other months the money is wasted.
- There is no renewal process: the course ends, the administrator forgets to offer the next module and the student goes to a competitor — not because they were unhappy, but because nobody invited them back.
- Online classes run through Zoom and Telegram channels: homework gets lost, payments are checked by hand, there is no student account and no attendance analytics.
- A website built on a site builder with no schedule and no prices: a prospective student sees “call us” and leaves for an aggregator or a competitor with a public price list.
What matters specifically in Kazakhstan.
- Kaspi Pay and instalments — course payment via Kaspi Pay on the website and in the app, Kaspi Red instalments for expensive programmes (IELTS, IT, annual passes); “pay in instalments” in an ad noticeably lifts conversion.
- Two languages — a website and ads in Russian and Kazakh are a must: in Astana, Shymkent and the regions a large share of searches are in Kazakh, and there is less competition for Kazakh-language keywords.
- 2GIS — the main tool people use to find an education centre near home or school; a listing with the schedule, prices, photos and replies to reviews drives as much traffic as the website.
- WhatsApp Business API — the main channel for communicating with students and parents: trial lesson confirmation, reminders a day and an hour before, a payment link — all sent automatically from the CRM through the official API.
- Seasonality — demand peaks in August–September (the new school year) and January (New Year resolutions); the ad budget and landing pages for UNT, language courses and kids' programmes are prepared in advance, 3–4 weeks before the season.
- 1Study — the studio's own platform for online schools and education centres: student account, schedule, homework, Kaspi payments, a mobile app; an alternative to Zoom chaos without building from scratch.
The order that pays back fastest.
- A website with a schedule and trial lesson booking — without it any advertising loses conversion: people click and do not know what to do next.
- A CRM with a trial lesson funnel — records every enquiry, sends reminders about the class, leads to payment and renewal; it costs less than one lost intake of students.
- Targeted ads for parents and students timed to the season — first bookings 1–2 weeks after launch, with the budget concentrated in August–September and January.
- SEO — a slow but cheap flow from searches like “UNT preparation”, “English courses Almaty”; results in 4–6 months.
- 1Study or a mobile app — for online teaching or a network of centres with a student base, when you need a student account, homework and push notifications.
How to calculate the cost of a student, not a click.
An education centre loses money not in advertising but after it: the enquiry came in, the administrator replied two hours later and the person has already signed up elsewhere. Based on our experience and market data, conversion from enquiry to trial lesson halves if the reply takes longer than 20 minutes.
The second leak is between the trial lesson and payment: the student came, liked it, but nobody sent an invoice or a reminder. A CRM with an automatic “how was the lesson? here is the payment link” message closes this gap.
The third is renewals: the course ends, and if the centre has not written a week before the end, 30–40% of students simply do not come back. Automated renewals in the CRM recover money that was almost lost.
Questions from education centres.
How much does a website for an education centre cost?
A landing page for one course or programme costs ₸250,000–400,000; a centre website with a schedule, courses, teachers and two languages costs ₸600,000–1,200,000. Details are on the website for education centres page.
What is 1Study and why is it better than Zoom and Telegram?
1Study is the studio's own platform for online schools: student account, schedule, homework, Kaspi payments, a mobile app. Unlike Zoom and Telegram, everything is in one place, payments are tracked automatically and the teacher sees attendance and progress. More on the 1Study platform.
Which advertising works for an education centre: targeted or search ads?
Google search ads catch hot demand (“UNT preparation Almaty”, “IELTS course price”), while targeted ads on Instagram and TikTok create demand among parents and young people for kids' programmes, language courses and IT. For most centres we start with seasonal targeted ads and search ads for 2–3 priority programmes; budget from ₸200,000 per month per platform.
Do we need a CRM if we have WhatsApp and Excel?
Excel does not remind people about trial lessons, does not calculate conversion and does not send renewal offers. A CRM automates exactly these leak points and pays for itself with the students who used to be lost between enquiry and payment.
Does an education centre need a mobile app?
A single centre with in-person classes usually does not: a website and WhatsApp handle bookings. An online school or a network of centres with a base of several hundred students or more does: 1Study provides a ready-made app with a student account, schedule and Kaspi payments without building from scratch. More on the app for education centres page.
Other industries
Run an education centre or an online school? Describe your task — we will tell you where to start and what it costs.
Tell us which programmes you run, how many students are in your base, where your enquiries come from now and what hurts most: losses on trial lessons, seasonal advertising or the move online. We will reply with a plan and an estimate within 1–2 business days.