Case Study

Custom Functionality Helps Tec de Monterrey Better Market to Database

Overview

Tec de Monterrey was spending hours on end manually setting up newsletters in HubSpot based on topic and schedule preference. To resolve tedious tasks and enhance marketing interactions, Tec de Monterrey reached out to Lynton for help. The Lynton team built custom functionality to automate newsletters based on a user’s subscription pattern, referencing advanced RSS feeds from WordPress to auto-populate articles, as well as a private editorial experience using CMS Memberships, so HubSpot admins can prioritize content for newsletters without having to make manual updates. 

Services Provided

  • CRM Integration
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Increase in Average Open Rate

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Average Open Rate

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Average Click-Through Rate

The Client

Tec de Monterrey or the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education is a private, coeducational multi-campus university based in Monterrey, Mexico. Since 1943, Tec de Monterrey has offered undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degree programs to students across various campuses throughout Mexico, with liaison offices in 15 other countries. They offer globally-accredited studies in engineering, social sciences, creative studies, environmental studies, and business.

tec-homepage

The Challenge

Tec de Monterrey’s research program, based at its flagship campus at Monterey, is internationally recognized for open collaboration. Researchers across the university work tirelessly on theories that address society’s current demands but are rooted in scientific research. 

Because of their transparent approach to analysis, Tec de Monterrey has a wealth of knowledge-based articles and other valuable resources accessible to users on their website. To make their research even more widely available, their marketing team chose to create a series of newsletters, called TecReview, that they send to readers who sign up. 

Newsletter subscribers can opt in to receive an email once a week, twice a week (on Tuesdays and Thursdays), or every 15 days. These newsletters send three subject-based articles, prioritized by date and which subject matter is of the most importance. The system recognizes which categories someone previously received, marking them as more important, and then sends the remaining categories.  Contacts can subscribe to receive only certain subjects or all five. For Tec, Ciencia (Science) content always takes precedence. After that, the order is, Tecnologia (Technology), Tendencias (Trends), Emprendimiento (Entrepreneurship), and finally, Administración (Management). 

Understanding who’s on what sending schedules and knowing what articles to send based on popularity and significance made this operation an almost full-time job for employees at Tec De Monterrey - which naturally took them away from working on other projects. In fact, before Tec de Monterrey reached out to Lynton to work on an advanced RSS email feed that would automate this practice, this entire setup was manual - with staff sometimes spending weeks on sending a single email newsletter. Because of this, the potential risk of human error was high.

The Solution

When Tec de Monterrey reached out to us and we formalized project requirements, we formed an internal team consisting of experienced members from our marketing, research and development, and integration departments. The Lynton squad discussed Tec de Monterrey’s needs in-depth in a series of discovery calls to pinpoint exact solutions to ease their issues related to their newsletters and form data. Earlier in 2020, we launched: 

Custom functionality to build an automated newsletter template referencing specific feeds to send their most critical knowledge-based articles and other research. For TecReview, we provided: 

  • An automated newsletter template that matched Tec de Monterrey’s branding, sent based on a user’s subscription pattern, referencing advanced RSS feeds from WordPress to auto-populate articles 
  • A private editorial experience using CMS Memberships, so HubSpot admins can prioritize content for newsletters without having to update which material is most important over and over again 

tec-forms

The Impact

Today, Tec de Monterrey no longer has to worry about tedious tasks related to their newsletter. Instead, they can work on larger projects like focusing on researching and writing new articles, rather than figuring out what content should go in their upcoming newsletter. Most notably, their team was thrilled with the work and can use the results to propel future marketing and sales campaigns and think outside the box. 

The Results

Right off the bat, Tec de Monterrey experienced increased click-through rates and open rates, due to better targeting and automation. These numbers stand high above the industry standards for science and technology newsletters. A synopsis of their results includes: 

  • A 12% increase in average open rate, from 35.64% to 47.63%
  • A .78% increase in average click rate, from 6.26% to 7.04% - helping them to surpass industry standards 
  • An average open rate of 47.63%, compared to the industry average of 15-25% for science and technology newsletters
  • Average click-through rate of 14.6%, compared to the industry average of 7% for science and technology newsletters

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Not only did the metrics improve, but Tec de Monterrey’s team saved countless hours -- days, in some cases -- through the integration’s automation. And because our team will continue to provide proactive support to Tec de Monterrey, monitoring the health of their solution and keeping it working seamlessly, they’ll have even more time to devote to big-picture projects for the university’s growth. Grateful for their trust, the Lynton team will keep helping Tec de Monterrey with both their sales and marketing initiatives!