From Challenges to Efficiency: Flex College Prep's HubSpot Marketing Hub Experience

Experience

In the dynamic world of education and community impact, Flex College Prep (FCP) shines as a beacon of innovation. FCP, an educational consulting firm, is dedicated to guiding students on their path to higher education and community influence. Established in 2001, FCP goes beyond academics, empowering students to create positive changes in their communities.

When COVID-19 posed challenges, FCP teamed up with Origin 63, a HubSpot Diamond Solutions Partner. Their goal was to reshape FCP's marketing and move in-person events to virtual webinars.

With Origin 63's guidance, FCP embraced HubSpot Marketing Hub, a versatile platform that streamlined their marketing tools. Amid a complex marketing landscape and a smaller team, the shift to HubSpot brought clarity and efficiency. As the pandemic shifted events online, FCP and Origin 63 seamlessly integrated Zoom technology, enhancing their innovation.

This case study dives into how this collaboration transformed FCP's marketing, showcasing how technology and strategy can work in harmony. The journey highlights adaptability and provides insights for organizations navigating uncertainty.

The Challenges:

Disparate Marketing Tools: FCP struggled with the use of disconnected marketing tools, which created inefficiencies and hindered collaboration among their marketing team. Managing separate tools for referral email campaigns, webinars, and targeted drip campaigns led to duplication of efforts and a lack of centralized data.

Limited Integration: Before adopting HubSpot, FCP's marketing tools were not integrated. This lack of integration between different systems and platforms resulted in difficulties when trying to synchronize and analyze data from various campaigns and initiatives.

Separate CRM from Marketing: FCP was using an internal intranet system designed primarily for customer relationship management.This system was not optimized for marketing activities, making it challenging to execute effective marketing campaigns and track their impact accurately.

Lack of Marketing Platform: The absence of a dedicated marketing platform meant that FCP's marketing team was missing out on essential features and capabilities that would have streamlined their processes. This hindered their ability to deliver targeted and cohesive campaigns.

Brand Consistency and Revamp: As FCP aimed to revamp their brand expectations, the absence of standardized templates and tools created challenges in ensuring consistent branding across various marketing materials. This inconsistency could potentially dilute the impact of their messaging and affect their brand perception.

Tracking Parent-Student Engagement: One of the challenges was to monitor parents and students effectively. This led to a unique requirement—tracking intricate family dynamics. While most cases involved a single parent interacting with FCP some included two or more parents. Adding to the complexity, parents were connected to multiple students. FCP marketing aimed at revisiting families who'd used their services before, with a special focus on engaging younger children after older siblings had benefited from their college prep and counseling offerings.

These challenges collectively underscore the need for a comprehensive solution to bring FCP's marketing tools and efforts together under one platform, enhance collaboration, streamline operations, and align with their new brand direction.

The Solution:

Origin 63's collaboration and the implementation of the HubSpot Marketing Hub provided effective solutions to the challenges faced by Flex College Prep (FCP):

Centralized Marketing Tools: Origin 63 integrated FCP's disparate marketing tools into the HubSpot Marketing Hub. This centralization streamlined communication and collaboration among teams, eliminating the inefficiencies of managing multiple tools and systems.

Transition to Virtual Events: Origin 63 leveraged HubSpot's integration with Zoom to seamlessly transition FCP's in-person events to virtual webinars. This technology integration ensured a smooth and engaging experience for attendees despite the limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Automated Workflows: HubSpot's workflow automation capabilities allowed FCP to automate event processes, from registration to follow-ups. Origin 63 set up automated event reminders, confirmation emails, and post-event communications, reducing the need for manual intervention and ensuring consistent engagement.

Personalized Communication: With HubSpot's segmentation and customization features, Origin 63 enabled FCP to personalize communication based on attendee segments. Tailored messages and follow-ups were automatically delivered, maintaining a personalized touch even within an automated framework.

Optimized Resource Allocation: By reducing the manual workload associated with event planning and execution, Origin 63's solution allowed FCP to allocate resources strategically. This optimization led to increased productivity and the ability to focus on other growth initiatives.

Sales Division Integration: Origin 63 integrated HubSpot with FCP's sales team and intranet portal, providing real-time insights into sales performance. This integration streamlined data sharing and allowed for data-driven decision-making within the sales division.

Enhancing Family Tracking: The team employed the company object to represent parents or families, while designating contacts to encompass both students and parents. The existing HubSpot framework was tailored to FCP’s needs, bypassing the requirement for custom objects or upgrades. The devised automation extracted last names from families and synthesized them into a standardized company name format, "Last Name - Family," streamlining data organization. Additionally, the team introduced association labels and properties to signify each contact's role, facilitating targeted engagement by the Flex team with parents or students as needed.

In essence, Origin 63's expertise combined with the HubSpot Marketing Hub provided a comprehensive solution that addressed FCP's challenges. The integration, automation, and personalized approach helped FCP not only overcome obstacles but also optimize their marketing operations for greater efficiency and impact.

The Results:

Enhanced Efficiency with Reduced Human Capital: The integrated solution enabled Flex College Prep to accomplish more with fewer resources. By streamlining marketing operations through HubSpot's automation and Origin 63's user-friendly templates, the marketing team could scale their efforts without the need for extensive human intervention. This optimized resource utilization, allowing the team to achieve higher productivity levels.

Seamless Adaptation to Reduced Team Size: Faced with a significant reduction in the marketing and development team, Flex College Prep turned to HubSpot and Origin 63 for a solution. The adoption of user-friendly templates and automated workflows allowed the smaller team to swiftly create and launch new campaigns without relying on extensive coding or development support.

Effortless Event Management and Launch: The integration of HubSpot's tools by Origin 63 facilitated the creation of an efficient webinar and live event tracking system. This system enabled the marketing team to launch new webinars with minimal effort. The streamlined process involved just two steps - creating a landing page and adding the event to a workflow - drastically reducing the time and human capital required to set up events.

Significant Reduction in Time and Resource Investment: Compared to the previous system, which demanded days or even weeks to establish new event assets, the HubSpot-powered system drastically reduced the time required for event initiatives. This not only increased operational efficiency but also saved valuable human resources, which could be allocated to more strategic tasks.

ROI-driven Team Expansion: The efficiency gained through the integrated solution allowed Flex College Prep to allocate resources toward hiring additional members for the marketing team. The time saved by transitioning to HubSpot and the automated processes allowed the team to justify the return on investment (ROI) required for bringing in new personnel, thereby enhancing their capacity to support the innovative systems developed by Origin 63.

In essence, the implementation of Origin 63 and the HubSpot Marketing Hub brought about a series of notable outcomes for Flex College Prep. These outcomes included enhanced efficiency, streamlined event management, resource optimization, and the ability to justify and support team expansion, all of which positively impacted the organization's marketing capabilities and overall success.