Texas State University
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"Because students at Texas State have such a personalized experience, they continue that expectation as alumni, wanting every communication from us to be personalized and specific to them. Convio helps us reach masses of our alumni online, yet still communicate with them at an individual level — and that makes them more loyal and more involved."
- Melinda Braun, associate director of alumni relations, Texas State Alumni Association |
About the Texas State Alumni Association
The Texas State Alumni Association welcomes new students and alumni to Texas State University-San Marcos, and supports current students through scholarships and with projects through academic departments and organizations. The Association also organizes chapter, regional and era alumni reunions, and sponsors several awards. The Association is supported through membership dues, scholarship donations, corporate sponsorships and event revenue.
See the video testimonial
- Communication needs were growing too fast for existing structure, staffing level and budget
- Lacked the necessary technology to reconnect online with lost alumni and increase membership
- Did not have the infrastructure to support ecommerce and online membership registration
- Could not publish a calendar of Association-sponsored events with links to registration and credit card payment process for fee-based or ticketed events
- Needed to acquire email addresses to communicate more regularly and less expensively
- Required a system that would enable the Association to measure key success metrics
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- Selected Convio for email marketing, fundraising and association membership management
- New online store offers exclusive alumni merchandise, and requires user to "activate" his profile
- Alumni directory collects data about each constituent's interests and interactions with the University's Web site
- Event calendar allows an alumnus to view only events in his geographic area or areas of interest
- Staff members can send monthly newsletters and email invitations with links to event pages
- Fundraising solution allows staff members to design donation forms with Association membership levels
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- In eight months, grew list of alumni email addresses from 3,500 to 13,000 — with about 1,000 address updates each month
- Within eight months, sent more than 325,000 individual email messages, with an average open rate of 32%
- Now offers an online store
- In first five months, processed $5,300 in online ticket sales and reservations to various events, and is on pace to increase the number of online memberships by 200%
- Automatically processes memberships online, cutting manual payment processing
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See the video testimonial
