InnovUp is the nonprofit and super partes association that represents and unites the Italian innovation supply chain: startups, scaleups, innovative SMEs, innovation centers, science and technology parks, incubators, accelerators, startup studios, crowdfunding portals, enablers, professional firms, consulting firms and corporations.
InnovUp has experienced exponential growth, growing from 200 to over 500 members in the three-year period 2021-2024. This required a change in approach and new tools since they were managing everything with an Excel spreadsheet.
Google Workspace and HubSpot proved to be key and easy to use. They enabled them to eliminate errors, target communications, and improve follow up, with email open rates exceeding 50%.
Gmail, Calendars, Docs and the Google Drive are also useful for us to work on the go, collaborating more expeditiously with colleagues and other Associations, while continuing to protect all our data.
HubSpot's real-time reporting, on the other hand, has simplified management and reporting. As a result of these changes, InnovUp can manage a 30 percent increase in membership each year and save 20 man-hours/month.
"We went from 200 members to over 500 in the three-year period 2021-2024," says Sara Rigamonti,Head of Operation InnovUp, the nonprofit and super partes association that represents and unites the Italian innovation supply chain. "InnovUp's exponential growth was the right drive to change approach and working tools.
The most important assets we have are our contacts and relationship with each associate. This awareness has pushed us to rethink and improve every relationship that we used to manage with rudimentary tools, therefore with great limitations, only with an Excel Sheet that acted as a CRM, while emails were sent to members in hidden copy, with the fear, however, of ending up in SPAM."
"Thanks to some preliminary chats with power2cloud," Sara Rigamonti continues, "we discovered that adopting Google Workspace and HubSpot do not require much investment and are easy to manage, even for those who do not have a technical background and are nonprofits like us.
Given that these are great tools we thought they would come at a high cost or be challenging to manage, but that was not the case.
Followed with great patience by the power2Cloud team during the migration, setup, and training, Google Workspace and HubSpot immediately proved to be essential and easy to use. The real effort was changing habits, educating ourselves to use them on a daily basis without repeating old patterns."
In the past we were having difficulty understanding and then filtering InnovUp members, failing to distinguish scale ups from startups, skimming turnover and verticals to share targeted invitations, avoiding having our communications perceived as SPAM.
With the help of power2Cloud and the constant, integrated use of HubSpot , we customized filters and properties, greatly eliminating the margin of error. Active lists have been used that automatically update every time a new member is added and are used to send personalized marketing emails.
InnovUp's communications today are more extensively profiled and content diversified."
"Not surprisingly, rates related to open rates and engagement have received a positive surge: open rates are often above 50 percent, with nearly zero disicryption and bounce rates.
Thanks to the HubSpot extension, which is natively integrated with Gmail, the InnovUp team works connected and even more productively from any device, even when we are not in the office.
Laura Fornara and Carola Cantaluppi, who handle association development for InnovUp, have become HubSpot nerds. They downloaded the mobile app, which is also useful for scanning business cards collected at trade shows and events. In real time, during an event or cocktail hour, they are able to qualify companies, referrals, and communications exchanged with our colleagues.
Having one big effective and efficient CRM in constant dialogue with other tools as well, I'm thinking of the HubSpot forms on our site, allows us to channel all data into one platform. Duplicates are avoided, contacting people who are already associated, more efficiently managing follow ups and lists for which we have several referrers."
" Reporting, which you can see in real time, is also crucial to hold the Board of Directors accountable. When you see the numbers in black and white, everything is easier! Today we can quantify the volume and quality of our work.
Eliminating manual and wasteful daily activities has been another accomplishment. Members don't have to download and fill out an attached pdf, they now have a one-click online form where they can enter their data.
Reminders to request it are also automatic, as are the notifications the administration receives for financial reporting, while new InnovUp members are placed on specific lists to receive ad hoc communications in the future.
HubSpot documents, templates, and links simplify everything. What used to require more cumbersome and time-consuming activities are now followed by one person, easily and automatically."
"Since adopting Google Workspace and HubSpot we can focus on InnovUp's core activities such as events, trainings, and webinars.
We manage a 30 percent increase in associates on an annual basis, while saving about 20 man-hours/month by centralizing and streamlining our processes."