Case study

Successful marketing workflows at universities

How Point Loma Nazarene University consolidated 1,000+ projects to efficiently manage a team of designers, marketers, and seasonal interns.

“As the centralized marketing team for the university, our primary clients are undergrad admissions, graduate admissions, alumni, and fundraising. But there are 50 other people around campus who ask for things at various times, too. Work can range from a simple piece of collateral to a more involved project. Hive is what keeps it all straight.”

Dave Gladson

Associate Vice President for Marketing

About

Founded in 1902, Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU) is a Christian liberal arts university based in San Diego, California, and was founded in 1902.

Customer profile

Industry: Education
Use case: Project planning
Team: Marketing

Team goals

Consolidation of high volume of projects and efficient management of a team of designers, marketers, and seasonal interns. The marketing team operates as PLNU’s internal strategy agency, researching and making recommendations to stakeholders on how to achieve desired outcomes.

1000+

projects per year

60%

work is cyclical

4

tools before Hive

1. Driving efficiency across 1,000+ projects a year

Dave Gladson

Associate Vice President for Marketing

2. Mastering on-time delivery for cyclical and ad hoc projects

The team uses Hive templates to speed up the process when planning work and setting up new Hive projects. Leveraging Hive templates enables the university to set up new Hive Projects quickly, with actions, pre-specified assignees, timelines, and other information added automatically.

“All of our templates are time-based, so if I have something that needs to be built out by 1st November, Hive gives me all the workflow dates for the project. So, if a project needs six weeks, the work is scheduled automatically, so we can meet the 1st November deadline.”

Erin Togerson

Director of Marketing Operations

3. Better knowledge management and creative continuity

“Our Hive set-up enables us to look at our past work. For example, we can view the previous assets a client or a partner might have requested a year or two years ago and use that to plan our current work. So, Hive absolutely helps us with strategy as far as that’s concerned.”

4. Clearer communication, more transparency

When PLNU marketing team members communicate about a specific project, they add notes to the relevant Project Action cards. Action cards contain all the necessary information, and external conversations are added as comments to add transparency.

Using Hive’s Proofing and Approvals app to move marketing elements through to final approval also supports the team’s goals around clear communications and transparent workflows.

Team wins

Project delivery efficiency

Creative consistency

Project pipelines

Better transparency & visibility

Favorite Hive tools

Action Card templates

Proofing & Approvals

Notes in Action Cards