Case Study
Hockey Alberta Scores with Envoke’s Mandatory Messaging
Background
From a bracing game of pond hockey to recreational leagues for players under seven, to hockey for seniors, Alberta amateur hockey lovers have dozens of ways to engage with their favourite sport throughout their lives. Hockey Alberta is a big part of that journey.
Hockey Alberta governs all organized amateur ice hockey in the province, from the U7 division right up to senior hockey, providing training and development for players, coaches, and officials. Hockey Alberta encourages recreation and competition for those who enjoy the sportsmanship, skill, and recreation the sport provides. As the provincial wing of Hockey Canada, Hockey Alberta operates elite leagues too, including the Alberta Female Hockey League and Alberta Elite Hockey League which oversee AA and AAA hockey in the province.
Hockey Alberta’s Communication Needs
Hockey Alberta has been an Envoke user since the fall of 2023, relying on the platform to communicate with approximately 450 member organizations representing more than 95,000 participants.
Brad Lyon, Senior Manager of IT and Administration with Hockey Alberta, says the organization regularly emails large and small groups of coaches, parents, volunteers, members, and executives. Currently, Brad says they send about 15 email campaigns per month to lists as small as eight recipients, or, in the case of their monthly newsletter, as large as 93,000.
Regular email content includes official news bulletins, status updates to coaches and teams, marketing emails with training opportunities for players, and scheduled newsletters.
The Problem: How to Send Mandatory Emails that Contacts Must Receive
Brad says Hockey Alberta began looking for a new email marketing platform after experiencing problems sending bulk emails to member organizations. Important updates that members needed to receive were undelivered, or the delivery status was unknown.
Brad explains: “We had emails that weren’t necessarily going through, or we had no idea if they were going through, which posed a problem with our ability to get essential communication out to our members, volunteers, and staff.”
Looking for a solution, Hockey Alberta shifted its member messaging to an email marketing solution it had been using for marketing-focused bulk email. The platform functioned well but didn’t solve the core problem of delivering essential, mandatory emails to members who were required to receive them, regardless of their subscription status.
The Risk: What Happens if Messages Go Undelivered?
Hockey Alberta sends two types of mandatory messages that recipients must receive; bulletins containing official news updates and memos with progress reports.
“We rely on our members to take the information or the updates that we provide and inform or implement it for their participants, their teams, and their members. If they don't get that information and aren't doing what needs to be done, that could impact their players.”
Senior Manager of IT and Administration
The Solution: Keeping Hockey Alberta’s Members Informed with Envoke’s Mandatory Messaging
Brad says Hockey Alberta needed an email solution that allowed members to opt out of non-essential communications but still sent them the important messages they needed to receive.
“Until I came across Envoke, I didn’t know if we would find a solution that would allow us to send mandatory emails and communicate with recipients that certain types of emails need to be received, but that they can still opt out of other ones,” says Brad. “Envoke provided the solution.”
Procurement
Brad learned about Envoke in the spring of 2023 from a sales email that mentioned Envoke’s Mandatory Messaging feature, which caught his attention. “We thought the Mandatory Messaging side of things might be the solution for this particular issue we were having. So we reached out. That led to a few different conversations, and eventually, we signed up.”
The vetting process involved Brad reviewing information from Envoke’s team, doing additional research, and checking other companies’ experiences. Cost savings were a factor too. Envoke matched everything provided by the third-party company Hockey Alberta was using, and offered much more functionality, for approximately the same monthly cost. In the end, Envoke ticked all the boxes. The fact that Envoke is a Canadian company was a bonus.
Brad recalls the process of selecting Envoke: “We thought: ‘This product seems to be what we need. It’s better than what we’re currently using.’ And it being a Canadian company certainly helped from my perspective. We said, ‘Let’s try it.’”
The results confirmed that Envoke was a winning solution for Hockey Alberta: “At this point, it’s turned out to be everything we needed.”
The Results: Hockey Alberta Achieves Communications Goals with Envoke’s Mandatory Messaging
Brad says for Hockey Alberta, Envoke’s success would be measured by its ability to ensure mandatory content was safely delivered to Hockey Alberta’s members.
Mission accomplished.
“We started using Envoke to have a platform that allowed us to get our Mandatory Messages to the people who needed to receive them. We had a problem that we didn’t have a solution for – and Envoke provided that solution.”
More Benefits
An unexpected bonus for the organization is that Envoke’s Mandatory Messaging feature helps Hockey Alberta troubleshoot its databases. Every mandatory email includes a link allowing contacts to send a message if they feel they should be unsubscribed from Mandatory Messages. Perhaps they have retired or left the organization, and their email is included in error.
“The unexpected outcome was that it’s helped us confirm the validity of our contact list database with our member associations,” says Brad.
The Experience: Hockey Alberta Gets Straight to Work with Envoke’s Easy Onboarding
Efficient support and onboarding make working with Envoke easy, Brad says. Hockey Alberta uploaded their contact list with help from Envoke, made a few templates, and got straight to work. Brad says: “It was simple.”
Hockey Alberta rarely needs support, but when they do, Brad says the process is painless. “When I had questions, I got answers back very quickly,” says Brad. “And some of the things I pointed out even resulted in small changes to the product, so my questions were more than answered.”
The Future: Continued Efficiency
Brad doesn’t foresee big changes to the way Hockey Alberta uses Envoke. “Overall, our goal is to reach our participants and our members, and the platform has allowed us to do that, and to do it with confidence that the message is getting to them.”
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