Astana Hub onboarded 28,000 users to their mobile app in two weeks before Digital Bridge with Selzy

Learn how an international tech park used Selzy to engage users for their mobile app, achieving 63% email open rate and 26% CTR.

• 63% email open rate for onboarding emails
• 26% CTR for onboarding emails
• 28,000 mobile app users in two weeks

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Starting point 

Industry: IT, International Tech Park

Astana Hub was founded in 2018 as a center for the development of innovative projects. The main goal was to cultivate breakthrough IT companies and become a magnet for attracting a critical mass of young and talented IT specialists from around the world. 

Today, Astana Hub is a global tech park and IT startup hub, the largest in Central Asia, with over 1300 residents and partners such as Draper University, Binance, Google for Startups, EPAM. 

Astana Hub is also the host of Digital Bridge, the largest tech forum in Central Asia.

Before Astana Hub started using Selzy, they hadn't actively engaged in email marketing, relying primarily on social media to promote their activities.

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Challenges

Astana Hub had ambitions to go beyond just local market leadership and grow globally as a leading tech park for the world's largest IT brands. 

Planning Digital Bridge 2023, Astana Hub aimed to attract over 20,000 participants. 

So the tech park began making plans to use email marketing to onboard users in their mobile app, announce and promote events, and attract participants and partners for Digital Bridge 2023. 

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Solution

Astana Hub researched the market and chose Selzy as the email marketing solution that fully met the tech park needs. Selzy provided easy integration. 

It didn't take long to see the first results. By using Selzy to send newsletters to their contact list right before the Digital Bridge forum, Astana Hub onboarded 28,000 users to their brand new mobile app in just two weeks, achieving a 63% email open rate and 26% CTR. 

Soon, an email marketing channel became one of Astana Hub’s methods of outreach. They imported their contact list, segmented it within their CRM, and set up daily and weekly newsletters. The tech park also started actively using UTM parameters to segment their list based on:

• Industry
• Event the lead originated from
• Lead's status at Astana Hub: Resident, Partner, Student

The marketing team created newsletters within the drag-and-drop email builder, which saved them a significant amount of time and didn’t require any special design or HTML skills. 

It worked well, but there's always room for improvement, right?

Recently, Astana Hub fine-tuned their campaigns, implemented a new email marketing strategy, and started sending newsletters twice a week to avoid over-spamming. They began combining all the newsletters they used to send daily into a single weekly digest that they sent out to all contacts via bulk email.

Over time, email marketing proved to be a cost-effective channel and gave the tech park full access to their own subscriber list and segmentation tools, leading to better results.

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Selzy vs. competitors: Which platform is better?

Selzy wins on functionality. It offers a comprehensive set of tools for advanced analytics, an easy-to-use drag-and-drop email builder with an AI writing assistant, and simplifies the process of cleaning up your contact list.
— Arlan, Digital Marketer at Astana Hub

The marketing team particularly liked the countdown timers, a feature they actively use in their emails, and the convenient block structure in the email builder compared to the other service.

Implementing campaign optimization and content improvement suggestions from the Selzy support team resulted in a further 5-7% increase in metrics.

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Results 

Astana Hub grew their brand new mobile app from the ground up, attracting 28,000 users in just two weeks before the Digital Bridge forum with Selzy. 

Astana Hub is growing fast and now we’re launching a lot of new programs for startups and businesses with a whole bunch of new events. To keep everyone informed, we’re using Selzy’s automated campaigns, which also help us build brand awareness and customer loyalty.
— Arlan, Digital Marketer at Astana Hub

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Future plans

Today, Astana Hub is a globally recognized innovative technology hub that hosts and partners with brands like Google for Startups and TikTok. With email marketing proving to be an effective marketing solution, Astana Hub plans to continue growing with Selzy!