Canvis a "Empowering Public University Marketing Automation: Leuphana University Lüneburg’s Multi-School Mautic Implementation"

• +Empowering Public University Marketing Automation: Leuphana University Lüneburg’s Multi-School Mautic Implementation

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  Project title

  Empowering Public University Marketing Automation: Leuphana University Lüneburg’s Multi-School Mautic Implementation

  Project overview

  Leuphana University Lüneburg has implemented Mautic as a centralized marketing automation solution to serve its three schools – the College, Graduate School, and Professional School, covering twelve distinct study programs. The project’s main goal is to engage prospective students more effectively while minimizing manual workload for the university’s communications team.

  Through Mautic, potential students can express their interests via dynamic forms and automatically receive tailored information about relevant study programs. This allows for targeted, privacy-respecting and GDPR-compliant communication and paves the way for future personalized engagement across the student lifecycle. The project demonstrates how public universities can adopt automation practices previously reserved for private institutions, setting a benchmark for digital transformation in higher education marketing.

  Background and context

  Leuphana University Lüneburg is a leading public institution in Germany known for its interdisciplinary approach and commitment to innovation. Traditionally, marketing automation and lead nurturing were uncommon in the public education sector due to privacy, resource, and organizational constraints.

  The university sought to streamline communication with prospective students, who often request information across different schools and study programs. Manual responses were time-intensive and inconsistent. This project aimed to provide an automated, consent-driven solution that delivers relevant content efficiently and complies fully with data protection regulations.

  Implementation

  Mautic was implemented as a unified marketing automation platform serving all three schools and their twelve study programs.
  Key components include:
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• Dynamic forms allowing prospects to specify their interests.

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• Segmentation and campaign automation to deliver personalized follow-up materials and nurture journeys.

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• Consent management and GDPR compliance as central architectural pillars.

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• Email templates (showing the correct contacts persons for each study program) and automation workflows developed for each school’s communication needs.

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The setup is fully hosted under control of the university, ensuring data sovereignty and compliance with strict privacy standards. Cross-team collaboration between marketing, IT, and data protection officers was key to success.

Impact and results

The new Mautic setup is reducing manual workload by 75% through automating the process of sending program-specific materials to interested prospects. Instead of manually handling hundreds of inquiries per month, the system now responds automatically, ensuring a faster and more personalized user experience as well as more timely follow-ups.

Engagement rates for follow-up emails have exceeded expectations, with strong click-through and open rates (qualitative indicators available). Internal staff report substantial time savings and greater consistency in communications.

Beyond operational efficiency, the project has shown how privacy-respectful digital marketing can thrive in the public education sector – a domain previously cautious about such tools.

Lessons learned

Key challenges included aligning diverse stakeholder interests (marketing, IT, and legal) and ensuring GDPR compliance from the ground up. A close partnership with the university’s data protection officers proved essential. Another lesson was the need for clear content governance to manage messaging across multiple schools.

The experience underscored that marketing automation in a public university context is achievable when privacy and transparency are treated as design principles rather than obstacles.

Future plans

Next steps include expanding Mautic’s use to alumni relations and lifelong learning programs. The university also plans to deepen personalization with behavioral segmentation and possibly integrate CRM-based analytics for richer insights.

Community contributions

The project team shared implementation feedback with the Mautic community and contributed to discussions on best practices for GDPR-compliant use cases in higher education. Multiple of those learnings went into the upcoming Mautic privacy initiative.
Future contributions may include documentation on managing multi-school setups within one Mautic instance.

Supporting materials

https://www.leuphana.de/professional-school/studieninteressierte/infomaterial-bestellen.html

Inclusion as a Case Study

Yes, we are happy for this project to be included as a case study on mautic.org and in the Pitch Deck.

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