---
title: How NSW Rugby League migrated from Salesforce Marketing to HubSpot
description: NSW Rugby League needed to move off the Salesforce Marketing Cloud fast. Here's how Engaging.io built a unified HubSpot platform to replace it.
image: https://www.engaging.io/hubfs/NSWRL.jpg
---

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# How NSW Rugby League migrated from Salesforce Marketing to HubSpot

Narrate this article

How NSW Rugby League migrated from Salesforce Marketing to HubSpot

0:42

![New south wales rugby league winners holding a trophy](https://www.engaging.io/hubfs/NSWRL.jpg)

###### Industry

 Sports & Entertainment

###### HubSpot Licensing

 Marketing Hub Enterprise, Data Hub Professional

###### About the business

 NSW Rugby League (NSWRL) is the governing body for rugby league in New South Wales, managing participation, community programs, major competitions, and the iconic NSW Blues State of Origin program. The organisation communicates with a broad and complex stakeholder base, from grassroots players and club administrators to sponsors, media, and government representatives, spread across the state and beyond.

###### Project Timeline

 4 months

###### Integrations

 Salesforce to HubSpot, MessageMedia (Sinch SMS)

NSW Rugby League governs rugby league across New South Wales, communicating with everyone from grassroots players and club administrators to sponsors, media, and government representatives. As NSWRL's programs and audience grew, its contact data had naturally spread across several systems, and with a Salesforce Marketing Cloud licence transition on the horizon, the organisation saw an opportunity, and moved decisively to bring it all together.

Engaging.io partnered with NSWRL to design and build the unified HubSpot infrastructure to support that next phase of growth. If your organisation is scaling fast across a large, multi-segment stakeholder base and wants to bring its marketing systems in line with that growth, this case study shows what a well-planned migration to HubSpot can unlock.

#### The problem Growing fast across a complex stakeholder base

NSWRL's marketing operations had grown alongside the organisation, built originally on Salesforce Marketing Cloud. As the organisation's reach expanded, its team recognised the opportunity to bring its data and channels into one connected platform, and a licence transition gave them the moment to make it happen.

###### Problem 1:

NSWRL's contact database was large, but fragmented with records across Salesforce Marketing Cloud, a legacy Salesforce CRM - MySideline, and manual CSV files. This was a reflection of the many touchpoints the organisation had built with its community over time, but they wanted to bring these together into a single view and it had to happen fast with impending subscription changes. This meant subscription preferences, unsubscribe lists, suppression data, and email templates all needed to be extracted and rebuilt in HubSpot ahead of the Marketing Cloud licence transition, so that every contact's preferences carried through without a gap in communications.

###### Problem 2:

NSWRL wanted to enhance their customer experience, and add SMS as a channel for urgent community communications and automated follow-ups, a natural next step in reaching fans and stakeholders wherever they are. HubSpot's native SMS product isn't supported in Australia, so the team needed a compliant, cost-effective alternative that would integrate natively rather than sit outside the HubSpot environment.

The solution

What we built: a unified data foundation, ready to scale

We designed a structured migration that brought NSWRL's contact data and marketing stack into a single, unified HubSpot environment, without disrupting ongoing campaign activity during the transition.

The work spanned an emergency extraction phase, a full Salesforce-to-HubSpot data migration, platform configuration, and a structured enablement program to bring the internal team up to speed on running campaigns independently.

To solve the SMS gap, Engaging.io integrated MessageMedia (Sinch) as a native, locally compliant channel, chosen specifically because HubSpot's own SMS product isn't licensed for the Australian market. The result is a single marketing platform that connects NSWRL's contact data, campaign tools, segmentation, and reporting in one place for the first time.

 

The Strategic Plan

The Implementation

 Extraction before rebuild

Connect the data

 Build the segmentation architecture

 Automate and enable

Extend the platform

The process

1. With the Marketing Cloud licence transition just days from kick-off, the priority was extraction, not implementation.
2. All email templates, subscription preferences, unsubscribes, and suppression lists were extracted from Marketing Cloud and rebuilt in HubSpot within the first week, using a two-round approach: raw HTML imports first to maintain sending capability, followed by properly structured drag-and-drop templates.

The process

1. With the immediate sending capability secured, Engaging.io configured the Salesforce native connector and ran the initial contact sync.
2. Approximately 100,000 records transferred with only around 160 invalid email addresses, a result that reflected the strength of NSWRL's underlying data.
3. Contact type, subscription preferences, and the four preference checkboxes (State of Origin, Blatchys Blues, Major Comps, Community) all mapped cleanly into HubSpot properties.

The process

1. Static Salesforce lists were replicated as active (dynamic) lists in HubSpot, filtering on contact type and subscription status rather than manual curation.
2. A preference centre was configured, consent architecture was aligned to compliance requirements, and a structured approach to marketing contacts, a subset of the total database, was established to ensure campaign sends reached the right people.

The process

1. Six nurture workflows were configured, including a welcome email automation triggered on form submission.
2. Ten segmentation lists were built. Two reporting dashboards were set up.
3. The team then received live training covering contact records, email creation, segmentation, list management, and campaign tools, with recorded walkthroughs added to an internal knowledge base for ongoing reference.

The process

1. As the structured rollout progressed, NSWRL's ambitions expanded. MessageMedia (Sinch) was integrated for SMS, chosen because it's natively compatible with HubSpot and locally licensed, unlike HubSpot's native SMS product which isn't available in Australia.
2. A data consolidation workstream addressed legacy field conflicts, standardised address and state data across Salesforce and HubSpot sources, and laid the groundwork for MySideline data integration in a future phase.

 Extraction before rebuild

The process

1. With the Marketing Cloud licence transition just days from kick-off, the priority was extraction, not implementation.
2. All email templates, subscription preferences, unsubscribes, and suppression lists were extracted from Marketing Cloud and rebuilt in HubSpot within the first week, using a two-round approach: raw HTML imports first to maintain sending capability, followed by properly structured drag-and-drop templates.

Connect the data

The process

1. With the immediate sending capability secured, Engaging.io configured the Salesforce native connector and ran the initial contact sync.
2. Approximately 100,000 records transferred with only around 160 invalid email addresses, a result that reflected the strength of NSWRL's underlying data.
3. Contact type, subscription preferences, and the four preference checkboxes (State of Origin, Blatchys Blues, Major Comps, Community) all mapped cleanly into HubSpot properties.

 Build the segmentation architecture

The process

1. Static Salesforce lists were replicated as active (dynamic) lists in HubSpot, filtering on contact type and subscription status rather than manual curation.
2. A preference centre was configured, consent architecture was aligned to compliance requirements, and a structured approach to marketing contacts, a subset of the total database, was established to ensure campaign sends reached the right people.

 Automate and enable

The process

1. Six nurture workflows were configured, including a welcome email automation triggered on form submission.
2. Ten segmentation lists were built. Two reporting dashboards were set up.
3. The team then received live training covering contact records, email creation, segmentation, list management, and campaign tools, with recorded walkthroughs added to an internal knowledge base for ongoing reference.

Extend the platform

The process

1. As the structured rollout progressed, NSWRL's ambitions expanded. MessageMedia (Sinch) was integrated for SMS, chosen because it's natively compatible with HubSpot and locally licensed, unlike HubSpot's native SMS product which isn't available in Australia.
2. A data consolidation workstream addressed legacy field conflicts, standardised address and state data across Salesforce and HubSpot sources, and laid the groundwork for MySideline data integration in a future phase.

The Implementation

The project moved at pace from day one. With the Salesforce Marketing Cloud licence transition just ten days from kick-off, Engaging.io ran daily syncs and an in-person working session in the first week to extract assets and configure HubSpot in parallel.

All eight email templates from Marketing Cloud were rebuilt in HubSpot using a drag-and-drop structure, with footers configured to pull the correct unsubscribe and preference management links automatically. A newsletter subscription form was built, connected to a welcome email workflow, and embedded on a temporary HubSpot landing page while consent wording went through NSWRL's legal review process, an approach that allowed workflow testing to begin without waiting for public-facing form approval.

The Salesforce native connector was configured with System Admin and API-level permissions on the Salesforce side. The initial sync focused on the core fields needed to support sending, name, email, contact type, subscription preferences, and the four preference checkboxes, rather than attempting a full data migration at once. This kept the first sync clean and fast. Backup exports of all static Salesforce lists were stored in a data-sensitive folder before the sync ran, as a safeguard during the transition.

For SMS, Engaging.io integrated MessageMedia (Cinch) as the preferred solution: natively integrated with HubSpot, locally licensed, and cost-effective for the volume of community communications NSWRL sends.

Following the initial migration, a dedicated data consolidation workstream tackled the legacy field architecture. The Salesforce "State" field was identified as a registration or playing state, not an address state; contacts based in Fiji, for example, were listed with a New South Wales state because that's where their competition was registered. Rather than merging these fields, Engaging.io renamed and separated them (Registration State / Address State) to preserve data integrity.

Address harmonisation workflows were built to consolidate address data across Salesforce and HubSpot sources without overwriting populated fields. Drop-down properties were standardised, duplicate values merged, and large mass updates, including Favourite State Team across approximately 400,000 records, were scheduled after business hours to avoid performance disruption.

 

#### The Impact and Results A unified, active database ready for what's next

NSWRL is now active in their HubSpot environment, and achieved their objectives to unify contact data and marketing channels without a gap in campaign delivery. The team arrived ready to move quickly, and the Engaging.io delivery team matched that pace: daily syncs, in-person working sessions, and parallel workstreams compressed what is typically a much longer implementation into a functional sending environment within the first week.

The data infrastructure that now sits in HubSpot gives NSWRL a foundation built for its scale: a single contact record that consolidates marketing preferences, subscription opt-ins, participation history, and company associations in one place. The team can now build and send campaigns directly, without relying on manual list exports from multiple systems.

Active segmentation lists update automatically as contact data changes, meaning an unsubscribe or a new opt-in is reflected in send lists immediately, not at the next manual refresh. With MessageMedia (Sinch) now natively integrated, NSWRL also has a compliant, locally licensed SMS channel for urgent community communications and automated follow-ups.

Looking ahead, the platform is ready for what comes next. MySideline data from the NRL's participation system is scoped for integration, which will add playing history, regional affiliation, and registration type to every relevant contact record. The data model has been designed to receive this: the field architecture is clean, standardised, and documented. Phase 2 will expand into full CRM migration, deal pipelines for sponsor and suite sales, and Service Hub for participant and sponsor case management.

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