Background
The Chartered Governance Institute UK & Ireland (CGIUKI) came to Koobr less than three months before its flagship Annual Conference. Ticket sales were behind, previous marketing had failed to create momentum and sponsor confidence was falling.
The stakes were high. Sponsors were unhappy with attendance, and the sales team had warned that if key partners pulled out, the conference would no longer be commercially viable.
Objective
The target was 500 ticket sales – a huge step up on previous performance, with only 10 weeks to achieve it. This would put our goal at more than double the previous year’s pre-event sales. And that wasn’t our only KPI.
CGIUKI knew governance was becoming a fading career. In their words, they wanted to “bring sexy back” to the subject – challenging its dry, bureaucratic image and making the profession feel current, human and worth being part of.
So the brief was simple, and steep: fill the conference and change how governance felt.
Approach
We stopped marketing the conference like a timetable and started giving people reasons to care.
Real speakers and real opinions led the campaign. Short video Q&As put personality behind the profession, while a new highlights guide made the value of attending much clearer. Email, LinkedIn, social, PR and editorial then carried those stories to members, previous delegates and new prospects.
We kept reviewing what was working as the campaign ran. CGIUKI had made £15,000 available for paid media. We used just £6,522, rather than spending budget we knew we didn’t need to reach our goal in the short time we had.
Impact
- 520 tickets sold
- 100% increase in pre-event ticket sales versus 2024
- Sold out before the conference opened
- No walk-in tickets available because venue capacity had been reached
- 17,482 unique email opens
- 27.6% average email open rate
- 303,764 LinkedIn ad impressions
- 2,852 clicks to the event page
- Less than half of the available paid-media budget used
The target had looked ambitious because it was. Ten weeks later, the conference was full, sponsor confidence had a much stronger result behind it, and CGIUKI had proved there was still real appetite for the event.
Meaningful Marketing meant knowing exactly what had to move – then putting the ideas, channels and budget behind the things that actually moved it.
