FORBES AUSTRALIA
Forbes, a global media powerhouse, celebrated their launch into Australia with a groundbreaking event: the inaugural Women’s Summit.
As a new player in Australia, Forbes had to rapidly establish its local brand and draw a substantial audience to this major event. The Women’s Summit needed to stand out in the crowded International Women’s Day (IWD) environment. With no significant local audience or awareness around the Women's Summit event, some new-website technical limitations around revenue tracking, plus a speaker lineup pending confirmation mid-campaign, the task was formidable.
The success of the Forbes Women’s Summit is a testament to Connected’s event marketing prowess, demonstrating that a strategic, data-driven approach and a strong partnership with the client can lead to extraordinary results. The innovative use of Connected’s proprietary FutureCast live forecasting model proved crucial in not only reaching but surpassing event targets, setting a new benchmark for Forbes' future events. This case study illustrates the potency of integrating sales modelling with creative marketing to deliver against business goals.
OUR APPROACH
Objectives
Establish the Forbes brand in Australia
Sell out the Women’s Summit tickets, with a target of 1,100 tickets over 3 price categories
Strategy & Execution
Leveraging a decade's worth of event data from working with Forbes’ parent company, Success Resources Australia, Connected built out FutureCast to assist with the strategy and forecasting for the campaign. FutureCast is a predictive tool capable of assimilating historical data and live campaign feedback to maximise sales opportunities at the most efficient ROI.
A 3 phased campaign approach was taken:
Phase 1 ‘Ignition’: Utilising Forbes’ growing market reputation, early bird pricing and awareness campaigns laid the groundwork, despite the absence of a confirmed speaker lineup
Phase 2 ‘Momentum’: With speakers announced, the campaign shifted gears into an acquisition phase, bolstered by increased budget and targeted prospecting campaigns. This phase secured a huge boost in tickets across just four weeks
Phase 3 ‘Final Sprint’: Combining all previous learnings, the final push aimed to maximise sales
For Connected, transparency in data and adaptability in strategy were non-negotiable. FutureCast's insights led to optimised campaign set-up and budgeting, ensuring that each dollar spent was focussed on delivering against targets. The model indicated that, with an early budget injection, the campaign could exceed targets at an efficient ROI.
With clear modelling, the team was able to confidently secure the funding and the event was an over-sold success!
RESULTS
The combination of an adaptive strategy and FutureCast insights resulted in the Women’s Summit not only meeting but vastly surpassing ticket sales targets, with the event oversold by 49%
The effective allocation of the increased budget and the strategic campaign refinements resulted in a 7% better performance against the CPA target, maximising the ROI and the overall profitability of the event.
