Agile marketing training drives 123% revenue increase for Informa Pharma showcase event
Discover how Informa Markets EMEA undertook a significant agile marketing training programme to upskill their marketing teams spanning 529 hours and 57 marketers with the help of Bright’s certified agile marketing trainers.
With newly empowered teams working more efficiently and effectively, the implementation pilot programmes had an impressive impact with outstanding results achieved, such as 123% year-over-year ticket revenue increase, an 34% increase in attendees (almost 54,000—their highest ever) and 17,000 more C-level target attendees.
The client
Informa Markets EMEA, part of Informa plc and a FTSE 100 company, operates in over 30 countries, with over 11,000 employees. Informa Markets enable people to connect, learn, and do business through events, digital services, and data solutions across various global sectors including healthcare and pharmaceuticals, energy, agriculture, hospitality, fashion and more.
The challenge
The pandemic significantly impacted Informa’s events business, requiring a reassessment of growth strategies. EMEA marketing leadership wanted their teams thinking and working differently, feeling inspired, be more adaptable to change, while improving efficiency and productivity.
Victoria Hardiment, Pharma Marketing Director, and a key driver of this programme within Informa, identified that adopting agile marketing methodologies would be the launchpad, however changing mindsets and habits isn’t an easy task. Certified agile marketing trainers from Bright were brought in to educate the leadership on the value of agile marketing and provide the skills and tools to the team to run their pilot programme.
“What an incredible result! Thank you for your hard work, expertise, and support… This year, we’ve changed everything about our campaign and approach to marketing.
Through our Agile Marketing Hubs, we’ve targeted our communications more, relaunched our digital touchpoints, tested and experimented. This has enabled increased engagement across all channels. I am so proud of the amazing marketing team who have worked tirelessly to innovate and deliver this brilliant result.”
The solution
Bright aimed to revolutionise Informa Markets marketing through a certified agile training programme that empowered the teams to work more efficiently and effectively, ultimately increasing revenue through improved audience engagement. Leadership buy-in was crucial for successful adoption, so the first step was to successfully engage this audience. The initial training programme targeted marketing directors from London, Amsterdam, and Dubai, across diverse sectors.
A discovery phase ensured the training messaging and content was customised to the team’s requirements, Bright developed a two-day interactive course demonstrating how agile practices improve audience engagement and drive more effective outcomes. Surveys and in-person feedback sessions were undertaken to gain insights, capture and address challenges, develop action plans, and create relevant content for the internal newsletter. Subsequent sessions were provided to local marketing teams launching pilot projects, introducing new agile practices and fostering a test-and-learn approach.
Delivered by Bright’s trainers, the ICAgile certified training was highly relevant, interactive, and engaging. It provided a robust understanding of agile marketing principles and best practices and identified practical use cases within the Informa workflow.
Learners gained practical tools, an easy-to-use playbook, and a set of resources and templates to activate the new ways of working and thinking. Accompanied with ongoing coaching, feedback, and support, teams felt confident in applying their new skills to real-life scenarios and during pilot programmes. The largest pilot, led by the Pharma team, served as a blueprint and focused on growing the showcase CPHI Europe event. Ambitious targets were set to measure the success of agile marketing adoption. Additional pilots were also initiated globally, including in healthcare, energy, and cityscape sectors.
Achieving tangible outcomes was essential to build a compelling business case for a more structured and widespread adoption of agile methodologies across Informa Markets.
The results
The outcomes of the newly adopted agile marketing approach are impressive. So far, 57 marketers have been trained, totalling 529 hours of training.
The Pharma marketing team applied agile methodologies to their showcase event, which delivered the best results ever achieved:
- 123% year-over-year ticket revenue increase
- 34% attendee increase (almost 54,000—their highest ever),
- 17,000 more C-level target attendees.
Qualitative results were captured through regular retrospectives, reviewing what the team “liked,” “lacked,” and “learned.” Key collective learnings included the importance of:
- Regular communications
- Making room for creativity
- Addressing risks and issues early to improve adaptability
- Being agile not just doing agile
- Establishing effective baselines for effective measurement.
Actions were then implemented to ensure continuous improvement.
Across other Informa Markets verticals pilot agile teams set specific objectives for their tactical campaigns which provided great learnings:
- Cityscape Bahrain: Aimed to collect 1,000 leads. By the end of sprint two, they surpassed this goal, achieving 1,065 pieces.
- Energy Nigeria: Targeted 2,800 leads but achieved only 1,000 learning to address risks and issues early, break down tasks to better understand priorities, and set seasonal targets.
These overall successful results have led to continued investment in agile marketing training and activation programmes across Informa Markets.
