Agile marketing training drives 123% revenue increase for Informa Pharma showcase event

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.”
Victoria Hardiment, Pharma Marketing Director

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.

Find out more about how to inject more agility into your team with our agile marketing training

July 30, 2024 Alaina Roberts

100 days to implement Agile Marketing foundations within Informa PLC’s Pharma Marketing division

In a rapidly evolving landscape where innovation meets customer expectations head-on, Informa Pharma and Bright embarked on a groundbreaking journey of agility and adaptability. Informa is a globally recognised leader in events and digital services, a member of the FTSE 100 which operates in over 30 countries, with more than 11,000 employees.

The challenge

Informa Plc is a globally recognised leader in events and digital services, a member of the FTSE 100, which operates in over 30 countries, with more than 11,000 employees. One of Informa’s subsidiaries, Informa Markets, has a dynamic pharma marketing team. They were tasked with targeting the pharmaceutical sector with the challenges of a growing number of customer touchpoints and increasing customer expectations.

Their solution? A shift towards agile marketing practices to foster flexibility and responsiveness.

We’re witnessing a shift in how our audiences interact with us not just joining our events but an increasing shift towards a long term, always-on relationship based on knowledge and access to critical insights. To thrive in this environment, we must be agile and adaptive, placing the customer at the centre of our strategy.
Victoria Hardiment, Pharma Marketing Director

The first phase

The first phase of the marketing transformation journey started by enabling the marketing leadership team with an awareness of agile marketing principles and best practices. This inspired Victoria Hardiment, Pharma Marketing Director, to delve further into how agile marketing could help the Pharma marketing team evolve their ways of working, secure better prioritisation, and use data to deliver greater business value ultimately.

The journey has been challenging but rewarding. We’ve successfully launched three pilot hubs and gained buy-in from all levels of seniority. The Scrumban method has facilitated our work tremendously, allowing us to launch our main event CPHI Europe registration earlier than ever.
Lizzie Knight, Agile Marketing Lead, Informa Pharma

Informa hired Lizzie Knight as an Agile Marketing Lead to pilot their agile transformation. Lizzie worked with Bright to launch a 100-day plan to lay the foundation for agile marketing adoption. The plan defined clear objectives and empowered the agile marketing hub teams with alignment to business goals.

Bright plays a crucial role in this transformative journey as an active practitioner, providing strategic support, training, coaching, and advisory services to the agile marketing lead. With deep expertise in agile marketing, they are reshaping the team’s marketing operations, resulting in effective outreach, increased engagement, and significant efficiency gains.

The results

With the roadmap defined and Bright enabling the change, the journey towards greater marketing agility to support the business with its ambitious growth plans is well and truly underway. The Pharma marketing team’s early experiences demonstrate the transformative power of agile marketing when well implemented. As the journey unfolds, agile marketing will continue to empower how they evolve and adapt in an ever-changing business landscape.

Early launch of major event registration: Leveraging agile marketing methodologies to drive efficient execution and timely delivery
Alignment around personas and segmentation: Refining marketing efforts by gaining deeper customer insights, improving both customer experience and journey
Advanced tracking and reporting: Increased visibility of marketing activities and their impact on the business allowing the teams to take a test and learn approach to drive continual improvement
Greater team alignment: Enhancing internal collaborations for a more seamless and efficient workflow

This is just the beginning of our journey into the world of agile marketing. We’re taking an ‘agile’ approach to our rollout; testing, learning, and iterating as we go. We’re excited to continue on this path, reap the benefits and share our experiences as we transform.
Victoria Hardiment, Pharma Marketing Director

Learn how Bright can help your organisation accelerate your marketing transformation.

November 2, 2023 Alaina Roberts

Agile experimentation achieves 1030% increased engagement, 273 leads and 213% ROI

Agile experimentation & audience development: Bright’s campaign strategy delivers impressive results for a publishing company

The Challenge

A global B2B digital media company specialising in publishing and information sought to enhance brand awareness and drive subscription growth for three of their brands on LinkedIn and Meta platforms. To achieve this, Bright was challenged to create and execute a successful campaign that would elevate brand recognition and bolster subscriptions.

The Solution

Bright identified thought-leadership content as a key driver for lead acquisition, along with influencer engagement within each brand’s vertical. To drive subscriptions for the three brands, Bright implemented a 16-week campaign with 23 ad campaigns, each highlighting a unique topic and presented on a gated page to drive subscriptions.

Employing agile marketing principles and a collaborative team with capability from Bright and the publishing firm. To adopt a test-and-learn approach, Bright collected valuable insights, including audience engagement with native platform gating vs. website gating and preferences for ad creative. Bright’s agile experimentation resulted in four varying creatives per campaign on average, with a focus on audience engagement and development.

The Result

Bright’s tailored and targeted approach to paid media marketing delivered a significant impact by increasing brand awareness and subscriptions for the three brands. The application of a test-and-learn methodology enabled Bright to collect valuable data insights, which informed campaign optimisation efforts. By focusing on resonating with the target audiences, Bright was able to use these insights to achieve optimal campaign results.

The paid media proof of concept campaign, generated:

1,490,724 impressions, resulting in 273 leads.
An ROI of 213% based on the commercial value of acquired subscribers
1 of the brands’ LinkedIn page saw a 1030% increase in clicks YOY
Another of the brands’ LinkedIn page experienced a 737% increase in followers YOY

It has been a pleasure to work with the team at Bright. The outputs generated and performance we’ve seen is incredible. They’ve helped share their expertise and knowledge whilst injecting audience development and agile ways of working to upskill our existing marketing team.
Director of Engagement and Operations

September 28, 2023 Alexandra Jefferies