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DAWN · Knowledge forum for executive teams, Denmark

30 meetings from LinkedIn ads and outreach in 8 months.

DAWN, formerly Tatarklubben, brings authors and editors from Harvard Business Review Press to Danish executive teams. When it relaunched under its new name, we ran LinkedIn ads to CEOs and HR leaders and outreach from the founder's profile, inviting selected CEOs to a small lunch with an author.

  • 8 months
  • LinkedIn Ads and 1 founder profile
  • Denmark
Services provided
  • LinkedIn outreach
  • LinkedIn Ads
  • Targeting and audience building
  • Ad and message copywriting
  • Event lead forms

Who we targeted

1Audience

  • CEOs and managing directors
  • HR leaders
  • Employees at member companies
  • Marketing and commercial leaders

CEOs make the decision and HR leaders open the door, so each group got its own ads and messages.

2Industry

  • Financial services
  • Life science
  • Energy
  • Large companies with international sales

3Company size

  • 201 to 5,000 employees for CEOs
  • 501 to 10,000+ employees for HR

4Job titles

  • CEO
  • Managing Director
  • CHRO
  • Head of HR
  • Head of Learning and Development
  • CMO

5Countries

  • DKDenmark
The numbers

CEO invitations that turned into conversations.

Results from the founder's outreach results sheet over 8 months.

30

Meetings booked

Talks with CEOs invited to a small lunch with an author.

63

Replies

Conversations started with new connections.

28%

Acceptance rate

More than one in four CEOs accepted the invitation request.

157

New connections

CEOs of larger Danish companies added to the founder's network.

Ads for HR leaders
1.36%click-through rate, almost 4 times the LinkedIn average

HR leaders got their own creative and a free e-book on onboarding. They had the highest click-through rate of the six campaigns in the month 7 review.

LinkedIn average0.35%
DAWN ads for HR leaders1.36%

Click-through rate is clicks divided by impressions, as reported by LinkedIn in the ads review in month 7. The 0.35% LinkedIn average is the benchmark quoted in that review.

ChallengeA new name the right executives did not know yet

Tatarklubben brings authors and editors from Harvard Business Review Press to the Nordics for workshops with executive teams. In the spring it relaunched as DAWN, with a new name, a new programme and a digital platform. Its buyers are CEOs, who decide, and HR leaders, who open the door, in larger Danish companies. Many of them say there are plenty of networks and training providers already, that they have their own programmes, or that they do not have the time.

The goal: make the new name known to CEOs and HR leaders, and turn that into meetings.

SolutionUseful content in the ads, a personal invitation in the inbox

We ran LinkedIn ads to five audiences: the client's own contact list, CEOs, HR leaders, employees at member companies and a video audience. The ads offered free e-books from HBR authors, and an event campaign used a LinkedIn sign-up form. From the founder's profile we tested three outreach messages: a lunch invitation for selected CEOs with a visiting author, a free e-book, and a relaunch note to earlier contacts.

Images beat video, short copy beat long copy, and questions such as "Dare you take the CEO test?" worked well. Ads also did better when each audience had its own creative. In outreach, the lunch invitation worked best, so we stopped the other two tracks and rolled the invitation out to new CEO lists.

ImpactCEOs said yes to a conversation

Over 8 months, the founder sent 560 connection requests to CEOs. 157 accepted, a 28% acceptance rate, and 63 replied. From month 5 to month 7 the ads were seen 97,212 times and drew 754 clicks and 22 conversions. Those included 12 e-book downloads and 4 contact forms from CEOs, and 5 event sign-ups in a few days.

30 meetings booked from the CEO invitations.

How we helped

What we did, and when

Ads from month 1, a rebrand campaign in month 3, outreach from month 5 and 30 meetings by month 8.

  1. Month 1

    Strategy and targeting

    A strategy meeting mapped the buyers: CEOs in companies with 200+ employees as decision makers, and HR leaders as gatekeepers. We built audiences from the client's own list and from LinkedIn targeting.

  2. Month 1

    Launch

    Awareness ads went live under the old name. In the first 10 days the click-through rate was 1.3%, against a LinkedIn average of 0.35%.

  3. Months 3 to 7

    Testing and optimisation

    The rebrand campaign tested images against video, and images won with 0.44% against 0.28%. We split the ads into five audiences, shortened the copy and added e-books. Outreach started in month 5 with three messages, and the CEO lunch invitation won.

  4. Month 8

    Results

    560 requests, 157 new connections, 63 replies and 30 meetings booked.

Month by month

Most meetings came after we focused on the lunch invitation.

New connections and meetings booked in each outreach report period, with the share of requests that were accepted.

New connections and meetings

Founder's profile, CEO lunch invitations, by report period.

New connectionsMeetings booked
  1. 156
    Months 5 and 621%
  2. 14224
    Months 6 to 829%

How we count. Months are counted from the strategy meeting. Outreach totals come from the outreach results sheet at the end of month 8. The first period is the lunch invitation result in the report delivered in month 6, and the second period is the final totals minus those figures. Acceptance rate is new connections divided by connection requests. The 40% reply share is replies divided by new connections. Ad impressions, clicks and conversions are the totals for months 5 to 7 in the ads review in month 7. Click-through rate is clicks divided by impressions as reported by LinkedIn, and the 0.35% LinkedIn average is the benchmark quoted in the reports. Event sign-ups are entries in the LinkedIn sign-up form.

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