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Case study/ Illumina International
Case study
Illumina International · Leadership development, Denmark and English-speaking markets

34 meetings booked from LinkedIn outreach in 10 months.

Illumina International trains leaders and teams through programmes, talks and books. We ran LinkedIn outreach from the founder's own profile to top executives and HR leaders in Denmark and abroad, and turned the replies into meetings, webinar guests and book readers.

  • 10 months
  • 1 founder profile
  • Denmark, USA, UK, Canada and Norway
Services provided
  • LinkedIn outreach
  • Targeting and list building
  • Message copywriting
  • Webinar setup and invitations
  • Monthly reporting

Who we targeted

1Audience

  • Top executives who make the decisions
  • Founders and owner-managers
  • HR leaders
  • Female CEOs and founders
  • Event coordinators and editors

Seven audience groups for Denmark and English-speaking markets, plus separate campaigns for HR leaders and female founders.

2Industry

  • Tech and software
  • Financial services
  • Pharma and health care
  • Energy and greentech
  • Media
  • Business consulting

3Company size

  • 11 employees and up

4Job titles

  • CEO
  • Founder
  • Partner
  • VP
  • Director
  • Head of HR

5Countries

  • DKDenmark
  • USUSA
  • GBUK
  • CACanada
  • NONorway
The numbers

Senior leaders who said yes, replied and booked time.

Results from the founder's LinkedIn campaign reports over 10 months.

34

Meetings booked

Talks with leaders who wanted to hear more.

671

Replies

Conversations started with new connections.

25%

Reply rate

One in four new connections wrote back.

2,719

New connections

Executives and HR leaders added to the founder's network.

Acceptance against the benchmark
46.5%average acceptance rate per campaign

Most messages offered something useful, such as a free guide or a short online talk. Senior leaders accepted far more often than usual, and the best campaign reached 72.2%.

Typical LinkedIn acceptance rate30%
Illumina International, campaign average46.5%

Acceptance rate is new connections divided by connection requests, averaged across campaigns.

ChallengeKnown for her work, but not yet by the right leaders

The founder has 20 years of experience and eight published books. Paid social ads had brought in plenty of sign-ups, but very few of them turned into buyers, and sales cycles with large companies could take a long time.

The goal: meetings with HR leaders and top executives who should know her as a resource.

SolutionGive value first, then invite a conversation

We built seven audience groups in Denmark and in English-speaking markets and wrote four message versions for each language: a plain introduction, a free leadership sparring session, a free 30-minute online talk and a free guide. We started with a campaign for a workshop in Washington DC, and later ran separate campaigns for HR leaders and female founders.

The sparring offer was switched off and the other three versions kept running. We added webinars in two rounds, sent the invitations on LinkedIn and by email, and helped answer replies from warm leads.

ImpactA steady flow of senior conversations

Over 10 months, 2,719 leaders accepted the founder's request and 671 replied. 47 said they wanted to talk, 40 were a good fit for a webinar invitation, and 11 wanted to read or buy her books. The first webinar led to at least one sale.

34 meetings booked with senior leaders.

How we helped

What we did, and when

A strategy meeting, a first campaign in month 2, then new audiences, webinars and monthly reports.

  1. Month 1

    Strategy and targeting

    Strategy meeting, seven audience groups in two languages, and message versions built around free value.

  2. Month 2

    Launch

    Outreach went live from the founder's profile, starting with executives in Washington DC ahead of her workshop there.

  3. Months 3 to 9

    Testing and optimisation

    Four message versions per language. The sparring offer was switched off, webinar rounds were added, and new campaigns for HR leaders and female founders went live.

  4. Month 10

    Results

    5,165 requests, 2,719 new connections, 671 replies and 34 meetings booked.

Month by month

More than half of every request was accepted, start to finish.

Acceptance held above 50% in both halves of the engagement, well over the 30% benchmark.

Connection requests and new connections

Founder's profile, by period.

RequestsNew connections
  1. 3,0401,630
    Months 1 to 654%
  2. 2,1251,089
    Months 7 to 1051%

How we count. Months are counted from the strategy meeting. Totals for requests, new connections and replies come from the final campaign report in month 10. Months 1 to 6 come from the results tracker at the end of month 6, and months 7 to 10 are the final totals minus those figures. Acceptance rate is new connections divided by requests. Reply rate is replies divided by new connections. The 46.5% campaign average and the 30% benchmark are as stated in the campaign report. Meetings, webinar fits and book readers are replies with that status in the report.

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