Knowly is an ed-tech startup based in Sweden. They are a team of young and innovation-driven talents with the mission of creating innovative and inspiring solutions to help learning and development professionals (L&D) realize their visions within learning.
True to their missions of promoting and optimizing learning, in November 2021, Knowly hosted their own 5-day virtual event gathering 330+ L&D professionals from all across Sweden: the Knowly Week.
The team had ambitious goals on their agenda. However, being a growing startup, they couldn’t rely on many hands on deck to take care of the event marketing and planning. That’s why their top requirements for their hosting platform of choice were versatility, effectiveness, and ease of use.
Brella had just what they needed!
The goals
The Knowly Week was a real-life testament to Knowly’s mission, and their #1 goal was to connect L&D professionals in a 5-day event with its own one-of-a-kind agenda. Each day of the Knowly Week started with a speaker session followed by an interactive workshop and ended with networking sessions.
This was an effective strategy to build momentum each day, foster learning, communication, and cooperation while still giving L&D professionals the chance to network and create new meaningful connections.
"Networking was important for us since the main purpose of Knowly Week was to create a community where L&D professionals could share their thoughts and ideas." - Julia Pohjanen, Customer Success Manager at Knowly
The event organizing team's journey with Brella started with a kick-off call with our own Customer Success Manager to define the event’s goals and design a tailored event strategy to achieve them.
The top 3 goals to be accomplished during the Knowly Week were:
- Increase brand awareness by attracting at least 250 L&D professionals based in Sweden.
- Nurture relationships with their existing customers and connect with new potential customers.
- Set the basis for a community of L&D professionals, a place to promote collaboration, learning, and valuable connections.
The challenge
Having to balance their own busy working schedule with the planning of the event, the event organizing team at Knowly was on the lookout for an all-inclusive solution with advanced networking capabilities.
Moreover, they had the ambitious goal of a week-long event to lay the groundwork for a strong community. To do so, they had to guarantee engagement, valuable content, and plenty of new meaningful connections.
A small team with a big vision. Our event experts at Brella were eager to take on the challenge, and this is how - together with Knowly - they achieved phenomenal results!
The solution
The Knowly Week was to be a touchpoint for brand awareness, and during the initial kick-off call, the event organizing team at Knowly and our event experts built a tailored event strategy including:
- Event marketing and attendee instructions on how to navigate Brella
- Selecting highly relevant content based on event analytics
- Boost pre-engagement and create momentum
Following the initial consultation, Knowly built a webpage to serve as a real knowledge base for the event and Brella. The webpage included a welcome video, the event agenda day by day, and several FAQs.
The event strategy was a consistent journey Knowly and our Customer Success Manager undertook together with regular checkups and adjustments along the way, and it surely paid off.
The initial goal for Knowly was to host at least 250 attendees, but with their marketing strategy, they were able to attract over 330 L&D professionals from all across Sweden.
Increase brand awareness - achieved! ✅
To attract the right audience including new potential clients, an enticing event agenda is key. Event data and stats are crucial to creating the most relevant agenda for your target audience.
From the initial stats, Brella showed that 77% of attendees selected networking as their main reason to attend, and the Knowly Week’s agenda was shaped around that number.
They scheduled a 30-minute networking slot at the end of each workshop, and to make sure their attendees could connect (and that the team at Knowly would have plenty of opportunities to nurture their old and new relationships with clients), Knowly resorted to the best way to maximize every minute of their networking time: intent-based matchmaking.
Brella’s AI-powered matchmaking helped them to:
- Guarantee the best matches with our matchmaking software connecting attendees based on their interests and networking intent.
- Foster pre-engagement. Attendees were able to join Brella in advance and connect with their top matches already two weeks before the event. This way, they had enough time to get acquainted with each other via live chat and went to their 1:1 meetings already prepared.
Thanks to the time Knowly invested in educating their audience and in launching the matchmaking before the event, their pre-engagement rate was simply stellar.
The Knowly Week scored a 50% meeting acceptance rate (at Brella, our detailed networking statistics have shown the average acceptance rate to be 36%), and 43% of accepted chat requests.
Also, 36% of all 1:1 meetings were requested and booked before the event.
Nurture relationships with their existing customers and connect with new potential customers - achieved ✅
How to lay the groundwork for a solid community?
Engaging and insightful content is king, and the team at Knowly made sure to host the best L&D speakers in Sweden.
Brella’s features like breakout rooms, intent-based matchmaking, and event data & analytics were effective tools to encourage easy and immersive connections and select only the most relevant content for the audience.
All this combined with a knowledge-packed 5-day event, set all the right basis for a flourishing community.
Set the basis for a community of L&D professionals - achieved! ✅
Conclusion
The attendees loved Knowly’s innovative event agenda as it gave them everything they craved: valuable speakers sessions, immersive workshops to test their knowledge, and plenty of intent-based connections.
The organizing team at Knowly has also appreciated the work Brella’s Customer Success team did together with them.
"We really liked that Brella offered the opportunity to have facilitated breakout rooms as well as the opportunity to book 1:1 meetings where this type of networking could occur."
Are you planning your next event as a touchpoint for your own community? Take the next step here and book a free consultation call with our event experts. We’re excited to help you bring your vision to life!
