SELECTED WORK / MAPLE GROUP / THINK CANADA FAIR
From one annual fair to 13 events: rethinking how Maple reached its customers.
The opportunity was bigger than promoting the next fair. It was changing when, where, and how prospective students could engage with Maple—and building acquisition systems around different customer needs.
MY ROLE
Lead Digital Marketing Manager
PERIOD
February 2024–April 2026
MY CONTRIBUTION
Growth strategy, acquisition, lifecycle marketing, partnerships, and analytics
REPORTED PROJECT OUTCOMES
5,650+
Reported attendees across 13 events
165%
Increase in Maple Education Canada organic traffic
52%
Increase in Maple Education Canada leads
01 / CONTEXT
Different audiences. One growth challenge.
Maple Group works across international education, student recruitment, and global mobility. Its brands served people making very different decisions: prospective students, parents, and professionals exploring relocation.
I led digital marketing and growth across the group. A shared set of tactics would not be enough. The work needed clearer audience distinctions, more consistent acquisition systems, and a stronger connection between discovery and a qualified conversation.
02 / CHALLENGE
The question behind the fair
Think Canada Fair was the group’s flagship student recruitment event. Its annual format concentrated a great deal of attention into a limited window. Promoting that same format more heavily would still leave some prospective attendees on the outside.
Audience feedback pointed to practical barriers: location, timing, the need for ongoing contact, and a preference among some prospects for smaller events. That changed the question from how to attract more people to one event to how to make useful engagement available to more people.
03 / STRATEGY
Change the format, expand the opportunity
I helped rethink the fair as a network of smaller, more frequent local events alongside the flagship gathering. The model created more opportunities for discovery, lead capture, partner distribution, and follow-up, including expansion into Ghana.
The event strategy sat within a broader acquisition system. SEO, paid acquisition, practical content, email journeys, and relevant partnerships helped move people from an initial question to a consultation or enquiry.
04 / EXECUTION
Build around the person making the decision
For Maple Education Canada, the approach combined student-focused search and education content with social discovery, consultation landing pages, and email nurturing. Mobility Options needed a different emphasis: professional audiences, thoughtful LinkedIn content, discretion, and high-value enquiries.
For Worldwide Integrated Network & Education, the work included parent-focused content, social channels, community building, and enquiry generation. My remit also included Maple Canadian College; the outcomes in this case study are limited to the brands and event programme described here.
05 / EXECUTION
Keep the system moving after the campaign
I managed segmented welcome, nurture, re-engagement, and consultation-focused email journeys. Campaign reporting and Google Analytics informed monthly growth decisions, while performance data helped refine content and timing.
Partnership work included sub-agents, Canadian institutions, schools, travel agencies, and financial institutions. These relationships created referral and co-marketing routes relevant to the decisions customers were already trying to make.
06 / OUTCOME
Reported outcomes
Think Canada Fair attendance expanded from approximately 800 to more than 5,650 across 13 events. Maple Education Canada reported a 52% increase in leads and a 165% increase in organic traffic.
Elsewhere in the group, Mobility Options reported 38% growth in high-value leads. WINE reported 45% growth in enquiries and a Facebook community of approximately 850 members. These figures describe different outcomes and should not be read as equivalent measures of revenue.
07 / EVIDENCE & ATTRIBUTION
What the evidence can—and cannot—tell us
The figures here are reported in my professional materials; the underlying registration dashboards are not currently available for review. The group also reported 21% year-over-year revenue growth during the period, but there is no supplied CRM-level evidence that isolates the contribution of these marketing activities.
That is why the case study focuses on the acquisition outcomes and the work itself, rather than claiming that one campaign or one person caused the group’s revenue growth.
08 / REFLECTION
The lesson: distribution can be a design decision
Customer research can reveal that an accepted business format is itself a constraint. Changing the frequency and location of an event can create an acquisition opportunity that additional promotion alone would miss.
The wider lesson is to build for continuity. Different audiences need different value propositions, and growth systems need to keep working between individual launches.
CONTINUE EXPLORING
From social discovery to founding users.
A CONVERSATION CAN CHANGE WHAT COMES NEXT
What could
we grow next?
I’m always interested in conversations with ambitious teams building products and looking for smarter ways to grow.