— Reflections on “Who Is the Real Protagonist” That Brought Long Queues to the Event

Background: A Commission from Shenzhen

Back in 2002, a Ms. Li contacted us through a mutual acquaintance. She represented Shenzhen Aodehua Information Consulting Co., Ltd., a well-established immigration and overseas education service provider founded in 1993 by Australian-Chinese entrepreneur Xie Yanwu. It was among China’s first batch of institutions licensed by the Ministry of Public Security to engage in private exit-entry intermediary services.

Entrusted by a Singapore business school, Aodehua planned a local event in Shantou. The session aimed to introduce study, work and living conditions in Singapore, provide consultation for those planning overseas studies or immigration, and recruit eligible Shantou students for Singapore’s tertiary institutions.

Ms. Li asked if our team could take on the project.

We did not give an immediate yes, but promised to reply the next day. We have always upheld one principle: treat every project with full dedication and deliver tangible results for every client commission. We never take on a project unless we can guarantee its success.

Breaking Through: A Small Internal Meeting Centered on One Core Question

That same day, we held an internal team briefing.

Instead of jumping straight into event execution plans, we started with a pivotal question: Who are the attendees, and who exactly do we need to reach?

After discussion, we sorted out four key target groups:

1. Students: The ones to study overseas, yet rarely the decision-makers;

2. Parents: The actual decision-makers and paymasters, holding fragmented knowledge about Singapore;

3. School principals and teachers: Trusted opinion leaders whose recommendations heavily sway students and parents;

4. Prospective Singapore immigrants: Secondary participants, not the core audience.

With this clear segmentation, our marketing strategy took shape: invite school principals and teachers as trusted anchors to draw students and their parents to the event.

On the afternoon of November 23, 2002, the Singapore study abroad seminar themed The First Stop for Careers & Overseas Studies officially kicked off at the clubhouse of East Zone, CITIC Haibin Garden, Zhongshan East Road, Shantou.

Co-hosted by the Singapore institute and Shenzhen Aodehua, co-organized by Shantou Association of Chinese and Foreign Entrepreneurs, the event received strategic consulting support from our team. Guest speakers included representatives from the Singapore school and the editor-in-chief of Careers & Overseas Studies, a journal covering overseas education and immigration.

Notably, Aodehua launched the magazine Overseas Journeys back in 1997, one of China’s earliest and most authoritative publications on cross-border education, which has been collected by the National Library of China. This solid professional background lent strong credibility to the whole event.

Execution: An Info Session That Drew Endless Queues

On the day of the event, principals, teachers, students and parents from numerous local Shantou schools turned out in droves, forming long queues for on-site consultation and enrollment.

What made the event so appealing?

We seized the right momentum: educators are natural trusted figures for families and students. When principals and teachers from multiple schools showed up, parents immediately perceived the event as reliable, while students were eager to attend knowing their teachers were present.

Meanwhile, the Singapore institute’s flexible admission criteria precisely matched our target audience: open to applicants aged 19–24 with secondary vocational, technical, high school or college diplomas. No TOEFL or IELTS scores were required. Students could pick courses tailored to their proficiency levels, and graduates would earn internationally recognized certificates, diplomas and academic qualifications. These low entry barriers sparked great enthusiasm for on-site registration.

After the event, the client spoke highly of our team’s performance. Aodehua has continued to deepen its overseas services ever since, operating steadily to this day with immigration and study-abroad programs covering the U.S., Australia, Canada, Singapore and more.

Case Takeaway

Riding momentum is not about hard selling, but identifying the natural pivot that lets your audience flow to you seamlessly.

An event’s popularity does not hinge on massive advertising or leaflet distribution. It all depends on whether you find the right fulcrum to leverage external trust.

Rather than knocking on every household’s door, we reached out to school principals and teachers to secure authoritative endorsements for the seminar.

Once educators became the event’s trusted advocates, student and parent participation followed naturally.