The honest bit, first
Did the marketing sell the tickets?
Honestly? Not directly, and that's the most useful thing on this page. Tickets sold through many channels, and most were closed by the founders themselves, person to person. That's not the marketing failing; that's how event tickets actually get sold in 2026. Our job was different: make a brand-new event look unmistakably real, premium and international, so that when the founders asked someone to buy, the answer was already halfway to yes. The socials delivered 78.5% of all website traffic. 35% of site visitors reached the ticket checkout, three to four times the industry benchmark. Then humans did what humans do best.
Marketing didn't sell the tickets. It made the tickets sellable.
The scope
What did we actually build?
Everything a real event needs to exist in public, from zero: the complete visual identity, logo system with four strategic concepts presented, colour, typography, photographic direction and tone of voice, built to read as a premium international event. A bilingual BG/EN website at sofiahairsummit.com, architecture, copy, ticket structure, checkout flow, Stripe integration. Three social channels created from nothing, with 58 contracted content assets produced and published across the engagement, three high-quality assets a week, every week.
The scorecard
Against published benchmarks
| Metric | Us | Benchmark | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Instagram reel reach | 232% | 30-60% | ~4× above |
| Facebook post reach | 35% | 1-5% | ~7× above |
| Top IG engagement | 4.6-12.4% | 0.5-4.3% | top band |
| Top reel engagement | 8.9-12.8% | 0.5-4.3% | top band |
| Checkout-visit rate | 35% | 5-15% | 3-4× above |
| Social share of site traffic | 78.5% | , | primary channel |
| Audience in Bulgaria | 89% (53.9% Sofia) | , | on target |
All figures from the end-of-engagement report, 22 Feb, 26 Jun 2026, measured against published 2026 benchmarks (Hootsuite, Postoria/CreatiCalc). At launch, the announcement content did 10× organic reach in its first 96 hours, and average website visits ran over five minutes.
Built from zero in March. Sold out by June.
The brand system
What does a summit brand need before anyone buys a ticket?
One logo, three colourways, and every printed thing a premium event needs: tickets, invitations, lanyards, certificates, flyers.
We built this too. Go click around.
The follower question
Only 966 followers, is that a lot?
It's the wrong question, and this case study is the proof. The channels grew from zero to 966 followers in a niche B2B vertical, professional hairdressing, in Bulgarian, in a country of 6.4 million. Those 966 followers generated 390,930 impressions: the content travelled 400× beyond the audience that followed it. Followers weren't the goal; sold-out seats were. Reach found the professionals, the brand made them believe it, the website took them to checkout.
The honest bit
What we'd do differently
The data is honest, so we are: TikTok never earned its slot for this audience, 62 followers and the weakest impressions of the three channels, while Facebook alone delivered 64% of all website traffic. Today we'd cut TikTok earlier and put those assets into Facebook and Instagram from month one. The audience for Bulgarian professional hairdressing lives on Meta; we proved it, then kept paying TikTok rent for longer than we should have.
The point of it all
The foundation for everything after
This engagement ended when the event went live, brand, website and channels handed over as a complete, working system. The Summit didn't exist before this brand did; whatever the event becomes in future editions stands on this foundation. That's what "built from zero" means: not a campaign, a launchpad.
This is what our branding and web design do when an event needs to exist by June. The Summit is a Sofia event, run remotely from Blagoevgrad: how we work with Sofia businesses.
Straight answers
The things people ask us first.
Did the event really sell out?
Yes, the 28-29 June 2026 Summit sold out. Tickets sold through multiple channels; most were closed directly by the founders, with the brand, website and socials doing the convincing before every conversation.
What exactly did the organisers buy?
A 4.5-month launch engagement: complete brand creation, the bilingual website with ticketing, and full social media management, 58 content assets across Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, from account creation to the event going live.
Why does an event need a brand and not just a Facebook page?
Because nobody buys a €200 professional ticket from an event that looks improvised. The brand's job was legitimacy: a premium international look that made every ticket conversation easier. The 35% checkout rate is what borrowed trust looks like in numbers.
Does this work for other events?
The playbook, brand first, website with real ticketing, social channels feeding it, humans closing, is repeatable for any event that needs to look bigger than day one. The niche changes; the mechanics don't.
Is the website still live?
Yes, sofiahairsummit.com, bilingual, built and launched by us. Go and click it.
Launching something from zero?