How we helped Living Streets triple school sign-ups through influencer marketing
The backstory
Living Streets is the UK’s charity for everyday walking. Through its WOW - Walk to School Challenge, it helps primary schools build healthier, more active routines for pupils.
For years, Living Streets had leaned on celebrity partnerships to raise awareness for WOW. They worked, but they also left a few things on the table:
No clear measurement. Sign-ups happened, but the link back to social activity was murky at best.
A momentum problem. Most schools likely to say yes had already said yes. Sign-ups plateaued early in the year.
A narrow channel mix. Awareness-led activity, with almost no testing of influencer marketing as a performance channel.
This time, Living Streets wanted something different: real influencer activity, real tracking, and a real answer to the question “what actually drives action?”
The goal: drive 250 new school Expressions of Interest (EOIs) in the final three months of the campaign, contributing to an overall annual target of 450 new schools.
How it went down
We built an influencer strategy with one job: drive sign-ups we could actually measure.
We partnered with:
6 teacher creators to show how WOW works in real classrooms and build trust with the decision-makers
3 parent creators to put the campaign in front of the families who can nudge schools into action
A deliberate test of who really moves schools from “interested” to “signed up”
Content examples
Content built around real concerns
Rather than polished campaign messaging, we briefed our creators to address what actually holds schools back:
WOW is easier to run than you think
It slots into routines schools already have
It makes mornings calmer, not more chaotic
Day-in-the-life storytelling, especially Instagram Reels, did the heavy lifting. We also tested podcast, LinkedIn carousel, TikTok and Facebook posts.
Organic reach is great. Trackable conversions are better. So we:
boosted top-performing influencer content as paid ads
layered interest, lookalike and remarketing audiences to catch users at every stage of consideration
retargeted engaged users who hadn’t yet signed up
This three-audience paid strategy turned out to be one of the most important decisions of the campaign.
Owned channels, optimised
We worked with the Living Streets team to make sure every click had somewhere good to land:
pinned posts and story highlights answering the most common questions
a clear link in bio explaining WOW and routing to sign-up
reposts of influencer content to reinforce credibility
The results
Sign-ups tripled, year on year
190 new teacher EOIs vs 63 the year before - a +202% jump
67% click-to-EOI conversion rate
Every pound worked harder
£25 per teacher EOI, down from £79 - a 68% drop in cost per acquisition
£1.44 per parent-driven conversion - exceptionally cost-efficient
Reach that reached the right people
555,531 total content reach across both campaigns
+779% increase in Instagram accounts reached during the campaign period
82.5% of reach came from non-followers
1.65% CTR on teacher content (above the 1% Meta benchmark) and 34% CTR on parent content
Parent creators: the standout finding
339 email template conversions and 844 downloads from parent activity
Parents took 28% of the influencer budget and drove 64% of conversions
What we learned (and what you can take from it)
Parents are an underused growth lever for charity campaigns. They engage more, convert cheaper, and influence schools indirectly at scale. If you’re only thinking about decision-makers, you may be missing half the picture.
Influencer marketing pulls its weight on conversion, not just awareness. With the right tracking in place, every creator, topic and format can be tied directly to action.
The creator mix matters more than creator size. Smaller, hyper-relevant creators delivered the strongest efficiency. Larger ones delivered the scale. You need both.
Reels and Stories convert; podcasts build awareness. Useful to know which format is doing which job, and to brief creators accordingly.
A three-audience paid strategy beats a one-audience approach. Interest, lookalike and remarketing together is where the magic happens.
Here’s what they said
It has been a joy partnering with Social for Good to launch our new influencer campaign. The team’s expertise, creativity, and collaborative approach really allowed the campaign to thrive, achieving excellent results overall. The positive feedback received internally has also led to increased confidence and excitement in testing new avenues. We look forward to building on the momentum of this work and hope to work with the team again in the future!”
- Ruhi Bhalla, Marketing Manager @ Living Streets
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