Reaching high-level decision-makers has always been a challenge. In 2024, we successfully connected with one of the most influential CEOs in Saudi Arabia's healthcare industry through a paid ad campaign. He voluntarily provided his private email and mobile number via a registration form for one of our webinars. While many assume that top CEOs are impossible to reach without a personal introduction, this case demonstrates an alternative approach—one that doesn’t rely on mutual connections.
Today’s social media landscape offers unprecedented access to executives, yet they remain difficult to reach directly. Most high-profile individuals are shielded by assistants who filter their communications—sometimes with their own interests in mind. Additionally, their official social media accounts are typically managed by agencies, making direct messages ineffective.
However, despite their busy schedules and delegated social media management, these decision-makers still browse social platforms themselves. Many even maintain unofficial accounts with little to no followers, allowing them to consume content discreetly.
How to Capture Their Attention
The answer lies in paid advertising. Every major platform prioritizes sponsored content, ensuring that even infrequent users see relevant ads. However, for these ads to be effective, they must address specific pain points relevant to an executive’s role. CEOs and board members focus on strategic priorities—major investments, corporate shifts, high-profile networking events, and crisis management. Our successful campaign leveraged this insight by promoting exclusive business development tours for industry leaders, which resonated with our target audience.
Targeting VIPs requires precision. On LinkedIn, filtering by company size and job titles enables highly specific audience selection. On platforms like Instagram, broad interest-based targeting—such as luxury travel, private jets, and real estate—often fails because many high-net-worth individuals aren’t actively engaged with such content. Instead, targeting niche interests like corporate strategy, strategic investments, and public-private partnerships ensures that your message reaches the right audience. When assessing your audience size, it should be in the thousands, not millions—otherwise, your message will likely reach a lot of irrelevant recipients.
The Importance of Timely Follow-Up
An ad alone isn’t enough; it must offer an immediate solution to a pressing issue. In our case, the invitation to a webinar discussing how regional business leaders can connect with global corporate peers proved highly compelling. Not only did the CEO mentioned earlier respond, but several other senior executives from the healthcare industry also expressed interest.
However, we made a crucial mistake. While the CEO provided his private contact details in the lead generation form, he also wrote, “Let’s discuss advisory services,” signaling his willingness to engage even before attending the webinar. Yet, we only reached out three weeks later, after the webinar had concluded—a significant delay. He never responded, likely concluding that a company that takes three weeks to act on a promising opportunity wasn’t worth engaging with.
This was a hard but valuable lesson. Understanding that top CEOs are too busy for hour-long webinars, we made it a rule to engage with such leads immediately. This realization also led us to integrate lead generation campaigns for webinars as a core component of our business development and fundraising efforts for clients looking to connect with investors and decision-makers in the Arab Gulf and beyond.
The Key Takeaway
The biggest lesson? Personal introductions are no longer the only way to access VIPs. Through well-crafted, strategically targeted paid advertising, businesses can engage high-profile decision-makers by addressing their specific needs and providing tangible solutions. If executed correctly, this approach can open doors that would otherwise remain closed.
