Case Study
By Koprio Team · 5 min read
Mali Beauty is a small beauty studio in Eastbourne run by its founder, Liv. It offers lash and brow treatments, henna tattoos and skin facials. Liv has built a loyal client base the slow way, through genuine care for the people who sit in her chair. Most of her growth has come from word of mouth and Instagram.
The opportunity
One of Liv's clients, Emily, had signed up for the Race for Life 10k in Eastbourne in aid of Cancer Research UK. Emily has lost three family members to cancer and has two more loved ones living with it now. In her words, "the effect it has is something that can never be taken away, but we can use it to make a difference." She shared her fundraiser on Instagram and Liv reshared it to her story. We saw it and moved on it the same day.
Independent beauty businesses tend to have strong community ties and very little to show for them. The relationships are real, but they live in direct messages and quiet conversations, not in anything a new customer or a search engine can see. The opportunity was to support something that mattered and, with Emily's blessing, make it public and lasting.
The challenge
This had to be handled with care. Emily's story is personal and it involves grief. Any version that put the business first would have been wrong, both as a piece of writing and as a thing to do. The story needed to stay Emily's, Mali Beauty needed to sit in the background, and Emily had to be comfortable with every part of it before anything was published.
What we did
We brought Mali Beauty a plan, not just an idea
We took the opportunity to Liv with a clear proposal. Sponsor Emily's run by gifting her two complimentary treatments before race day, and turn it into a published editorial piece rather than a social post that disappears within hours.
We got Emily's sign off first
Mali Beauty spoke to Emily directly and confirmed she was happy for her story to be told publicly, with her fundraising page linked. Nothing went ahead until she said yes.
We wrote it as editorial, not advertising
We placed a feature with Eastbourne News, published on 17 May 2026, a week before the race. The article leads with Emily: why she is running, what she has been through, what the cause means to her. Mali Beauty appears as what it actually is, a local business backing one of its own. The piece links straight to Emily's Cancer Research UK fundraising page and back to the Mali Beauty website.
We placed it where it would last
A local news site keeps the article live and indexed long after race day. It sits alongside genuine community news, which is the context that makes readers trust it.
The result
Mali Beauty has a published article on an established local news site that tells a real human story and shows the business supporting its community in a concrete way. The coverage earned:
A permanent, credible piece of third party coverage rather than an advert.
A backlink from a local news domain, which supports Mali Beauty's local SEO.
A reusable asset the business can share across its own channels.
A wider local audience for Emily's fundraiser, ahead of race day.
Editorial built around a genuine story consistently does better than promotional content. Readers can tell the difference, and they trust the first kind.