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Category: Financial Services

The future of mobile marketing


Written by Zoe Poxon

A recent survey conducted by Flurry revealed that we spend over 5 hours on mobile devices each day. This tells us that there is a vast and engaged mobile audience out there which we could be tapping into, and it’s one that is growing year on year. Pretty much everyone has a mobile device, and there are plenty of ways to reach the right people.

So, what can you do to keep up with this growth and take full advantage of mobile marketing in 2018? Here are some things to look out for.

Google’s mobile-first indexing

In 2016 Google announced that they’re switching to ‘mobile-first indexing’. This means that Google will start to base its ranking of your website on its mobile version and no longer its desktop version (even if someone searches for you from a desktop).

If we look at some stats on how many mobile searches are made today, it’s not surprising why this shift is happening. Mobile search currently drives more traffic than desktop. And according to official Google statements last year, over 50% of searches are made from a mobile device. We can only expect this to grow in the future.

What does this mean for your business? To ensure that your site ranks as well as it can, make sure that you have a few different versions of your site available in different screen sizes, and that each version is optimised for search. You might even want to consider creating an app as the best way forward.

Voice search

Google previously reported that 20% of mobile queries were voice searches. And by this point we’ve all heard of Amazon Alexa and Google Home, which are perfect examples of how far voice search has come and how fast it’s growing. Other sources show that 40% of adults use voice search once a day, and that voice searches have increased over 35x since 2008.

My point is, voice search is (kind of) the new kid on the block, and in the world of mobile marketing, it’s one to watch. It works by aggregating the best and most popular answers that are being searched for around a particular topic. To ensure that you stand the best chance of showing up in the voice search results, make sure your key content is featured on your main website pages. This makes it easier for Google to scan your website and pick out the most relevant content and answers to a query. If you’re lucky, you might even get featured by Google in a ‘Featured Snippet’ – a search result that appears in a card at the top of the results page, which includes a summary of the answer. It looks something like this:

The summary is extracted programmatically from content on the web page. When Google recognises that a query is asking a question, it finds pages with an answer, and shows the top result as a featured snippet.

If you want to feature as top content, a useful tip is to have quality and credible answers to common ‘what is…’, ‘what if…’ and ‘how to…’ type questions on your mobile site. To understand more about how Google determines ad position and ad ranking, they’ve written an article to tell you everything you need to know.

Fast loading websites

Developing a quick and easy user experience is one of the simplest but most important elements of successful mobile marketing. DoubleClick’s research states that 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if pages take over 3 seconds to load.

Your website alone is a strong marketing tool as it should hold all your key content that will sell your product or service. Don’t let delays in loading time be the reason your audience is turning away.

Mobile advertising

There are many more specific ways to boost your mobile marketing efforts. You could use mobile advertising on websites, in-apps and on social media. Or try adapting your digital content to make sure it looks great on mobile screens (e.g. social media posts may need to be expanded / images may not appear as good as they do on desktop). And let’s not forget the option to advertise within mobile messaging apps. It’s a great way to reach a growing and hyper engaged audience – Facebook Messenger has over 1.3 billion active users, and with LinkedIn Sponsored Content, you can tap into their audience of over 500 million professionals.

Today, people spend more time looking for answers on their mobiles than on their desktops. Whether B2B or B2C, it’s every brands’ responsibility to provide answers to these questions, and to ensure their websites are tailored to provide a streamlined mobile experience.

If you’re looking to boost your mobile marketing, get in touch today to find out how we can help you.

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The rise of influencer marketing


Written by Zoe Poxon

Influencer marketing is all the rage among brands and PR professionals. In a recent study, which elicited responses from marketers across a range of industries, 86% used influencer marketing in 2016, 94% of whom found it effective. It’s a new tactic and there’s still mystery surrounding it. So, what exactly is it – and should you be doing it?

Here’s how it could help your business.

What is influencer marketing?

Influencers are specialists, or celebrities, that have built and retained trust and two-way communication with their followers. Influencer marketing taps into this already established and engaged audience to promote a product or service. Usually, the best campaigns are those where the influencer creates their own unique content to support the brand and its goals.
From health and fitness to stock marketing, social media is swamped with influencers that we try to emulate. And they’re so easy to find – there’s no need to search beyond the standard social media channels. If you need to, they’re probably not worth following.

Is it worth your time?

For this haircare company, one selfie post from Kylie Jenner enabled the brand to reach her 96.7M Instagram followers, generating more than 1.9M engagements:

This comms trick doesn’t just work on the A-list celebrity scales. If you’ve got interesting and relevant content, it’s worth taking the time to find the right influencers to get your story in front of your audience.

Whilst there is some debate over how to measure the success of influencer campaigns, they can have a higher ROI than traditional media campaigns. Take the Budweiser #GiveADamn campaign during the Super Bowl 50. 50 influencer posts across Instagram and Twitter reached 107M people and cost 13x less than Budweiser’s 30 second TV ad (it reached 114M people, at a cost of $5M).

What are the benefits?

There are obvious tangible benefits including follower engagement, driving traffic, and the creation of more authentic content. But let’s not forget that word of mouth recommendations are more important than ever, and social media makes great content essential and relevant.

With the rise of ad blocker usage (and the fast forward button on our TVs), it’s easy to avoid traditional advertising. This, plus the fact that consumers are shifting their attention to digital platforms, makes influencer marketing a very relevant and effective social media strategy.

What does influencer marketing mean for B2B?

It’s unlikely that the Jenners would share our content, but we can relate to other major influencers in our sectors. Martin Lewis has a huge impact in the energy market – all it takes is one mention on This Morning for a company’s sales to rocket. Similarly, a mention from Ashton Kutcher would certainly spark interest in technology. The tech investor has put money into Airbnb, Spotify and Uber, to name a few.

When we generate compelling and engaging content, we might reach out to journalists or thought leaders in our respective sectors to share or put a unique spin on our stories. We might also use Google Hangouts or conduct a poll, which are great ways to gain valuable audience insights. We can then use findings as the basis for creative content, or a broader marketing approach.

How can influencer marketing supercharge your comms?

  1. Influencers are already talking to your target audience – they have done the ground work by creating an audience (follower base) for you
  2. They have built credibility and trust – followers will be genuinely interested in what an influencer has to say
  3. They are everywhere – every industry has influencers, you just need to use the right tools to find them

Traditional PR channels still have high value. But if you’re looking to really amplify your digital comms; engage the influencers that have already won the hearts and minds of the people that would genuinely listen to your message.

To understand how influencers can support your marketing goals, please get in touch.

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Five ways to make a name in blockchain


Written by Joe McGurk

Blockchain has become the poster child for the challenge of building a fintech brand.

The distributed ledger technology that supports the bitcoin digital currency has been heralded by some as the ultimate fintech solution for transaction efficiency. Others, including a number of the financial institutions that need to buy into it, see blockchain as an incessant push for yet more technology that hasn’t been proven trustworthy or necessary. After all, sales pitches for banking ingenuity have been going strong for about 4,000 years. That’s roughly when an entrepreneur sold the first customer on the idea of storing a season of hard-earned grain in the entrepreneur’s vault, with trust that the small trinket they walked away with would prove there was wealth being protected.

From trinkets to blockchain, disruption in financial services throughout history started with proving that change was needed, dispelling mistrust and providing reassurance that wealth is protected.

There’s no shortage of blockchain solutions and innovators ready to alleviate the concerns blockchain brings. That may be any brand’s biggest problem: The sheer number of solutions crowding the fintech landscape. Once convinced a technology change must be made, a financial institution must wade through sales pitches and news articles to find something that can be trusted as well as have a sense of what competitors agree is the solution.

It takes more than just being the best solution. Could Apple have disrupted without Steve Jobs? Would electric cars be taken seriously without Elon Musk? Whoever pushes blockchain to the front of the fintech line will project a unique personality that offers a brand that can be trusted. Blockchain may be new, but looking through the lens of experienced public relations and marketing among fintech disruption, building the blockchain brand is rooted in time-tested best practices:

1. Being different is important – but being someone is critical

Before you can tell the world who you are, you need to make sure you know yourself – and what makes you different. One of the easiest ways to do something that no one else is doing is to have an identifiable personality. Your brand is your product, therefore your brand needs to be distinct and accessible and visible. It’s a critical component to building positive relationships with the press and other influencers you need to tell your story. An identifiable brand builds credibility in the fintech industry and gets the attention of the people needed to help expand the business. This requires a spokesperson who can infuse personality into a company or solution.

2. Know your own story

Your message is what sets you apart. That messaging should be consistent and woven into every narrative you have. Everyone in the blockchain world has a story to tell, but the standouts know how to tell the same story over and over again with consistent passion. That means across social media, in press interviews, across your website and throughout your sales and marketing collateral.

3. Ask for help when it’s time to tell your story

You may be good at tech and financial services. That doesn’t mean you’re good at telling your story. Not many leaders can dedicate the time it takes, day in and day out to sell their story. That’s where you find the value of partnering with an evangelist, someone who can talk to all of your audiences with the same zeal you have for your business. Specialist communication pros make good hype teams, and may be even more excited about your plans. A good PR partner will be instrumental in building a strong identity, and getting you in front of the right people using the right channels.

4. It’s not all (always) about you

Would you go to a cocktail party and insist on only talking about how great you are? It tends to turn people off. The same social grace can be applied to your branding. Once you launch a product into market, it’s critical you’re seen as plugged into the market. Work with someone who can insert you into the conversations already happening. Meeting journalists face-to-face will deliver ROI over a long term if you establish that you can help them understand the market as much as they can help you get visibility in the market. Have an opinion on the industry that is shaped by your own key messages.

5. Know your customers and know their rules

Knowing the market and what keeps financial service pros up at night is as important as knowing how your product works. Markets change, so a partner who is keeping tabs on competitors, legislators and more is invaluable. A PR firm will have launched many businesses and built them through to an end game. They most likely have worked in your core sector so know how it functions – the influencers, the media, the market structure and the regulations and rules that underpin it.

Blockchain has a shot at being the next great banking innovation. To make it work as promised, blockchain may need not one, but several, technologies and providers stitched together. Getting into that network takes visibility. Getting third-party validation from media is a time-tested route to building brands. Even the best product in any market is going to fail if no one knows about it.

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Aspectus appoints Annabel Rivero to financial services team

London, 17th January, 2017 – Aspectus, the global communications agency serving the financial services, technology and engineering sectors, has appointed Annabel Rivero to its London-based financial services team.

Annabel joins Aspectus from Lansons where she spent more than three years representing clients in a variety of sectors including consumer and private banking, retail investment, asset management and insurance.

Commenting on her appointment Annabel said: “I’m thrilled to be joining such a dynamic and forward thinking agency. Since I started my career I’ve gained a range of experience in areas such as strategic planning, content creation and executing consumer campaigns. I am really excited about building on my current skill set with the help of the financial services team at Aspectus.”

Katy Galasinski, Group Director, Aspectus, added: “New talent is key to supporting the growth of the agency so we are really pleased to have Annabel on board. We are continuing to expand as our combined approach to content, media and search and award-winning communications results attracts interest across our sectors. Annabel’s experience, especially in consumer finance, is a great fit to complement the work which we are doing on the financial services team.”

– ENDS –

About Aspectus

Aspectus, the engagement agency, is an international communications agency specialising in financial services, energy, technology and engineering.

In our hands communications transforms the way businesses engage with their markets. Our award-winning approach, creativity and market knowledge builds brands, increases sales, attracts investment and supports business growth.

To find out more, visit: www.aspectuspr.com

Media contact
Alastair Turner
Aspectus
T (UK): +44 (0) 20 7242 8867
T (USA): +1 (646) 202 9845
T (Asia): +65 6597 0954
E: pr@aspectusgroup.com
www.aspectusgroup.com

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Emerald Life selects Aspectus for integrated communications

London, 10th January, 2017 – Emerald Life, a new insurance provider specialising in inclusion and diversity, has appointed Aspectus as its communications agency.

Aspectus will run Emerald Life’s media relations and advise on how to extend media campaigns across online and offline channels to increase their reach and influence.

Heidi McCormack, CEO Emerald Life, said: “We’ve got a big mission – to better represent those who have been underserved by insurers including the LGBT community, women and diverse family units. We needed an agency with the energy and ambition to match. That’s what we saw in Aspectus.”

Katy Galasinski, Group Director, Aspectus, added: “Our financial services team takes great pride in working with businesses that are genuinely doing things differently. There is so much talk of disruption in this sector but Emerald Life is really changing how insurance is offered. Our integrated, cross-channel strategy and creative ideas will give Emerald Life the recognition it deserves and drive potential customers to its website, ready to engage.”

Aspectus’ insurance team recently launched digital platform Inzura, and continues to manage top tier media relations for risk modeller RMS, while its personal finance team is running communications for online investment service, Wealthify, crowdfunding and P2P aggregator, Off3r, and retail trading firm OANDA.

– ENDS –

About Aspectus

Aspectus, the engagement agency, is an international communications agency specialising in financial services, energy, technology and engineering.

In our hands communications transforms the way businesses engage with their markets. Our award-winning approach, creativity and market knowledge builds brands, increases sales, attracts investment and supports business growth.

To find out more, visit: www.aspectuspr.com

Media contact

Alastair Turner
Aspectus
T (UK): +44 (0) 20 7242 8867
T (USA): +1 (646) 202 9845
T (Asia): +65 6597 0954
E: pr@aspectuspr.com
www.aspectuspr.com

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Aspectus and Fidessa celebrate eight year PR partnership anniversary

London, 13th December, 2016 – This month marks the eight year anniversary of the PR partnership between Aspectus, the specialist communications agency for the financial services, energy, engineering and technology sectors, and Fidessa, the award-winning trading technology firm.

Aspectus was appointed as Fidessa’s media relations agency in 2008, following its takeover of a business that had been a previous client of Aspectus for more than six years. Since then Aspectus has supported Fidessa with branding and content development, including whitepapers, videos and infographics, and media relations.

Simon Barnby, Group Marketing Director, Fidessa, said: “The capital markets team at Aspectus has provided us with eight years of valuable support. Like any successful relationship, it has morphed and changed and all sides have worked to keep it fresh and focussed. Aspectus delivers consistently top quality media results and the latest segment they secured for us on Sky News is a clear example of that.”

Katy Galasinski, Group Director at Aspectus added: “Fidessa has been pivotal in many aspects of the agency’s development, backing us to open in the US and expand our services. The relationship we have today is completely different from how things started, but the core team remains largely unchanged. We are delighted to be celebrating eight years of hard work on both sides and look forward to many more.”

Aspectus’ specialist capital markets team also supports ITG, Tradeweb and Cavendish Asset Management. It also ran Nasdaq’s European media relations for two years. The team supports clients of all sizes from the established players through to disruptive start-up firms.

– ENDS –

About Aspectus

Aspectus, the engagement agency, is an international communications agency specialising in financial services, energy, technology and engineering.

In our hands communications transforms the way businesses engage with their markets. Our award-winning approach, creativity and market knowledge builds brands, increases sales, attracts investment and supports business growth.

To find out more, visit: www.aspectuspr.com

Media contact

Alastair Turner
Aspectus
T (UK): +44 (0) 20 7242 8867
T (USA): +1 (646) 202 9845
T (Asia): +65 6597 0954
E: pr@aspectusgroup.com
www.aspectusgroup.com

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Aspectus offers communications support to Swiss Finance Startups (SFS) members at preferential rates

Luzern, 6th December, 2016 – Aspectus, the specialist communications agency for the financial services, energy, engineering and technology sectors, will now offer SFS members access to its award-winning communications services at a reduced rate.

Aspectus has developed a number of work packages for SFS members to help Swiss fintech businesses take their ideas global. Whether firms are launching new products, seeking investment or in need of a bigger profile or brand, Aspectus’ specialist fintech communications team is on hand.

“Our members are seeking world class communications to grow their businesses,” said Urs Haesler, SFS Board Member. “With Aspectus’ experience in fintech, we know they will be able to offer a very credible and very valuable service.”

Katy Galasinski, Group Director at Aspectus added: “Switzerland is an exciting hub of innovation in finance and technology. Done well, communications can make a huge difference to Swiss fintechs, delivering increased sales, investment and vital connections with key influencers. We look forward to working with more Swiss businesses through our partnership with the SFS, which is making significant and positive changes to the shape and structure of Swiss fintech.”

Aspectus opened its Luzern office in 2015. It supports a number of financial services clients from brokers, to consultancies and investment banks. Aspectus’ fintech experience stretches across the sector covering insurtech, regtech and disruptors in payments, capital markets and banking. It has worked with the likes of eToro, Wealthify, Eagle Alpha, Inzura, FXcompared and many more.

To take up the offer, members can visit the SFS website or contact info@aspectuspr.com.

– ENDS –

About Aspectus

Aspectus, the engagement agency, is an international communications agency specialising in financial services, energy, technology and engineering.

In our hands communications transforms the way businesses engage with their markets. Our award-winning approach, creativity and market knowledge builds brands, increases sales, attracts investment and supports business growth.

To find out more, visit: www.aspectuspr.com

Media contact

Alastair Turner
Aspectus
T (UK): +44 (0) 20 7242 8867
T (USA): +1 (646) 202 9845
T (Asia): +65 6597 0954
E: pr@aspectusgroup.com
www.aspectusgroup.com

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The lunch remains the same: The enduring importance of the journalist lunch


Written by Matthew Sheahan

We live in a time when communications are becoming faster paced and our ways to interact with the world are multiplying. The advent of popular social media makes for a dizzying array of choices and interfaces. Am I out of date because I don’t have a Snapchat account? Does anyone under the age of 30 use email for anything other than work?

As the forms of communications are constantly changing and being updated, face time (no, not FaceTime!) is going to remain important. That’s why every single public relations worker should be taking journalists to lunch and making those personal connections as often as possible. Having that personal connection buys you a VIP table in someone’s headspace. Don’t turn down the chance to put a face and a good memory of a tasty lunch to your name; when a journalist sees your name in his or her inbox and is prompted to respond, you’ll be glad you made the effort.

When I worked as a journalist, I heard from a lot of public relations people. Some were good at their jobs and some were bad. The ones I remember most easily were the ones I had met in person. Those tended to be the better ones to begin with, because they took the time to foster a real relationship and get to know what it was that interested me and informed my work.

Even if I had no particular use for what those PR pros I had met were pitching me, I would make it a point to read through their email, hear them out, and see if their story was useful to one of my colleagues. A select few of them I’d go to when I was looking for a source, to see who among their clients may be able to speak with me about this particular subject or that.

Going to lunch with a journalist gives you another chance to ask them what they are working on, catch up on the latest people moves at their publications or sister publications, and let them know about you and your clients in a relaxed atmosphere. It gives the journalist (and you) a chance to get out from behind the desk for an extended period of time.

Having good relationships with journalists is central to what we offer our clients. Building those relationships is good for business and means we stand a better of chance of succeeding in our campaigns. Just as we don’t form long-lasting relationships with clients without in-person meetings, we’re not going to form the best journalist relationships without in-person meetings either.

Media Relations are key to what we do at Aspectus. Our reputation is going to precede us in everything that we do. We want journalists to have a positive association with us before we reach out to them on behalf of our clients. Our clients want us to know the media inside and out, and you’ll learn a lot more over a lunch than clicking through LinkedIn.

We encourage the team to invite two journalists to lunch every week, and aim to invite a journalist into the office to get their take on the state of media and journalist/PR relationships (over lunch). We keep a spreadsheet of these lunch invitations so we can track them and avoid too much repetition. We often mention going to lunch in a follow-up email after pitching a journalist or in conversation as part of a pitch. We try to make sure it’s a routine part of our outreach. They won’t always say yes and they often won’t respond, but you don’t know unless you ask. Fortune (and fortune cookies) favors the bold.

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EuroFinance selects Aspectus to run the media relations for European treasury event

London, 5th October – Aspectus, the global communications agency serving the energy, financial services, and technology sectors, has been select by EuroFinance to run the media relations for its 25th International Treasury and Cash Management Conference, which will take place in Vienna from October 12th-14th.

EuroFinance chose Aspectus because of the agency’s proven track record in delivering strong media and content campaigns for clients in business finance space, including OpenLink, OnGuard and OANDA.

EuroFinance is looking to Aspectus to increase its profile across the business media in the run up to the conference. The event attracts nearly 2,000 senior level delegates and speakers from over 50 countries to discuss the current challenges facing group treasurers, financial director and CFOs.

Jane Pinfield, Head of Marketing at EuroFinance, said: “Our reputation among group treasurers and financial directors has grown significantly over the past two decades, and now we are aiming to further elevate our brand amongst the c-level. With an in-depth understanding of the corporate treasury space combined with a proven track record of securing coverage in the business press, Aspectus is the perfect partner for us.”

Ellie Bacon, Group Account Director at Aspectus, added: “EuroFinance is the latest in our growing portfolio of clients in business finance. Getting our clients in the highest tier of media is a key element of a unique approach to communications that we have developed over time. In addition to media, this approach also embraces visual and written content, as well as search engine marketing – which all links clients’ marketing spend to measurable business outcomes.”

– ENDS-

About Aspectus

Aspectus, the engagement agency, is a global communications agency focusing on financial services, energy, oil and gas, technology and engineering.

Our award-winning work builds brands, increases sales, attracts investment and supports business growth. We develop creative, integrated campaigns that engage target audiences and we guarantee outcomes, focusing on business results. That means original ideas and high-impact visual and written content promoted through the most effective channels. We do this all in a way that builds clients’ online profiles, integrates search and drives prospects to their website.

To find out more, visit: www.aspectuspr.com

Media contact

Alastair Turner
Aspectus
T (UK): +44 (0) 20 7242 8867
T (USA): +1 (646) 202 9845
T (Asia): +65 6597 0954
E: pr@aspectusgroup.com
www.aspectusgroup.com

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