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Category: Financial Services

Are you a polyglot? The benefits of international PR and marketing


Written by Michał Ratyński 

In today’s globalised economy, very few communications professionals only serve domestic clients. Probably, every day you make international calls with clients whose first language isn’t English. You quickly realise that, although your client relations skills are spot-on, there are some nuances that prevent the communications from being as slick as you’d like.

Speaking your client’s language is super beneficial in avoiding misunderstandings. It opens up unprecedented opportunities to learn specific cultural codes which are otherwise often lost in translation. Some basic things, such as ways of addressing people, vary enormously between different languages and often even the closest translation doesn’t do justice to the speaker’s original meaning. An example of a complex system can be found in the Japanese language which is far more formal than English when it comes to hierarchy or what is considered to be good manners.

At Aspectus, we aim to create a multicultural, integrated agency because an international workforce helps expand our horizons. Though English is often the lingua franca for B2B PR and marketing, multilingual teams make our communications easier and help expand the geographies we work in.

We are very proud that roughly 20 per cent of our workforce hail from beyond the UK and US. We have a bunch of Europeans (French, Finnish and Polish), Australians, a South African, an Israeli and a Zimbabwean in our offices. As a Pole I’m one of the international people who recently joined Aspectus. We recognise what our global workforce offers and work hard to support them with visas. And we want to become even more international as we keep growing.

Focus on European markets is another priority for Aspectus as it should be for any B2B communications agency. Regardless of the final outcome of Brexit, we will make sure to keep the closest links with Europe and recruit the best talent, wherever they are from. Why? Because having native speakers really helps to elevate business to foreign media outlets. A good example of successful pitching in a national language was our work for the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) in French-speaking Swiss media. We secured coverage in Le Temps and L’Agefi. Having direct contact with journalists can not only save on translation costs but also helps our agency to understand a wider picture of communications in Europe.

So, what are the advantages of the international people working for a PR and marketing agency? Communications is one of the most dynamic professions, which increasingly needs a global touch. Although the command of foreign language isn’t a necessary requirement for jobs in the sector, there needs to be a wider recognition that recruiting international people can really help boost business and bring the invaluable cultural knowledge to your company.

Are you looking for international PR and marketing support? Check out our services here.

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BackOffice Associates appoints Aspectus as its UK and EMEA agency

London, 8th November 2018 – Aspectus, the specialist communications agency for the financial services, energy, technology and engineering sectors, has been appointed by BackOffice Associates, a data transformation company, to deliver its UK and EMEA communications programme.

Focusing on proactive commentary, thought leadership and content, Aspectus have been chosen to raise awareness of BackOffice Associates skills and expertise in digital transformation. Aspectus was selected because of its experience of working with technology brands in a similar space as well as creativity and clear passion for the brief.

Jamie Kelly, marketing manager, EUAF, BackOffice Associates said: “We wanted an agency that we could collaborate with in order to bring a fresh take to the digital transformation debate and agenda. To do that we needed an agency that can run through walls, think differently and challenge us to be creative in our comms outlook. Aspectus proved that it has all of these attributes – and more – in spades.”

Sofie Skouras, senior account manager, Aspectus said: “BackOffice Associates is helping some of the biggest companies in the world reengineer their business through the power of data. They’ve got a great vision, rooted in decades of experience. What appealed to us most about working with them, was their willingness to be creative in order to shine a different light on the digital transformation agenda.”

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PR – know what you want to achieve


Written by Sophie Hodgson and originally published on the EQT Ventures blog 

A few weeks ago, I was invited to participate in a PR 101 EQT Circles event. Along with EQT Ventures Communications Partner, Lucy Wimmer, we were chatting with startups from across the VC’s portfolio – and beyond – about how to know when the time is right to invest in PR, in-house versus outsourced resource, why PR is not a silver bullet and of course, measurement.

Measurement is the boomerang that keeps coming back to bite PR in the derrière and it’s also the root cause of some serious frustrations that startups have with their PR efforts. What was clear from the room was that the general consensus on PR agencies was at best muted, but the predominant feeling was that these companies weren’t getting bang for their buck.

This, said Lucy, is something she hears a lot from companies. The issue, more often than not, is that startups don’t have KPIs in place to measure their agency. This resonated with the room as the majority admitted they had no metrics in place to evaluate agency performance or to ensure the opportunities being secured were in line with the business’ growth objectives. In the absence of metrics, all they had to rely on was a feeling and that feeling was, well, disappointment.

Sitting listening to these founders and comms people, I too was disappointed. Why? As an industry, we should be looking to deliver and prove business value – and the responsibility is on us, not a company that hasn’t done PR before. We need to be an open, honest and transparent partner to startups and businesses of all sizes.

So, when it comes to metrics, what are my tips?

  1. Be clear about what you want to achieve and the role you would like PR to play in that objective. ‘No man is an island’ as the saying goes and the same is true for PR – it’s at its most impactful, and measurable, when integrated with wider activity
  2. The old age adage of quality versus quantity is a well-trodden debate. To know that PR is having an influence, you need to understand your audience and how they consume media – then working with your agency you can be forensic about where comms can add the most value to the sales process. We work with clients to identify the influencers in their industry, the channels we can communicate with them and the right content to get their attention. Based on that, we work back to outline KPIs
  3. Don’t let measurement become the elephant in the room. Explain upfront how important it is to you to be able to benchmark success beyond a good feeling. PR has come a long way since the days when coverage piles were compared with advertising costs, we can be more measurable and no agency should be shy in talking about the different ways they can work with you to measure the business outputs of their activity

Ultimately though, successful PR is about the right partnership. And, whilst that’s harder to put metrics against, you’ll know in your gut if you’re with the right agency.If you are, have an honest chat with the agency about how you want the programme to be more measurable and the different targets you’d like to put in place. It was largely agreed at the event that if you never have the conversation, nothing will ever change regardless of which agency you’re with. As Ed Foreman said: “If you always do what you’ve done, you will always get what you’ve got.”

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Impact investing: tackling the doom and gloom!


Written by Alex Knight

Reading and watching the news at the moment can be a concerning endeavour. If it’s not the latest Russia-related diplomatic crisis, or Trump’s flamboyant tomfoolery (as I imagine his British doppelganger Boris might say), then it’s Facebook’s ongoing data scandal.

However, most people would also agree that the last few years have seen a spike in humanitarian and environmental concern:

Electric vehicles are on the rise, particularly in light of the Government’s recently announced 2030 goal, gender equality is being discussed and (to some extent) addressed, there’s also a growing anti-plastic movement and a tax on sugary drinks has even just come into effect in the UK.

In many cases, these are brought on by public awareness championed by a few key organisations and individuals; Tesla legitimising electric vehicles, Sir Attenborough for the plastic pollution problem and I guess Jamie Oliver for the UK’s sugar tax…

Get the mob on board

Anyway, if anything, these examples are evidence of one thing: if something draws the public concern enough, it’ll catch on. (Particularly when it makes long term economic sense like electric vehicles or recycling).

Impact investing is the practice of investing capital to generate a positive social or environmental benefit alongside a financial return. Impact investing can capitalise (do excuse the pun) on these growing popular trends – it’s a potential solution for many of these issues.

The term is catching on now faster than ever before, but it’s critical that momentum is maintained.

Bringing the practice more directly to the attention of the masses will inevitably increase support and engagement for the industry, both on an institutional and retail level.

So what can we do?

Most are simply unaware that a good deed can also generate a financial return. You don’t have to just give it away to a faceless bank – you can invest in causes you want to support.

We need to reinforce that key message and get it out there in front of all potential investors.

As outlined by a recent UK Government report, PR and the media will need to play a role in the up-take. We’ve definitely seen a growing level of media interest recently – something I have noticed working in the space over the last year – but the practice should be brought to a mass market.

We’re also on the brink of a major change in wealth allocation: wealth is trickling from baby-boomers to millennials who might soon have more capability to invest.

Knowing millennial trends, impact investing could be a popular way to go…

The aim is simple

Like with Tesla, Sir David and Jamie Oliver – impact investing needs pioneers to bring it to the front of dialogue!

There are existing organisations such as the Global Impact Investing Network (an Aspectus client) and Omidyar Network who are taking on that role, but there’s still scope for someone to come and capture the public imagination.

Now is the time to align private capital with that growing public consensus – it shouldn’t be the sole responsibility of government and charities to improve lives, businesses have a role to play and impact investing is the glue which can stick it all together.

With impact investing, we’ll get to read more of that positive news we all like reading.

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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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