Career case study: Association of Investment Marketers
The Association of Investment Marketers provides marketing courses, events and learning and development content specifically for the Investment industry, developed to recognise the legal requirements and regulations unique to that industry.
Launched in 2014 as the Fund Marketing Network, as the offering had grown and additional courses had been added to the portfolio the attention had moved away from being exclusive to Fund Management and the ‘network’ offering needed to be realigned to the business objectives and customer requirements.
I was contracted for a six-month project to analyse the market and recommend how the business could re-position itself. As part of this we also explored course expansion and ability to scale, operation models and finally the re-branding and relaunch of the offering.
Market re-positioning
Over an eight-week period, I did a deep-dive into the industry landscape, analysing target audiences, running competitor audits and analysing existing data from the past 5 years. Using frameworks including SWOT, Porters 5 Forces, problem statement work sheets and issue trees, we were able to determine the key goals and how they aligned to the business objectives. There was a clear opportunity to broaden the Fund Marketing Network’s proposition into a wider offering and open it to marketers across the investment landscape.
In addition, there was a lack of clarity around access and service offering, with the name focusing on the network offering, but the key revenue driver being the courses. There was also an interesting quirk in how the courses were purchased, with comms and user journeys needing to fulfil a B2C role with industry employees, but also a B2B role selling directly into client HR departments.
Presenting the findings to the Board of Directors, we recommended a strategy and operation model that would enable to scale the offering without diluting the value of the product by integrating a new CRM strategy based on automation, improved digital customer journey and a dedicated community manager role.
Responding to consumer demand
The deep dive also uncovered several opportunities to expand the offering. The Future Leaders programme was created by the CLO based on the insights to develop commercial acumen, strategic thinking and planning skills as well as the soft skills, key for those moving from management to leadership positions. This was well received, with the first two cohorts quickly selling out.
I also worked with the team to develop a monthly Expert Speaker Series event, that encouraged course alumni to reconnect with the organisation and wider network through free breakfast talks with industry experts. The business objective was for attendees to either make recommendations for colleagues to join or consider signing up to the next course in the series. Launching in September, these grew to having 30-40 attendees a month by December 2019.
Re-branding the offering
We were aware that the re-branding needed to successfully umbrella the course offering, network offering and content offering. To ensure full buy-in from the wider team and key stakeholders, we ran a number of guided workshops and discussions in which the team collectively agreed on the Association of Investment Marketers, as well as two other potential names. We then went on to test with a focus group of clients and research for IP availability.
The agreed new name really brought the project together, and we worked with the creative department to develop a new logo, an evolution of the existing blue circle logo combined with the parent company burgundy, giving a nod to its legacy whilst giving it a fresh, modern icon.
In tandem, we redesigned the website to support the multi user journey experiences highlighted in the deep-dive, creating multiple content touch points and integrating it with a CRM system to help automate payments, event management and direct registrations of interest to the correct team member.
All new merchandise and marketing materials were designed, replacing goodie bags with high quality Chilli water bottles and pens, as well as developing individual course brand themes and replacing standard print-outs with glossy workbooks that could be kept as reference materials by attendees.
The Association of Investment Marketers officially relaunched on 4th September with a new website, integrated CRM system, social media re-branding and the new Future Leaders course.