Bibby Financial Services
Opening the doors on finance
Bibby Financial Services (BFS) is the UK’s leading independent invoice finance provider for SMEs providing cash flow funding for over 4,000 businesses and advancing in the region of £370million. With the economic crisis and austerity measures creating wide scale change for businesses and continuing to dominate the news agenda, BFS saw an opportunity to pitch itself against the banks and champion alternative sources of funding for SMEs to support economic growth.
Facing
The Competition
The challenge facing BFS was that it did not have the high street presence or marketing budgets to compete with the banks on their own playing field; in short they needed a platform that would to set them apart and ultimately build awareness and engagement.
Leading The Debate
Bray Leino's B2B PR team devised a targeted thought-leadership campaign to raise BFS' profile amongst target SME and financial intermediary audiences with a focus on creating a voice for BFS as 'the expert with the personal touch'. Through a combination of analysis of in-house data to create branded insight into SME attitudes and business performance, external research on key business and finance issues impacting on firms in relation to survival and growth plus on going proactive and reactive commentary based on the news agenda, the B2B PR team delivered a high volume, thought leadership programme at a regional and national level which resonated with SMEs and intermediaries alike.
The Results?
- PR, in conjunction with activity across other marketing channels, resulted in new leads rising by 11% and the client base rising by 4%
- 932 pieces of coverage were secured with a PR value of over £1million
- 81million Opportunities to See (OTS) were created across regional, national and trade media including broadcast and online
"With Bibby Financial Services being an extremely commercially focused company all activity, including PR, is very much under scrutiny for the end result. The subsequent quality coverage achieved by Bray Leino has positively contributed to the volume of leads and deal which came into BFS via marketing channels this year. The tenacity of the Bray Leino PR team along with their willingness to gain in-depth insight into our market in order to deliver creative ideas to achieve media cut through is exactly the right mix we need from an agency which has become integral to our communication team and plans."
Andrew Rhodes, Marketing Operations Manager Bibby Financial Services UK