Pensions · fintech
Dunstan Thomas
Content writing and dissemination to build brand authority in adjacent markets
Dunstan Thomas is a fast growing IT software and consultancy business. It has more than 30 years of expertise in the pensions market and has built a highly sophisticated suite of front and back office software tools under the umbrella brand of Imago.
As the company grew its software suite, it began serving a wider range of companies with different business requirements. It now provides software and IT support to a mix of major product providers, IFA and D2C platforms as well as third party administrators and workplace pensions specialists.
As Dunstan Thomas metamorphosed from being a pensions illustrations tool specialist into developing a wider range of solutions to meet specific challenges in the industry, such as ‘modernising legacy systems’, ‘engaging customers’ and ‘creating modern, yet highly secure online servicing portals’, and also became a specialist in enabling effective omni-channel communications, there was a danger of muddying the communication and losing Dunstan Thomas’ core support-base while necessarily extending its customer-base.
It also developed a strategy of targeting adjacent market opportunities, essentially taking existing capabilities into new but connected markets. So as well as serving IFA platforms it now sought to serve wealth managers, and alongside many years of expertise in providing solutions for SIPP administration, it also developed a SSAS capability. All of this meant the brand had to be stretched into these new adjacent markets and that the company needed to build its brand authority in those sub markets.
Solutions
During the early part of 2020, Miles Clayton worked with the then Chief Development Officer Andrew Martin to develop a reach-based thought leadership campaign designed to unearth topical insights around which brand authority could be built in the wealth management market.
As Chris Read, then Group CEO, explained: “If you are able to transfer your technology capability into adjacent markets you need to recognise that even if you have transferrable skills and technologies to add value in that new sub-market, you are relatively unknown amongst your new prospects.
You must build your authority in that space. You need to earn the right to be clicked on and read before you can earn the right to be included on a tender request.
The best way to do that, working with Agility PR again in our case, is to run some market research to probe the concerns and experiences of the new market.
When you share your findings with that sub-market, perhaps through social marketing or media coverage, automatically you have something which shows prospects that you understand their challenges and, implicitly, have solutions to address them. It’s that simple.
It’s not easy to do this work. You need to ask the right questions and deliver genuine insight back to the market. But if you are serious about growth into adjacent markets you cannot go wrong with this approach. But my advice is hire a good PR agency which understands thought leadership building to take the sweat out of your content creation.”
Results
Putting the planning into action, Agility PR decided to switch its focus to offering Dunstan Thomas’ regular twice-monthly blog post-style articles, which it wrote, to Incisive Media, which has a wide range of relevant titles in its stable (including Professional Adviser, Professional Pensions and Retirement Planner) and was busily strengthening the online presence for these titles. A relationship with the new Deputy Editor of both Retirement Planner and Professional Adviser was built through face to face briefings and an agreement to publish all our articles was carved out.
With two strong spokespeople active it became possible to improve the quality of thought leadership articles, so that with the same number of pieces as previous years (18 in 2015/16) it was possible to more than double coverage levels from an average of 14 per year to 35. More importantly, the articles provided regular, twice-monthly ‘opportunities to see’, building brand awareness and engagement through coverage in Professional Adviser Online, Retirement Planner Online and associated eNewsletters promoting these sites.
In addition to this work, Agility PR helped Dunstan Thomas communicate the merits of its first acquisition to the media in early 2016, and went further to help articulate the acquired firm Digital Keystone’s skill-base and core offering Adaptive Portal by writing a case study and producing a video case study of the work that Digital Keystone had recently completed for investment services firm Multrees.
Articles were also used by the CEO of Dunstan Thomas, Chris Read, sharing them with Dunstan Thomas’ highly active X and Facebook channels.
“Agility PR has been our media relations partner since its inception in 2003, more than 20 years ago. Their power comes not just through their ability to garner great coverage for us, but increasingly to go deeper, showcasing the knowledge and expertise that exists inside the heads of many of the people who work within Dunstan Thomas.
We built a consistent thought leadership position in the markets we serve working with Agility PR. And now that we have expanded our suite of offerings by acquiring Digital Keystone and building new digital customer engagement tools under the Imago brand, we could communicate even more insightfully thanks, in large part, to Miles Clayton and his team at Agility PR.”
Chris Read, Founder and CEO of Dunstan Thomas (until February 2024 after the acquisition of Curtis Banks by Nucleus Financial)