For over 10 years, Acuity has been revolutionising the trading experience for investors around the world with powerful, alternative data that promotes a better understanding of the financial markets and making more informed decisions.
Having reached a natural ceiling, Acuity approached Fireworx to help them support their business objectives – to triple revenue over the next 3 years and raise the profile of the Acuity brand in the market.
Historically, Acuity’s growth had been driven by relationships and recommendations. With an acquisition of the Signal Centre brand adding expertise in the ‘Regulated’ market space and bringing in new clients, the challenge was to make marketing a ‘lead engine’ for the business with a more targeted strategy.
With a legacy in professional newswires and news analytics technology and partners of Dow Jones, the pre-existing proposition was based on ‘News Sentiment Data for trading’ and didn’t accurately describe the current Acuity offering, or how Acuity was better than its competitors.
Gathering in Poole, a large contingent of the core team from across the world met together for a brand and marketing accelerator workshop. Prior to kicking things off in person we had researched and delved into the online broker and trading marketplace, looking at key competitors, studying first-party data, and analysing marketing activity performance. Over an extensive 5-hour planning session we did a deep dive into the values of the business, how the brand should be perceived, client buying needs, and insights.
Through a series of group exercises and probing questions across the team we formed a consensus on the focus of the brand, the challenges Acuity’s data and tools helped clients overcome, and the quality of the data provided. With a clear direction in place, we had the formula to help them unleash growth.
Fireworx created a marketing strategy, identifying the key areas of focus and priorities. We assembled our team based on Acuity’s needs, looking at multiple streams including; a new value proposition, brand positioning, creative, communication hierarchy, website development, email, and digital marketing activity.
Launching a new proposition – ‘Sharper Investment Data’ we captured succinctly how the approach that Acuity provided meant that investors had access to the sharpest investment data trends, tools, and analytics to help them make more informed decisions.
Using a kaleidoscope creative we captured the essence of what Acuity did, bringing complex data and making a clearer picture of it. The main image of an abstract diamond is a shorthand for the high quality, sharpness, and clarity the platform provides, expanding the unique nature of the imagery and style really sets Acuity apart from its competitors, with a brand style and tone of voice that they could own outright. Using a mix of vibrant colours and animations the new look creative sets off the cool crisp lines of the tools and is a juxtaposition of the two.
From this, we developed a new look website in Hubspot, which Acuity uses as their Customer Relationship Management (CMS) tool. Within this, we mapped out the customer journey and facilitated email marketing. The new website incorporates a new user journey with simplified messaging, animations, and videos to help demonstrate the range of tools and benefits they provide.
We are now working with Acuity to support driving and converting higher-quality leads through a mix of activities including; online search, tactical campaigns, events, and email marketing.
“We’d previously worked with another agency but had become frustrated with the lack of strategy or proactiveness. We’d felt like we were simply telling them what to do. When we came to Fireworx it was a very different experience. It’s been really refreshing to have an agency really gets what we do and is able to break down the complexities into something more simple to understand. Since the website launch and other marketing efforts, we have had our best quarter to date. What surprised us most was that the senior team is involved with us throughout so we always feel we’re getting that high-level care and attention every week. The strategic thinking and creativity are on another level, the team has really helped us to take the business to the next level and support us on our growth journey.
I’d highly recommend Fireworx to any brand that is looking for growth and to take their marketing to the next level.”
Nikki Carpenter,
Co-founder of Acuity