Berkeley Alexander – PR Success

“We have enjoyed a long and successful partnership with Spotlight.  Over the years they have provided sound advice and consistent, excellent results, month in month out.  I trust them to protect our reputation, raise our profile and always go the extra mile to deliver.”

 

Geoff Hall, Managing Director, Berkeley Alexander

PR has transformed the perception and profile of Berkeley Alexander, from a little known SME high street broker in Lewes, to be regarded as one of the leading providers of general insurance (GI) and the market leader in non-standard GI to the intermediary mortgage market.

Spotlight Consulting has managed the PR and communications for the wholesale general insurance provider, part of the Ardonagh Group, for just over seven years.

Objective

The objective is to support the sales and marketing effort by raising its profile primarily amongst the mortgage broker market through a combination of media relations and, more recently, comprehensive social media outreach.

On a limited budget, the PR has achieved and maintained outstanding targeted results every month, year in year out, demonstrating excellent PR value and expertise.

The programme and its results clearly demonstrate ongoing innovation and creativity to identify fresh angles every month, to write compelling content that delivers real PR value; expertise in PR to maintain key media relationships and retain the PR opportunities; specialist knowledge of the GI sector; and tangible evidence of success, both in the resulting press coverage, and in its contribution to the ongoing financial success of Berkeley Alexander.

Success Criteria

• position Berkeley Alexander as a leading provider of GI to the intermediary market through targeted message delivery in press coverage
• raise the profile of Geoff Hall as an expert in GI through media commentary
• raise the profile of Berkeley Alexander through increased presence in main trade publications and social media
• support the sales and marketing to contribute to sales uplift
• protect and maintain Berkeley Alexander’s positive reputation through proactive PR, and responsive monitoring of external channels
• evidence of ROI

There’s no room for complacency in a successful long-term partnership.  We learned that to maintain consistently excellent and high levels of output and to keep the delivery fresh, takes creativity but perhaps more importantly, rigorous planning and discipline.  We learned the vital importance of transparent monthly planning and reporting as well as annual evaluation to demonstrate results, to ensure they meet the targets set and that lessons learned are implemented in the following year’s strategy.

Spotlight has taken this lesson and applied it across all clients, big and small.  There’s no room for vanity PR in today’s marketing budgets and every pound spent must be accountable, so meticulous planning and evaluation are equally as important as a sparkling PR delivery!

Spotlight is a specialist insurance PR agency, but the target publications involved have meant that we have also over the years developed a specialist PR knowledge of the mortgage market – particularly in relation to GI.  We know the journalists and the key publications, and we understand the media agenda.

Unlike many other sectors, social media has only begun to gain traction amongst the mortgage intermediary market relatively recently.  It is now a viable PR channel alongside traditional media and Spotlight is now effectively and comprehensively targeting key social media influencers for Berkeley Alexander through both LinkedIn and Twitter channels.

Results

PR value from media relations is measured through press coverage as this is a tangible output that can be measured in terms of target audience, reach, message delivery and volume.  Berkeley Alexander has outstanding results every month with at least three pieces of quality coverage every month is key target publications and 38 pieces overall in the last 12 months.  That’s a third more than the target set.  In the last 12 month period it achieved an AEV figure of £185k – double the target set.

Social media has additional metrics that can be tracked to demonstrate increased awareness and profile including numbers of followers, likes and shares or retweets for example.   It is early days – only a few months in to the social media outreach campaign, but already the results speak for themselves with a very positive and encouraging engagement rate of 1.7% in month three.

As a result of the increased profile from PR, over the past 3 years BA has been approached by a number of networks and affinity groups to provide insurance services to their members. This has generated £200,000 of gross income to the business from these affinity/network relationships alone in the last 12 months.