The Angel Capital Association (ACA) is a professional society of accredited angel investors primarily offering research, education, and networking resources. It is a dues-paying membership organization with an estimated 15,000+ angels in its network who collectively deploy $650+ million in early-stage capital each year.
The ACA hopes to grow its organization by targeting Millennial-aged Investors.
The ACA wants new and younger investors to join its organization. They are specifically interested Millennial-aged Investors. This demographic (anyone born from 1981 to 1996) is a growing force in investing. They’re earning more, saving more, and investing earlier and at a higher rate than previous generations. They’re also expected to inherit trillions of dollars over the next 20+ years from their Boomer parents.
ACA wants Millennial Investors to include Angel Investing as part of their portfolio and to join ACA to foster their growth and development as Angel Investors. ACA also generates revenue through the sale of educational products and Investor Event tickets to members and non-members. While ACA wants to serve this constituency and sees the value and potential represented by the demographic, it doesn’t understand the audience well enough to market to this large prospect base confidently and effectively. This is an overview of our recommendations to them for developing a customer acquisition strategy.
We should emphasize there is important work to do before ACA starts taking on any marketing activities with the hope of building awareness or generating leads. The first essential step will be to define the intended targets of a campaign through market research. In this instance, ACA knows they want to reach Millennial Investors but that is about all they know. They need to develop a more complete portrait of this audience. They should understand the investing goals, habits, fears, preferences, behaviors, and motivators of Millennials. The need important details about Millennial preferences on learning methods, content consumption, financial products, computer applications, and more.
Market research should inform every subsequent step in developing a strategy. Next up will be to identify the best communications channels for a national Millennial Investor marketing campaign. There are many methods a business might choose to try and reach prospects from advertising and direct mail to digital marketing and public relations. How do Millennials consume investor news and information? What social media platforms do they prefer? What subscriptions do they have? Where do they go for investing advice? What sources do they trust? How do they engage with other investors? What off-line activities and referral opportunities exist to reach this audience? More fully understanding the target audience allows ACA to more precisely select the channels, methods and platforms that best align with that audience.
Understanding the audience is critical for the third step where ACA must choose the correct offer and message for the target audience. Generally speaking, businesses often choose entry-level products for their customer acquisition methods. For ACA, it makes sense to use their educational curriculum as this kind of “relationship establishing” product to appeal to an audience that is less familiar and less experienced with angel investing. Offering real value to assist in the development of an investor’s career creates satisfying customer experiences that lead to deeper levels of trust and engagement and can turn prospects into members. ACA must also show how its products and services address problems and offer benefits that are specific to Millennial Investors. Again, market research is critical to establishing the kinds of messages that will most resonate with this audience.
Finally, the fourth essential step we want ACA to take before launching any new marketing campaigns is to create a clear path that nurtures prospects towards purchase. This can be as much an internal process as an external one. ACA needs to plan for each stage of interaction with prospects and what kinds of messages and offers are appropriate as they move through the sales funnel. Equally important is a shift in attitude on the part of the organization. The truth is ACA has never thought of itself as having customers. They have members. The organization was created with a substantial group of founding members, and they diligently serve that membership. They think of customer acquisition as being friendly when someone happens to walk through the front door of the store. Perhaps the most important step and strategy the organization can take is the realization their current approach leaves them vulnerable.
Once these developmental steps have been completed, ACA will be far better positioned to take on the challenges of a marketing campaign to reach Millennial Investors. Our initial recommendations for such a campaign are built around five key strategies:
Revamp Product Offer
The primary offer ACA might communicate to a Millennial audience is its library of virtual courses on angel investing at $250 a pop. Courses are essentially a Zoom and PowerPoint. ACA should reconfigure and reproduce the first course in the curriculum – Fundamentals of Angel Investing – as a free lead generator and the starting point for nurturing the relationship. The progression could include invitations to future networking events and seminars, discounts on additional courses in the curriculum, and even a path to join the organization as an individual or as a member of an investing group.
Clarify Message
All of ACA’s promotional messages are built around serving an older, existing membership. New content needs to be developed that reflects the desire of the Millennial investor for personal invitations, testimonials, pictures of success, and mentorship. Millennial Investors don’t want tips and tricks, they want a plan of action. The website will be the hub for this marketing content, but the key messages of the campaign should be spread across all organizational channels.
Embrace Search and Social
The investment in organizing and improving website content and functionality lays the groundwork for more robust SEO and Paid Search strategies to drive traffic to a lead generator like the free Introduction video. Likewise, ACA should more proactively use social media (organic and paid) to reach the Millennial Investor and similarly drive traffic. A Millennial Investor campaign needn’t be all they seek to accomplish across their social channels, but customer acquisition needs to be a higher priority than self-congratulatory posts for existing members.
Prioritize PR
ACA should amp up its public relations, publicity, and content marketing efforts online and offline. It should leverage its deep roster of members with extraordinary success in angel investing to provide opinions and perspectives to financial media and ancillary outlets. An acquisition strategy focused on Millennial Investors provides a wonderfully defined editorial direction and scope for ACA to become a more recognized and authoritative voice.
Upgrade CRM Tools: ACA currently generates a mix of email newsletters and organizational announcements but lacks sophisticated campaign management capabilities. Improved CRM will help the organization select and group potential targets, communicate offers, and measure results. This last part about measurement can’t be overstated because of the feedback it can provide. Identifying metrics and tracking performance will allow ACA to learn how to produce more effective and efficient campaigns in the future. For an organization that’s only recently begun to feel an imperative for growth, this knowledge is operationally vital.
While the full scope of work facing the ACA will likely extend beyond these pre-campaign priorities and strategic marketing recommendations, this document establishes a direction the organization can follow to reach and acquire the Millennial Investor customer segment it is seeking.