Learning how to build a strong financial future with Kiwi Wealth

Image source: Kiwi Wealth.

Kiwi Wealth helps New Zealanders to build their wealth so they can enjoy their future. The company is 100 percent NZ owned and operated so fellow Kiwis know that their money is managed by a team that truly understands the needs of people living in the island nation.

While Kiwi Wealth was building a reputation for customer service, trust, and transparency, the wealth management industry was becoming more competitive with new fintech companies disrupting financial services. At the same time, interest rates were the lowest they had ever been, which meant more customers were looking for smarter ways to invest and get more for their money.

Kiwi Wealth had traditionally taken a lighter approach to marketing, relying primarily on media coverage and word of mouth. But the company saw a huge opportunity for growth if it could draw people’s attention to the Kiwi Wealth Managed Funds product that made it simple for consumers to begin investing with as little as $100.

Recognizing the potential value for consumers, the Kiwi Wealth marketing team created a new marketing initiative, “Wake Up Your Money,” aimed at breaking down myths around investing and managed funds. Adobe Marketo Engage played a pivotal role in the campaign, delivering website landing pages, survey forms, and targeted emails that connected, engaged, and informed consumers. The campaign was a massive success, breaking Kiwi Wealth records for the most accounts opened in a single month since the Managed Funds product launched.

In this blog, Kiwi Wealth shares some of the lessons it learned from using Marketo Engage to deliver one of its most successful campaigns to date.

Create a center of excellence

Like many companies, Kiwi Wealth’s marketing team handled everything on its own, from writing copy to planning strategy to running campaigns. But after discussing their marketing automation goals with local members of the New Zealand Marketo User Group, the company began to realize the importance of having someone dedicated to ensuring that campaigns were set up for success and designed to run as smoothly as possible.

As the new head of marketing automation, Anna McLauchlan focuses on some of the technical aspects of running a campaign, such as establishing governance and ensuring campaigns are set up correctly so they can be optimised quickly with results delivered in near real-time. With reliable data and a consistent platform, Kiwi Wealth has the foundation to compare results and make data-driven decisions on the fly.

Know what your customers really think

Before starting the campaign, Kiwi Wealth did research to figure out what might be preventing people from considering investing in a Kiwi Wealth managed fund – and the results were surprising. There were some consumers who had never heard of a managed fund, while others thought that managed funds were high-risk or only meant for high-wealth individuals. The Kiwi Wealth team realized that to get people interested in managed funds they first needed to overcome misunderstanding and misinformation.

Deliver bite-sized information

The team decided on a “myth busting” campaign that would break down the managed funds myths one by one. Paid media advertisements across video, radio, display, social, and search directed consumers to a special landing page created with Marketo Engage. A variety of blogs and articles about managed funds published on the landing page, and those who wanted to learn more were also invited to sign up for a special “myth busting” email series.

Using Marketo Engage, marketers built a five-part email series that addressed one myth at a time. One email addressed the myth that investing is just for the rich by pointing out that investments can start at just $100. Another broke down the potential returns and growth potential from the three different investment options. Consumers reacted very positively to having easy-to-consume bits of information delivered right to their inbox, resulting in an average email open rate of more than 50 percent — more than twice the average for financial services companies. The team was able to use Marketo Engage to keep aside a “control” group to measure the real effectiveness of the email journey. The customers targeted converted at a rate of 150 percent more than the control.

Be flexible and push boundaries

Kiwi Wealth was nervous about how the “Wake Up Your Money” campaign would perform. The company had never had the right tools, people, or processes in place to pull off a campaign that engaged consumers with such direct discussion around its products. People involved in marketing, branding, and analytics worked together to pull off the successful campaign. The group spent many hours gathered around a whiteboard, brainstorming new ways to approach the campaign and target new audiences.

Marketo Engage delivered fast results that Kiwi Wealth could use to change the direction of the campaign on the fly. If one blog on the website had low engagement, marketers could change the call-to-action to attract more clicks, or even write a new blog that provided the type of information that consumers seemed to want.

“This is up there with one of the best campaigns I’ve worked on,” says McLauchlan. “Marketo Engage showed what we could do. With the right team, the right data, and the right technology in place, we can achieve a lot.”

Learn more about how Kiwi Wealth uses Marketo Engage to build wealth for people in New Zealand.