”We approached Midnight during a critical period in our development. We needed to take a new message to our clients, as well as attract new ones to our much more sophisticated proposition.
Midnight supported us through exploring how we could communicate our proposition to our clients and supported all of our fee earners and support team in raising their own profile and that of the company through some very well-placed thought leadership pieces. We found the team incredibly supportive – providing both strong advisory and support in creating copy and campaigns.
We noticed a significant difference in both how our clients perceived us and the increased confidence with which our fee earners talked about our proposition.
Tom BlowerExecutive Coach, Black Isle Group
The challenge
How Midnight’s thought leadership strategy raised the game for a leadership development firm looking to flex its expertise
When Black Isle Group approached us, the business was at a crossroads. A leadership development firm with a target audience of C-suite professionals and senior HR decision-makers in the finance and professional services sector, the company had shifted their focus and had to communicate its renewed proposition to existing clients and drive new business by attracting the right decision-makers.
Fee earners needed clarification on how to communicate benefits to potential new business. Something needed to be done – and quickly.
From the start, it was clear thought leadership was the fast track to raising awareness and positioning Black Isle Group as the experts to its target audience. Who better to lead the drive than ourselves, with our proven track record delivering results in this area?
How Midnight met the challenge
Needless to say, our team didn’t hang around. We immediately organised a strategic meeting and brought the key spokespeople within the firm around the table to firm up our plan of action. From this, we identified the media themes and topics on which the business wanted to be seen as experts and married this with our experience and expertise on what we thought would work best with the media.
In these meetings, we get everything on the table. Our clients appreciate our candour and honesty around what is realistic and doable within the timescale and resources available. It’s no stretch for us to claim that this is where trust is built, as we know we will be working closely with the fee earners to take advantage of opportunities as they arise and require a quick turnaround.
Once we nailed the key media themes and topics, our team sprung into action, pitching top-tier media titles on the specific themes and by-lined articles and comments relevant to the publication. Our research seeks to understand the issues journalists and media will explore in the next six months. With visibility on forward features and intel ready to deploy, we could align Black Isle’s expertise with the topics of conversation and build the profile of individual fee earners in Black Isle Group’s respective markets.
As part of the thought leadership strategy, we supported the business with copy and content where necessary. We ensured we had the right connections ready to respond and react quickly to media requests and emerging national news stories.
The result? Our campaign didn’t just work well. The team nailed it.
Feeding media appetite to build profile
Imagine heading into a meeting with a potential client holding a copy of The Times featuring profiles of your top people or a double-page spread in the exact trade publication they read dedicated to the great work your business does. Wouldn’t that help persuade your potential new client that they’d be working with a highly respected and credible brand if they were to say “yes” to engaging with you?
Of course. But then this question was a set-up on our part because this was precisely what happened to many of the fee earners at Black Isle Group when they met with future clients. The success of our thought leadership campaign delivered 25 items of highly targeted coverage and 22 by-lined articles in top-tier titles. In other words, the titles the group’s potential clients consumed regularly.
By doing the legwork on understanding what journalists were writing about, our team was able to help the client deliver content on topical issues, such as Gareth Southgate’s leadership style, to broader challenges and opportunities the target market was reading about, such as the rise of Gen Z in the workplace.
From national coverage in The Times and CityAM to key trade publications, our approach to thought leadership ticked every box and helped Black Isle Group communicate its key message and position itself quickly during a period of rapid change.
Making an impact inside and outside the brand
The thought leadership campaign worked brilliantly in terms of the results we achieved and how the partnership between our team and the spokespeople worked to gain exposure over the campaign period.
As a result, the campaign supported the company’s brand credibility ahead of sales meetings with large corporate clients and high street banks they sought to work with.
The impact of our work with Black Isle Group also went beyond the external communications strategy. A positive side effect of all the coverage over the period was to engender a strong feeling of pride among the team who saw their company being featured regularly in the national and sector press.
And with a clear proposition and a strengthened brand, we were delighted to know our campaign had helped take Black Isle Group’s brand to another level.
