ArchOver

Key Achievements

• Differentiated proposition demonstrated to key targets in the national press
• Coverage achieved directly correlated to rise in new investors and borrowers
• Wide variety of approaches deployed, including timely press releases, letters to editors, editorial content developement and leverage of established media relationships

“Gaining a credible voice in this market is not easy, but the support of The Marketing Eye PR team has allowed us to demonstrate our differentiated solution to key contacts in our target press”

The Objectives

The Alternative Finance sector has become a bustling, successful market place in a very short space of time. The industry is projected to finance at least £5 billion in 2016 – not bad for an industry that was virtually non-existent as recently as 2012.

Along with all this success has come a proliferation of platforms operating in the market, each one eager to promote its own proposition. For any organisation to stand out from the crowd is not easy. There has been the added danger that the biggest, most established players with the largest budgets are able to use their firepower to dominate and blot out their would-be competitors.

The established Press has not been unanimous in its support for Alternative Finance, despite the support of a Government determined to introduce competition into the financial sector. They are poised to pounce on the first significant slip.

In the face of these challenges, it has been The Marketing Eye’s job to gain a foothold for ArchOver with the media and build good working relationships.

The Business

ArchOver’s ‘’Secured and Insured’ business model is unique not just in the UK, but worldwide. The corporate slogan represents the fact that all ArchOver loans are secured against the borrowers’ Accounts Receivable (ARs), over which a first charge is taken and registered at Companies House.

The second part of the message, ‘Insured’, reflects the credit insurance that is taken out to ensure that if loans do default for whatever reason, the lenders will get their money back. Credit insurance cover is provided by Coface, one of the largest credit insurers in the world.

Armed with this proposition and backed by The Hampden Group, a powerful, private financial institution based in the City of London, ArchOver made its first loan of £100,000 in September 2014. The current loan book exceeds £16.5 million.

Why The Marketing Eye?

ArchOver appointed The Marketing Eye in September 2015 as a direct result of a personal recommendation to Angus Dent, the CEO of ArchOver. The service required was Public Relations in the specialist area of financial services where we have an established track record of success based on knowledge and experience gained over many years.

The Results

Given that the mainstream media’s approach to Alternative Finance has been to warn consumers against the dangers of investing in such an emerging market, much of the PR effort has concentrated on emphasising the safety aspects of ArchOver’ ‘Secured and Insured’ proposition.

We achieved an ‘early hit’ in The Investor’s Chronicle in October 2015 when journalist Jonas Crosland’s article referred to ArchOver’s “belt and braces approach” being a “breath of fresh air in the P2P sector. He wrote “No investments are risk free, but the company’s business model goes a long way to meeting and answering the more immediate risk questions in what remains a young but fast growing sector.”

This was the start we needed. Since then, and thanks to the efforts of The Marketing Eye PR team, Angus Dent has spoken to and/or met journalists representing national daily and weekend newspapers, the financial trade, broadcast and online media. He has been widely quoted for his views, establishing him as an authoritative and independent voice in the industry.

In the meantime, ArchOver is being increasingly recognised as one of the fastest-growing and genuinely innovative platforms in the P2P business crowdlending sector. The business model has attracted a strong following of loyal lenders, including HNW individuals, family offices and some financial institutions. The loans have steadily increased in size from a minimum of £100k to an average closer to £300k. In March, ArchOver completed the largest ever non-property related working capital loan when it raised £2.3m for Scottish occupational healthcare company Duradiamond.

The Future

ArchOver is developing and expanding rapidly and, as it does, its PR and overall marketing requirements are evolving in parallel fashion. Now that the foundations have been laid, we are optimistic that The Marketing Eye will be in a position to ensure that ArchOver’s voice is heard above the crowd and that it will continue to punch above its weight.

“We have been well supported as our business has continued to grow, through editorial content development, timely press releases and ongoing relationship building with targeted journalists and publications in our sector and the wider financial field. The Marketing Eye team have excelled in this area and been an invaluable asset to allow us to gain an ‘in’ to most relevant titles – whilst raising our profile and helping to validate the credibility of our organisation and our solutions.”