Awards Interview: Charles Stanley shortlisted for four awards at Investment Week’s Investment Marketing and Innovation Awards

Charles Stanley’s head of marketing, Tessa Inglis, is something of an accidental investment marketer. Born and raised in New Zealand to parents who had both worked and lived in London, she grew up on stories of life in the great metropolis.

After completing double majors in marketing and media and communications at Canterbury, she moved to the UK in pursuit of her dream job in fashion marketing.

To make ends meet in the short term, she took a temporary job at Charles Stanley, and much to her surprise found herself  immersed in an unexpectedly fascinating world.

When a permanent job was offered she took it.

“I am constantly learning,” she says. “Not just about the company but about the impact we have in the wider world.”

Organising for marketing success

Since Inglis became head of marketing in 2018, the team has doubled in size, from a headcount of 8 to 17, and undergone a major structural reorganisation from a team of generalists where “everyone did a bit of everything” to three discrete units each with its own specialism.

“The previous approach was fine, but there wasn’t a huge amount of focus or strategy – we were working really hard, but the output wasn’t getting us anywhere,” says Inglis.

Now there are three sub-teams, each with its own specialism, events and partnerships, creative, and marketing operations & digital.

Maximising events and sponsorship

As well as organising events for the 25 strong branch network and a central programme, the events and partnerships team, headed up by Katie Cray and Laura Moon, has a specialist role dedicated to maximising the sponsorship of rugby union team Harlequins.

The sponsorship has a rich series of outputs. There is all you would typically expect in terms of branding – but there are also other outputs, like a series of videos smartly aligned to Charles Stanley’s messaging – professional players talking about preparing for the financial reality of retiring from the game – an early exit through injury, and the corresponding mental health challenges.

This is content that is both genuinely interesting to Charles Stanley’s target audience, and related to their services. (The sponsorship covers both men’s and women’s rugby.)

Getting creative with content

The creative team is the driving force behind content and design – Tessa’s original remit at Charles Stanley.

This team, managed by Nerissa Parker, has produced the ‘book of stories’ a guide for IFAs covering the issue of intergenerational wealth transfer, providing practical tips and advice for managing the conversation with clients.

This initiative serves both as lead generation approach, as IFAs need to register via a landing page to receive the content, and also aligns the Charles Stanley brand with a topic closely related to the provision of DFM services – smart content marketing.

Bringing it together with marketing ops and digital

The marketing ops and digital team led by Helen Russell-Hughes collaborates with the Creative team on content, and is responsible for the activity that drives access: the best content in the world is wasted if it doesn’t reach the target audience – advertising and online sits in this team’s remit. Inglis is at pains to emphasise it’s cross-team collaboration that drives success.

Work on customer pitches, customer on boarding and IFA lead generation also sits in this team – along with content and digital performance analytics – including a dedicated social media role.