North Berkeley Wealth Management
Challenge
North Berkeley Wealth Management is a B Corp certified financial services company focused on sustainable investing and wealth management. They provide wealth management for high net worth individuals and offer expert personalized services. Protecting and growing their clients’ assets in a way that aligns with their values, along with fostering a sense of confidence among their clientele is their primary goal. Their business is built primarily on word of mouth marketing and referral. Because of that, the aesthetics of their brick and mortar space, website, and digital channels are key. On top of their personalized approach, having a beautiful space helps them create a compelling client experience. The firm houses an art gallery, offers art exhibits that are open to the public, and participates in a variety of community organizations and lectures. A sense of place is important to North Berkeley Wealth Management, and they show it across all their channels, both online and off. North Berkeley Wealth Management’s clients love the firm and are happy to refer new business. The main challenge for North Berkeley Wealth Management was translating their brick and mortar, community-based presence to digital channels. They wanted to make use of digital marketing in a way that reflected the warmth, personality, and commitment to community that they have achieved via traditional marketing. They also wanted to reach younger audiences that expect to find digital experiences in all aspects of their lives, from shopping to banking and more. North Berkeley was also considering changing the name of their firm. At project start the company was called “North Berkeley Investment Partners,” which did not highlight the most important part of the value they bring clients, which is confidence and peace of mind through a consultative and approach to managing wealth. The opportunity was to update their brand and build on their current success without compromising their core esthetic and community values. The firm’s leadership was ready for a change, but they were held back by concerns about additional workload , the culture change required by digital marketing transformation, and the impact of “going digital” on their existing clients. North Berkeley’s needs included: Deciding on a new company name Refreshing their brand Developing a coherent digital marketing plan Building a mobile responsive website Reaching new audiences through improved online visibility, especially via organic search (SEO) and social media strategies North Berkeley’s marketing team needed the right tools, familiarity with those tools to streamline production, sustainable systems and processes, and a website update to go along with their rebrand.
Solution
Colibri Digital Marketing provided North Berkeley Wealth Management with our Digital Marketing Transformation and Nest Website packages, along with additional services that met their unique circumstances. Deliverables included: Research and discovery Business analysis Competitive analysis Audits of existing marketing practices New name, logo, and style guide Actionable digital marketing plan Training At the end of the project, the client came away with a new website, an actionable marketing plan that included which channels would be used to reach their various audiences, and training on a production process using their internal team to implement a sustainable marketing strategy. A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH The Colibri Digital Marketing process is collaborative. We spend time with our clients so we have a deep understanding of their business, their industry, and their competitors. We used our familiarity with Bay Area sensibilities to create a strategy and process with North Berkeley Wealth Management, leveraging their innate knowledge of their audience and integrating it with their strong values and esthetics. We provided the tools and training so that solutions could be implemented in North Berkeley’s time frame. For the website process, we focused on the design and a build that supports a website strategy designed to delight users and generate new business. Our approach includes more than having a pretty and functional website. We make sure that websites serve as a marketing tool and asset. Our goal is to make a website findable via search, optimized for social media, and have a lead capture strategy in place. Core to our approach is the idea that even if a client doesn’t understand digital marketing, their inherent wisdom about their audience and business can be translated into digital space. Our job is to draw out what they already know and translate it to digital spaces through strategy and training. THE IMPACT OF A BRAND REFRESH As a result of the project, North Berkeley Wealth Management’s marketing was transformed in the following ways: A new company name. The new company name is more contemporary, and also includes a keyword term, “wealth management,” that not only expresses the brand’s focus on place, but is also searchable and has improved their rankings, making their brand more visible. Brand refresh. North Berkeley now has a new logo and style guide. The logo works well on social media profiles and represents a more streamlined version of their existing brand. It is elegant and approachable, just like North Berkeley’s team of wealth managers. Actionable digital marketing plan. North Berkeley now has an actionable digital marketing plan with a content strategy that will help improve their rankings and website visibility over time. Accountabilities have been assigned to various team members according to a schedule so that workloads are not overwhelming and everyone on the team knows what they are responsible for. Mobile responsive website. The new website reflects the brand’s esthetics, expertise, and professionalism. It is user friendly and contemporary, so it works for North Berkeley’s existing audience while welcoming younger audiences. Infrastructure and collateral. Using their new logo and style guide, our team created marketing materials, including social media and email marketing templates to create brand consistency and to ease production. Training. The North Berkeley marketing team is now grounded in all aspects of digital marketing. We are pleased to say that North Berkeley’s rankings have gone up and they have increased search visibility.
Results
A BRAND NEW LOOK FRESH AND FUNCTIONAL WEBSITE IMPROVED RANKINGS Before the transformation, North Berkeley Wealth Management had close to zero ranking keywords. Now they have #1 rankings for branded keyword terms along with improved rankings for terms on the buyer’s journey. Here is a selection of top ten rankings: North Berkeley financial services Berkeley wealth management Socially responsible investing San Francisco Bay Area responsible investing B Corp certified financial planners Bay Area ESG Bay Area sustainable investing
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