Raising investment? Five ways a strategic creative agency can get you ready

If you’re a growing business that’s two to three years old, you may be going out for your next round of investment. You have customers, traction and you know your numbers – but there’s more you can do to put yourself in the strongest position possible for scale and investment.

As a strategic creative agency, working across digital, design and branding, these are all things we are experienced in helping startups and scale-ups with.

Know your position: brand audit and competitor review
Investors need to know where your business sits in the market. This means conducting a comprehensive brand audit and competitor review. A SWOT analysis and assessment of your target audience compared with competitors will give you valuable insights.

Assess your brand identity, looking at visuals, messaging and positioning, to identify where it can be improved, e.g. more up to date, simplified, consistent across all customer touch points, and differentiated from competitor brands.

Analyse your social equity, through customer perception and sentiment analysis (e.g. social media mentions, reviews and surveying users). This will show you in more detail how your brand is perceived by consumers (and how investors are likely to perceive it).

We helped Dr Foster Intelligence, a market-leading healthcare analytics company used by most NHS hospitals, to reposition itself in the build-up to a successful acquisition. Starting with a brand and competitor audit, we created a new brand voice and identity that presented the business as a stronger proposition. It was bought by Telstra Health for an estimated £20-25m.

Improve your digital experience: a strong proposition

If you’re a digital business, investors will want to see a strong digital presence. Review your analytics to track user behaviour and identify friction, drop-off points and successful features, then use these insights to refresh and optimise your product or website.

Conduct user testing, to understand your customers, what they want from your product and how they use it. This may have changed since you started, and speaking directly to them will help you prioritise enhancements and new features, with decisions based on real user data.

Showcase how you would improve (e.g. navigation, better UX, more/fewer features, retention, higher conversion rate), and what that would mean for the business and your revenue. This can strengthen your investment case.

Review the opportunities and need to integrate new technologies such as AI and how this might improve the digital experience for customers and investors, as well as help you scale. This shows forward thinking, the use case for investment, and the opportunities for innovation – attracting investors seeking disruptive solutions.

Hong Kong IFA represents the region’s fund management industry, but its website no longer reflected its position. We built a digital platform and brand presence that positions HKIFA as the authority and improves the way members engage and access knowledge. It meets multiple client needs including functionality, scalability, data automation, language translations and accessibility.

Refine your presence: clear positioning

Clear and compelling positioning is essential to appeal to investors. Refine your vision, mission statement and brand values. Articulate your USP compared with the market and highlight your competitive advantage. All this will show your differentiation and ambition for market leadership, helping investors to see the opportunity, solution and potential to scale, solidifying your position as a promising investment opportunity.

A consistent tone of voice across all channels builds recognition and credibility, and a narrative emphasising scalability and growth potential reinforces the robustness and growth potential of your business model.

We developed a new visual identity for Strat7, a global strategic insights and analytics group, one that reflects its work helping businesses navigate change. This put the brand in a strong position for the leadership team to go out for their next round of funding and acquisition. What followed was an “exceptionally strong” year of growth for the business.

Tell your story: connect with investors emotionally

As well as the financials, investors are drawn to a compelling narrative and the people behind the venture. Share evidence of past successes and milestones, to give them confidence in your ability to execute. Highlight the experience, expertise and credibility of your team. Tell your personal stories, especially if they align with the mission and values of your business, to create emotional connections with investors.

Whether you’re a healthcare startup driven by a personal experience or a technology company with a transformative vision, storytelling humanises your brand and resonates with investors on a deeper level.

We created a Secret Santa platform and campaign for Action for Children, shifting the narrative around Christmas from consumerism to safety, love and care. In the first season, 6,000 people became secret Santas, giving an average donation of £23 (beating the £10 target). It’s now an annual campaign.

Use social media: engage customers and investors

Social media is a powerful tool for reaching and engaging customers and investors, if you have a well-defined strategy that demonstrates your brand’s relevance and appeals directly to your target audience. This strategy could include partnerships to amplify brand reach and credibility, targeted ad campaigns to reach specific demographics and investor groups, and user-generated content to help you build a community around your brand and product.

Regularly analyse the metrics, to measure the impact of your social activations, refine your strategies and optimise engagement.

Life Sciences Innovators (LSI) was a new initiative from Healthcare UK (part of the DBT) to select and showcase 50 innovative life sciences companies. We created a new platform and video, with a social campaign to raise awareness, encourage applications, congratulate the winners and promote events. LSI is now helping overseas companies set up and invest in the UK and assisting UK companies to succeed in global trade.

In conclusion, to get investors to part with their money, they need to see financial performance but will also want to be inspired by your vision and see a differentiated proposition, the opportunity and scalability, and a compelling story. Good luck!