Incisive Media
Category:
Grand Prix
Best Digital B2B Publishing Company 2024
Incisive Media transformed itself in 2022 into an integrated, multi-platform, digital-first operation. It’s a game changer.
The result: 16% revenue growth from our financial services and sustainability brands in 2022.
This performance was thanks to the enthusiastic dedication of their staff as the business threw-off its legacy print products and embraced a high-growth future of digital and events.
How did they do it? By hiring smart, motivated people, investing in technology, and working closely with our commercial partners and audiences to deliver the right products to the right people - at the right time. Simples.
2022 was the year that Incisive transformed its business model from ‘point solutions’ (advertising, one-off sponsorship) to delivering marketing services on a membership basis.
These products include a guaranteed-response demand-generation platform, a bespoke video offering, and a tailored podcast product – all tightly targeted using Incisive’s first-party data set.
It was also the year that they made the call to cease the remaining two print products, Investment Week and Professional Pensions.
This tough decision allowed the team to focus all energies on the digital and events channels, and the high-growth opportunities they offer. This meant rebuilding the business by investing in digital, events and customer success teams – the real powerhouses of the business – and Incisive hired 20 new heads as they reskilled.
So far so good. But what the business really needed was some new products to take to market at scale.
Message received: they launched two new products, Sustainable Investment – to serve the growing ESG community - and Investment IQ – a powerful demand-generation platform using proprietary technology to give real insights into client behaviour. The team also pivoted their events business to focus on fewer, larger – and more profitable – festival-style events like the Net Zero Festival and Sustainable Investment Festival.
At the same time, they shifted Incisive’s relationship with its audience from registration to membership – and grew paid memberships for their premium content brands Professional Pensions and BusinessGreen.
Incisive also enacted a fluid new operational structure and more-agile working environment, facilitating easier creation and execution of ideas and removing departmental silos. They added 20 heads to their events, digital, and customer success teams to drive product innovation and customer handling, and invested in their commercial teams by rolling out a re-engineered version of their Salesforce instance to drive pipeline growth and measure sales performance more accurately.
A key challenge for 2022 was to look after the health and wellbeing of their people. To achieve this, an online wellbeing centre was launched to focus on the four main pillars of wellbeing – money, mind, munch, and move. Employees have access to an employee-assistance programme and MyMindPal, an innovative app designed to build mental fitness levels, and mProve YOURSELF, an app which contains a range of wellbring tools and advice, as well as Woebot, an internationally recognised app which offers ‘in the moment’ emotional support.
Finally, sustainability is key to Incisive’s future success, and they only use sustainable power and other inputs, and working towards ISO20121 accreditation.
Result: revenue growth, happy and motivated people who hit targets, and a burnished reputation amongst clients. It’s been a transformational year for Incisive Media. They’re forward looking, high growth, and have got their mojo back.
What’s the secret? An open and innovative culture that results in a happy, engaged, and productive workforce.
The results speak for themselves:
The business is now positioned for significant future growth as they continue the journey towards their goal of delivering marketing services on a membership basis.
This is only part of what it takes to deliver success. They’ve invested in our staff and made sure they work in a happy and supporting environment. And they’ve tempered this with a hunger to do the right thing for diversity and sustainability. It demonstrates the ethos that drives Incisive.
One Glassdoor testimonial reads: “Great culture, fantastic office location lovely people to work with and team. Great pay, commission structure and bonus opportunities. Flexible working options. Approachable management team.”
While a member testimonial for BusinessGreen reads: “BusinessGreen is in the elite league of information providers who are providing information which is trusted to be correct.”
