AUGUST 2018

grassroots approach,” she adds. “You need
a three-pronged approach. There’s the
grassroots channels, you spread the word, and
get early investment from people in the local
community. But we work through our platform
and our community of investors, and find
more sizeable investments from institutional
sources. The last two is what we bring.”
For smaller community projects that only
require £300,000 or £400,000, Whitni says:
“It is easier for those organisations to do it
in a grassroots way, in its community and
the surrounding area.” And in more wealthy
areas, more can be raised, she adds –
another consideration to bear in mind when
presenting an offer.
But “there’s no secret sauce” to the
marketing process: “It’s just doing what we do.
I guess the advantages have with our team is
that we are a bank, with a public relations and
communications team.
“We have a promotions budget but we
don’t need to pay for advertising – we rely on
a community of investors and we spread the
word that way. With every new offer we try
to look for an interesting angle, to spread the
word and generate some interest.”
Triodos does this through the now
tried-and-tested social media platforms such
as Facebook and LinkedIn. “You’re never going
to see us on the side of a bus,” adds Whitni.
“We do it through Facebook posts, it’s quite
low-key, and we don’t tend to really promote or
advertise specific investment offers.
“We just try to build brand awareness of the
bank as a go-to place for where their money
is going.
“What we are finding – which is satisfying –
is that a meaningful percentage of people who
have signed up are new to Triodos Bank.”
“We have a promotions
budget but we don’t
need to pay for
advertising – we rely on a
community of investors
and we spread the word
that way. With every
new offer we try to look
for an interesting angle,
to spread the word and
generate some interest”
WHITNI THOMAS TIPS ON MARKETING A SHARE OFFER
THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA
1. Be very careful not to lead on financial performance: it’s not
appropriate for social media, where you don’t have enough
space to accurately balance the claims you make in terms of
financial performance with the risk.
2. Lead on impact: The way we do it with tweets and shortform
posts is to focus on what an energy organisation is
going to do, how much energy it’s going to generate. The
impact side is the pull.
3. Tickle someone’s interest: You can’t distil whole offers –
you are trying to direct them to a web page where you can
get the information. So you talk about the organisation, you
say ‘they are raising capital – come and have a look‘
4. Emphasise the community aspect: It’s about being part
of something – a lot of the language we see is ‘join up’, ‘be
part of this’. It’s that sense of belonging that tends to play
on social media.
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