Foresight Group are the fund managers of the best-ever performing VCT. They are a well-known and respected VCT brand amongst knowledgeable IFAs and private VCT investors. They approached Matrix-Data Solutions to help them properly benefit from the changes in tax breaks on VCTs. This change saw an influx of new investors, causing a shift in the profile of the private investors to a younger group sheltering income. Having already delivered successful campaigns in the previous years that resulted in a number of fully subscribed VCTs, Matrix-Data Solutions had developed a good reputation for knowing the market. Our continuous research into the UK financial intermediary market and our good relations with the top UK investment IFAs ensured complete coverage of the relevant intermediaries for the Foresight VCT campaign.

Objectives
This campaign had very specific objectives:

Solution – Matrix Action™
A two-pronged campaign strategy was employed to achieve the objectives.

Using Matrix-Insight™ services, the Foresight intermediary database was cleaned and updated against the Matrix Financial Intermediary Database (MFID). The selection of IFA's taken from MFID and not featuring in the Foresight intermediary database are those who are actively involved in the VCT market and/or the investment market. This allowed Foresight to directly target the most relevant IFA's.

Matrix-Data suggested to Foresight Group that the most responsive and profitable group of private investors are going to be those that already have invested with Foresight VCT. This was to be further complemented by using data from the Matrix Investor Database which was enhanced, using Matrix-Insight™ services, with profiling data and attributes from a variety of external sources including Experian Financial Strategy Segments.

Campaign Strategy
The Matrix approach aims to achieve maximum coverage at minimum cost. For current clients or "hot prospects (with overall VCT values of more than £100k)", we recommended to Foresight Group to adopt a one stage "no expense spared" approach and include a prospectus in the initial mailing. We also adopted this approach when targeting the intermediary market.

There are a number of ways to approach the broader investor market and the methodology largely depends on overall budget. When looking to cover and build awareness of a brand across reasonably large target groups, Matrix-Data generally recommends adopting a two-stage approach. This was adopted for the Foresight campaign to target known VCT investors. First, investors would receive an initial small-scale cost-effective mailing, providing coverage of the selected market. Once interest is generated, the full information pack (i.e. the prospectus) is despatched, providing the opportunity to invest. The "call to action" of the first stage mailing is a simple brochure request, which is fulfilled quickly and efficiently.

Outcome
In a VCT market that fell by nearly 25% in 2008, Foresight Group not only raised more money for investment then they had previously in 2007, but almost doubled their market share as well as winning another VCT's investment mandate, their third in four years and a reflection in part of Foresight's ability to raise funds and in part down to Matrix-Data’s campaign management team.

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