PR campaign accelerates growth in hard-to-crack market

As a strategic partner to CNote, a women-led fintech that deploys corporate cash into community banks serving under-resourced populations, Thinkshift helped grow investments on CNote’s platform over several years. From early 2023 to early 2024, we doubled down on accelerating the company’s Impact Cash solution, planning and executing a yearlong PR campaign focused primarily on building credibility with corporate treasury teams—the startup’s major cash investors—and secondarily on expanding the network of community banks and credit unions that accept deposits from CNote’s platform.
We devised a three-pronged strategy for the campaign:
TOP RESULTS
- Secured coverage in 93 broadcasts, podcasts and articles (50 unique)
- Landed speaking slots for CNote leaders at 6 high-profile conferences
- Developed a fruitful corporate partner relationship that yielded multiple types of coverage, including an industry award
- Build the brand. We raised CNote’s brand profile in media outlets reaching C-suite deciders and influencers by partnering with big brands using CNote’s platform, collaborating with CNote’s team to develop data-driven media stories, tying CNote to current news, and securing speaking opportunities at high-profile events.
- Flood the trade zone. Thinkshift relentlessly pursued placements in treasury trade outlets and speaking opportunities at corporate finance events to persuade this skeptical, conservative audience that CNote’s platform is secure, easy to use, and the best way to generate measurable social impact with competitive returns.
- Educate the community banking sector. To ensure that CNote could place the corporate cash it was reeling in, we aimed to show community banks and credit unions how partnering with the startup could tap into a new stream of capital to support entrepreneurs of color, women-owned businesses, affordable housing, local climate projects and other mission-related loans and services.
Throughout the PR campaign, says Catherine Berman, CEO and co-founder of CNote, “I found Thinkshift’s strategic consulting invaluable. Their sharp analysis of our strongest PR opportunities and potential risks was above and beyond what I’ve experienced with other PR agencies. They also always came to the table with fresh ideas and succeeded with novel approaches that surprised my team.”
WHAT WE DID
- Crafted more than 20 different pitches for targeted media lists and recorded roughly 400 touches to editors and reporters at mainstream finance, treasury trade, and banking trade outlets
- Created a robust speaking program to raise CNote’s visibility and persuade corporate treasury teams to use CNote to expand their social impact efforts. Our soup to nuts process included researching and evaluating speaking opportunities, developing compelling topics, and writing speaking proposals.
- Devised strategies to make the most of CNote’s corporate partnerships and developed a particularly fruitful relationship with the global investment management firm T. Rowe Price, which had committed $50 million to CNote’s platform.
- Collaborated with CNote’s impact reporting director on a data story about how community banks and credit unions that received cash infusions used them in high-impact ways.
HOW IT WORKED
- Treasury Management International, the top corporate treasury outlet, covered CNote in a variety of ways: an interview with T. Rowe Price’s lead finance pro describing how corporate treasury departments can invest in change; a podcast with CNote’s CEO on the risk and rewards of impact investing; and Treasury4Good awards recognizing CNote as Best Treasury4Good Innovator and T. Rowe Price for Best Ethical Investment Initiative.
- Our outreach generated reported articles featuring CNote in top impact investing and corporate sustainability outlets, including ImpactAlpha, GreenBiz (now Trellis), Sustainable Brands and TriplePundit, cementing CNote’s reputation as a leader in investing for social impact.
- The PR campaign also drove reported articles featuring CNote in American Banker (a coveted placement in the finance sector) and credit union and community banking outlets, as well as bookings on 3 episodes of CUBroadcast, a popular webcasting outlet in the credit union world.
- We landed speaking spots for CNote at high-profile conferences including SXSW and Money 20/20, and at key corporate treasury events including the Association of Financial Professionals and SF Treasury Symposium conferences. Those events put CNote’s CEO on stage with several corporate treasury clients, who verified CNote’s effectiveness and explained to their peers how to structure an impact cash program.
“[Thinkshift’s] sharp analysis of our strongest PR opportunities and potential risks was above and beyond what I’ve experienced with other PR agencies.”
CATHERINE BERMAN, CEO AND CO-FOUNDER
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