The Story
Throughout its more than 57 years, CSI has grown into a leading partner for fintech, regtech and cybersecurity solutions for national and global organizations. In 2022, the public company took a pivotal step forward, completing a $1.6 billion private equity acquisition by Centerbridge Partners, L.P. and Bridgeport Partners. As part of the acquisition, CSI sought to maximize the transaction’s internal and external impact and required a partner that could:
- Manage communications for its existing shareholders.
- Build internal communications showing how the acquisition would benefit employees.
- Communicate the transaction’s positive impact to CSI customers.
Following the transaction, CSI needed an integrated communications strategy to reinforce the company’s reputation as an upper-echelon source for fintech and regtech solutions while supporting sales enablement. In addition, the company looked to build trust in the marketplace through its bench of expert thought leaders and decades of market knowledge, grow its market footprint of non-traditional financial services and generate demand for its go-forward solutions.
The Challenge
In three weeks, Red Fan was charged with building and executing an M&A communications program while simultaneously developing a long-term integrated communications strategy that would follow the acquisition announcement. The result was a 30-page communications plan for the announcement, including:
- Goals and objectives, complete with a daily progress tracker.
- Separate FAQs for customers, shareholders, media and analysts, employees and communities in which CSI has offices.
- Brand and executive messaging customized to the same audiences, including talking points for in-person engagements.
- Email communications to customers and technology partners.
- The acquisition press release draft.
A comprehensive media relations strategy incorporating national business press, fintech and regtech trades, reporters covering M&A, private equity and investment news, and local media where CSI has locations.
Working in parallel, Red Fan developed an integrated communications strategy to follow the announcement that provided:
- Recommendations for monthly campaigns integrated with CSI’s go-to-market strategy, combining future announcements with proactive media relations.
- A diverse list of industry awards and events with select recommendations, complete with evaluation criteria for events that would enable CSI to prioritize attendance, sponsorships, speaking engagements and overall goals for sales, marketing and brand awareness.
- A robust, monthly byline strategy that provided potential publications, audience targets and abstracts and also aligned with monthly campaign themes and key business objectives.
The Solution
Red Fan developed a dual approach to roll out CSI’s acquisition announcement, focusing on producing all internal and external transaction materials while simultaneously researching and articulating an integrated communications strategy to accomplish the company’s long-term goals.
To provide CSI with material to support both, Red Fan’s team of brand strategists, media relations and content professionals immediately commenced extensive media landscape research in tandem to drafting acquisition materials. The agency leveraged the landscape to identify opportunities and trends in CSI’s focus areas: cloud technology, digital banking and open banking. The results informed and established CSI’s messaging themes, thought leadership strategy and content development plan. Other research in the weeks leading up to the announcement included nearly a dozen interviews with CSI’s subject matter experts, which further developed the company’s content and thought leadership initiatives.
The output was a cohesive, six-month roadmap that laid out and united CSI’s thought leadership, executive positioning, events plan and awards strategies to fuel the company’s go-to-market initiatives.
The Results
CSI’s acquisition announcement was a major success, reflected in its media impact and influence on CSI’s share of voice in August 2022. The announcement yielded more than a dozen earned mentions in CSI’s highly targeted list of priority publications, more than 150 overall media mentions in the week following the announcement and a 39% share of voice in earned mentions against its core competitors. Targeted mentions included TechCrunch, Benzinga, PYMNTS, Reuters, The Financial Post, The Paducah Sun and FinTech Futures.
As part of CSI’s extended integrated marketing and communications roadmap, Red Fan has distributed ten additional press releases for the company and secured several interview opportunities and byline placements with Reuters, The Financial Brand, CRO Magazine, S&P Global Market Intelligence, GonzoBanker, PaymentsDive and others.
