A client had published a rather mundane article on a financial regulatory issue in a rather mundane trade publication. The goal of the article was, of course, to demonstrate expertise on the issue and hope potential clients took note. Few did.

So, we devised a plan to re-write the article with an executive from an affected institution (which, in and of itself, was a nice opportunity to engage and deepen a relationship over something both relevant and, eventually, successful and fun).

As a result, the attention the users brought to the issue around our article caused executives at target prospects to start calling their colleagues (and our co-author) who happily recommended they speak to and engage our client.

Significantly, we changed the tone of the original article, and shortened it, to appeal less to other executives and institutional leadership and more to actual users and consumers of these institutions and their products who’d be most affected by the regulations.

Next, we created a list of our clients and target prospects and then identified their users by seeing who had “checked-in” on social platforms like Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, and Yelp. We then shared the new article with those users (in several different ways), and as a result, the attention the users brought to the issue around our article caused executives at target prospects to start calling their colleagues (and our co-author) who happily recommended they speak to and engage our client.