Chartered Institute of Marketing

Developing a multichannel content strategy, to uplift engagement of a demanding professional audience

Sector

  • Membership

Expertise

  • Content strategy
  • Editorial
  • Design
  • Commercial
  • Video

Awards

  • IoIC 2016 Award of Excellence – Design
  • MemCom 2018 Highly Commended - Editor of the Year

The client

As the largest professional marketing body in the world, the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) offers membership and career development, training courses and professional marketing qualifications. 

The challenge

In 2015, CPL won the pitch to deliver a publishing strategy for CIM to change how it engaged with members across print and digital.

In collaboration with CIM, CPL launched a new, quarterly members’ magazine, Catalyst. This was designed to challenge, question and provoke debate across the member base and beyond, and leverage interest from senior-level industry professionals. In the fast-changing world of global marketing, CIM’s business objectives, and the needs of its audience, needed to adapt. CIM’s content strategy also needed to keep up with the pace of change.

The solution

The editorial team at CPL worked with CIM on a content strategy that targeted a senior and C-suite audience through thought-leadership content and high-profile interviews, and that could be adjusted in line with CIM’s changing business goals and communications targets.

The content strategy was delivered via a roadmap based on major quarterly themes that aligned global marketing trends and industry insights to CIM’s wider communications outreach programmes. These included thought-leadership campaigns, awards events, summits, conferences and research-paper launches.

CPL worked to ensure that content on CIM’s online hub, Exchange, reinforced its changing communications priorities.

An overhaul in frequency, quantity and type of content in 2017 led to a 312 per cent increase in page views. An iterative approach resulted in continuing uplifts in audience engagement, and work across the account helped leverage PR for CIM across the business and marketing sector.

The results

More than 90%

rated Catalyst content good to excellent

More than 89%

rated the design of Catalyst good to excellent

4 x

increase in page views of CIM's content hub

Strategic, creative and responsive is how I would describe the CPL team. We are delighted with Catalyst, which is proving a very effective communications tool, helping us engage with our members. And our online content hub goes from strength to strength.

Steve Woolley, head of external affairs and content
CIM

Other projects