Q&A with Founder and CEO of Caliber Corporate Advisers, Harvey Hudes
As a B2B strategic marketing communications firm, Caliber Corporate Advisers provides the fintech and financial services industry with best-in-class strategy and execution of public relations campaigns. With a strategic and thoughtful approach to media relations, social media execution, awards, speaking opportunities at events and more, Caliber Corporate Advisers delivers results for clients globally.
Q: What is Caliber’s origin story?
A: Learned the agency world from a unique vantage point, as one of the founding team members of PRWeek. From that time, and over the next 10 years after, I saw friction between organizations and their agency partners. One of the most prevalent was the lack of agency focus – and therefore lack of depth in understanding nuanced and complex subject matter.
Q: Why B2B financial services and fintech?
A: The complexity of financial services and fintech means a high barrier to entry, and only a few that can truly understand how to tell their story effectively. That exclusivity and challenge appeals to me. It requires us to bring a more thoughtful approach to the table to ensure a more positive client experience.
This is of course all reliant on successfully attracting great people to join your mission to work with some of the most exciting companies in this space.
Q: What makes Caliber unique?
A: We pride ourselves on being different and standing out from the crowd. The B2B fintech and financial services industry is noisy, but we have figured out numerous ways to differentiate ourselves from the competition. We work in the business of technology and innovation. We see our clients evolving the financial services industry with innovative solutions, so to stand out among competitors, we’ve figured out ways to become innovative. We offer our clients a platform to view upcoming awards and events in real-time through a platform we’ve built called Event Analyzer.
The pandemic posed a challenge and an opportunity for us in that we knew we needed to provide an offering to our clients and prospective clients that no other firm was able to, so we developed Caliber Intelligence. Caliber Intelligence is a division of Caliber Corporate Advisers for fintech companies and financial services firms to turn data and insights into action. Caliber Intelligence focuses on market capabilities analysis, customer profile discovery, product roadmap advisory, growth and customer acquisition strategies and key performance indicator development.
We uncover unique opportunities for our clients through our network and partnerships with notable industry events and organizations.
Lastly, we are a close-knit group of like-minded individuals who strive at being an extension to our clients teams. How does that make us unique? Well, we identify opportunities that align with our clients business goals, keep a close eye on the news cycle and insert our clients voices accordingly and anticipate our clients needs.
Q: Who are some of your notable clients?
A: Our clients vary from large, established financial institutions to growth-stage startups. Our notable clients include Northern Trust, Symphony, FINOS, Legal & General, Bank of Montreal Capital Markets, Clear Capital, Smart Pension, Corvus, Finomial and more.
Trends in PR/2020 and beyond
Q: How has 2020 impacted Caliber Corporate Advisers? How did you overcome the challenges that 2020 had brought?
A: Like any small business, we had to be strategic about every investment we made – from people to technology. We forged even stronger relationships with our clients by being a true partner to them. We created a game plan, and with a ton of hard work, and executed and experienced continued growth this year. If you would have asked me whether that would have been possible at the end of March I would probably have said you were crazy but resilience pays off.
Q: What trends are you seeing in the B2B PR and marketing industry?
A: We’ve seen a continued shift to virtual events amid the pandemic and that will be something we’ll see for quite some time. There will be a metal hurdle within the industry to get people together following the pandemic even if a majority of people are vaccinated. We’re hoping to see the PR industry engage with clients and reporters more creatively by throwing intimate, in-person events next summer and fall.
For B2B companies, content is especially important when it comes to media buying and education that comes in a variety of formats. We’re seeing more webinars pop up as well a brand-building through media buying. Content and media buying and brand building are very much tied to the theme of building trust, which is more important than ever, given the virtual environment we’re navigating.
Lastly, another trend we’ll see in 2021 is influencer marketing. The power of influencers via social media can be enormous. As a society, we have become a ‘follow culture’, between TikTok, Instagram, Cameo and many more, there are options for people to elevate and align with brands, at the right price.
Q: How are you servicing your clients? Has your offering transformed throughout the year?
A: We are listening to our clients needs and anticipating how we can adapt our offerings to best serve them. In addition to public relations, content, social and digital have played an even more prevalent role in many client strategies. The lack of ability to interact with customers in person has created unique marketing opportunities.
Call to action
Q: Is Caliber hiring right now?
A: Yes. We are looking for the best and brightest in the industry to join our team to continue serving financial services and fintech clients. To learn more about opportunities at Caliber, visit our website: https://www.calibercorporate.com/
