Arro Financial Communications’s founder Alexandra Levis launched her firm having worked in the heart of the ETF industry, at Global X, in September 2013.
Arro Financial Communications’s founder Alexandra Levis (pictured) launched her firm having worked in the heart of the ETF industry, at Global X, in September 2013.
“I had always been in the financial communications space and saw this huge opportunity for a specialist ETF marketer and publicist with the industry growing so fast,” she says.
She was entirely correct about the industry growth – at the time, the ETF industry had about USD1 trillion under management, and has now sailed through the USD9 trillion mark.
“There are so many different things to be done for the launch of an ETF,” Levis says, listing the press release, advertising campaigns, email blasts and social media support.
“I had worked in hedge fund industry public relations before and could not believe that there was this void in the marketplace.”
Arro Financial’s offering is not just in public relations but also firmly in marketing as they support ETF launches across the board. “It’s not just public relations but also the website with data feeds, advertising and all the collateral that goes with it,” Levis says. “We are a one stop shop.”
The offering from Arro Financial comes in three big buckets, with the first bucket representing branding and messaging, covering everything from a mission statement of why the ETF or the firm exists through to the visual image of the brand.
The second bucket is marketing. “That’s anywhere from establishing or maintaining websites with data feeds so we have relationships with fund administrators and data providers, to advertising campaigns for clients plus advising on social media strategies – all done with an awareness of compliance needs.”
Arro Financial also publishes a number of blogs, white papers, infographics, videos and all the content that goes on a firm’s website.
The third part of the offering is public relations, which ensures good press coverage of a launch but also ensure that clients are kept relevant post launch. “We all put our heads together to keep them relevant to the press,” she says.
Levis believes that two differentiators lie behind their win of this award this year.
“As far as I know we are the only one full comprehensive public relations and marketing agency that is very much entrenched in the ETF industry,” she says. “People like our expertise and the fact that I worked in house at Global X is very much valued.”
The second differentiator is the firm’s client service. “We are extremely responsive and will move mountains to make deadlines work,” she says.
“This year in particular has been great for us as we have taken on a lot of bigger corporate clients who are household names,” Levis says. “They have come to us because they realise they need a lot of content for their sites, for their emails.”
Levis notes that two big trends are happening in the ETF industry in the US. “The big traditional mutual companies are getting into the ETF space, as well as companies that are not necessarily traditional asset management companies – they all want to launch an ETF.”
She has also noticed that in the US, ETF investing has become ubiquitous among millennials and younger investors, driving new growth in the industry.
Best US Public Relations and Communications Firm
