An investment platform serving both mass market and experienced investors had targets to grow its base of first-time investors. The problem wasn't awareness — it was conversion. People were landing on the investing content but not taking the next step.
The existing content was built around information: how investing works, the products available, the regulatory disclosures. It was accurate. It was comprehensive. And it wasn't working as hard as it needed to — to move novice investors from interest to action.
The brief: understand what was actually happening psychologically for people considering investing for the first time, and use that understanding to change the content strategy.
Much of the existing content had to stay — regulatory requirements meant a wholesale rewrite wasn't possible. But what changed was what was added around it.
Research had identified the specific questions, fears and moments of hesitation that novice investors were experiencing. New content was built to address those directly — targeted, empathetic responses to the real concerns, sitting alongside the important regulatory copy rather than replacing it.
The result was a measurable uplift in new investor sign-ups. And a wider shift in how the organisation thought about content: less about what they needed to say, more about what users needed to hear.