A stronger touch point with the investors who shoulder the future
In the interest of strengthening its connection with the investors of the future, Nomura Securities has been developing content marketing – such as with their ELBORDE (http://www.nomura.co.jp/el_borde/) web magazine. The also created NEXT LEADERS LAB, a comprehensive online media outlet aimed at the next generation of company managers who will support the future of business.
This site provides hints for solving challenges faced by small and medium-sized business owners and managers who might undergo acquisition, under the themes “business strategies,” “business succession,” “real estate,” “management,” and “life hacks.”
In recent years, more and more young people have been investing in securities. Their investment style, criteria for choosing securities firms and lifestyles are very different from the investors of the past. Nomura Securities knew that it needed to respond to this change.
The company feared that allowing the scope of their publications to stay limited to only information related to asset management would cause them to lose the support of younger people. They considered increasing the digital touch points with their target customer base, whose likelihood of doing asset management in the future was high, by putting out information that would arouse their curiosity in other areas. In order to make this happen, Nomura Securities needed to increase its effective digital content output.
This site was created as a conversation piece for employees at Nomura Securities branch locations who communicate with owners of medium-sized firms.
It is self evident that establishing a relationship with customers is not possible without increasing the points of contact. Nomura Securities had been successful in the past with providing customers with sales representatives, consulting and advice, but in the past few years the company has been exploring ways to offer these services through digital devices.
Getting the most results out of limited resources
In general, marketing plans tend not go well the first time around. Drawing up a plan, executing it, and using the results to improve the project, then repeating the process — a PDCA cycle — must be done efficiently, effectively and quickly. Even just considering the numbers, it is easier for projects to show results if they are always developing beyond a fixed number. NEXT LEADERS LAB was launched with this concept in mind.
NEXT LEADERS LAB started out from the idea that having a “website reminiscent of an attractive pamphlet” would be useful. Through trial and error, the developers built the website around the goal of making it a conversation topic between employees and customers.
Nomura Securities marketing division deputy director and head of marketing and advertising Shinya Takahashi noted: “we knew from the beginning, as with other projects, that it was imperative to run PDCA quickly and produce effective content. Also, as there were only a few project members, we wanted to focus on activities that would bring about the biggest results from our limited resources.”
Enabling sound operation, without creating stress for project members
Most marketing strategies tend to over-complicate a project’s flow, leading to rigidity, which causes the project to lose speed and flexibility. Projects with a simple structure tend to produce results more easily. For Nomura Securities’ website, a light, fast and secure infrastructure was ideal.
This would also allow members to concentrate on the goals of the project. KUSANAGI for AWS comes packaged with the necessary environment —the OS, web server and database. It is speed-tuned, has strong security, and maintenance is easy. Choosing KUSANAGI for AWS allowed project members to focus on their goals, without having to think about the infrastructure. As a result, the project began functioning more efficiently.
Takahashi also noted that “by choosing KUSANAGI for AWS, we were able to make NEXT LEADERS LAB a high-speed website. Stress was eliminated for sites visitors and the administrators, absolutely no issues arose, and it allowed us to conduct sound operation. We are very thankful for being able to use an execution environment like KUSANAGI for AWS, and to completely outsource the management of our website.”
