Our Client
Anthony Davenport, founder of Regal Credit Management, is not the sort of entrepreneur to stay still for long. Over a decade of hard work, he’s transformed his business into a thriving credit repair and data protection company, boasting high-profile clients that we can’t name (but you would definitely know), publishing the “it” book about credit—and winning plaudits everywhere from USA Today to the New York Times.
Having made Regal’s name stateside, Anthony is now poised to enter a new market—the United Kingdom. Together with Prager Metis, an accountancy known for working with celebrities and other high-profile clients, he’s establishing PM Credit Management—the first premier credit management partner on the far side of the Atlantic.
To really sweep U.K. consumers off their feet, Anthony knew he needed fresh financial copywriting. From creative product naming to a revamped website, a video script to flyer copy, everything has to feel fresh—and quintessentially British.
Our Client’s Challenge
Although he’s lived in England and jokes that he’s “fluent in British,” Anthony knows how challenging it will be to connect with a new audience in a new country—especially on credit-related projects, some of which Brits (being Brits) may view with skepticism.
Product Naming. That starts with product naming. Anthony talks about how people are never sure what to call his services—with amusing results. For example, he overhears customers referring to Regal’s harmful-online-data removal service as “that internet be-gone service” or even “that web-scrubbing thing” (hey, we can’t blame them—we just called it a harmful-online-data removal service!). Cute or not, clearly PM Credit—and Regal, too—needed creative naming services to position the product as powerful, memorable, and premium.
U.K. Website Copy. Web copy is another challenge. Even as a veteran of life in Britain, Anthony admits he’s still “expanding to a new territory that I’m only vaguely familiar with.” That creates problems when it comes to building a new website—from the mundane (fixing American spellings, using British turns of phrase) to the foundational (channeling the right cultural tone, inflection, and spirit).
New Flyer. Regal’s flyers have a similar problem. “I felt that the earlier flyers didn’t speak to a British audience effectively,” he says, explaining he needed something “truly persuasive” to vividly explain his company mission. “Why are we ideal for the British audience?” he says. “Our prior flyer just didn’t do that.”
Video Script. Anthony emphasizes just how new credit management is in Britain—something that risks making local consumers uneasy. “The two most Googled things in the U.K. about credit repair are: ‘is it legitimate,’ and ‘does it work?’” he explains, adding that the service itself is a lot more mature in the U.S. The solution, he says, is a video that puts worried customers at ease. “Really the purpose of writing a video script was to alleviate these concerns among the British audience,” he says.
Prager Metis Copy. Working with Prager Metis is hugely exciting—but Anthony is conscious that for the relationship to succeed, Prager Metis staff must become evangelists of PM Credit: which starts with understanding. One glance at other partner pages on the Prager Metis website persuaded Anthony to get outside professional copywriting help. “Everything felt wrong,” he says. “They didn’t explain why those other partnerships were important for their clients—or even effectively explain what those other partners did.”
Cybercrime and Average Joe Articles. Finally, Regal had been sitting on two remarkable article ideas: the first, that people with low to average credit scores pay more—in some cases substantially more—to borrow money throughout their lifetimes. The second, that cybercrime has risen at roughly the same rate that physical crime has fallen. Anthony asked us to write these articles for the Regal and PM Credit blogs—as they each form compelling reasons to use his credit repair, credit freeze, and data protection services, respectively.
Our Shared Success
Having engaged MarketSmiths as his key financial copywriting team for almost a decade, Anthony knew he could trust us to get it done. “I never had any thoughts of going elsewhere,” he says. “I know MarketSmiths will expertly handle all of my concerns, and that the finished copy and content will be excellent,” he added, based on 8+ years of past engagements.
He was right. Over a few weeks, 4 writers, 3 creative namers, and 3 content strategists—all on MarketSmiths’ in-house staff—delivered dozens of pages and thousands of words for PM Credit. By blending deep research and intelligent questions, we quickly positioned PM Credit’s business effectively. (Kudos to Anthony for getting us lightning fast responses and feedback!)
It helped that our copywriting team already has a native understanding of British culture. Tapping one of MarketSmiths’ two British copywriters, our team expressed PM Credit Management’s positioning—with a tone as sophisticated as City traders or Knightsbridge hedge fund managers. Anthony checked his inbox day after day—to find on-point product names, pithy web copy, a lively video script, eye-catching flyer copy, and articles that fit the bill:
Product Naming. Delivering a range of options for Regal to pick from, all of our product name submissions met the 3 key criteria for great product names: informative, resonant, and catchy.
- Stuffy Credit Restoration became crisp Credit Clear.
- Stiff Credit Development became aspirational Credit Builder.
- The generic data protection service became the graceful Cyber Sweep.
After just a few weeks, these name changes have already attracted plenty of new customers. “We’ve seen a huge uptick in people enrolling in our services, and I feel it’s been…due to the fact that people can recall them now,” Davenport says. “They conjure an image that customers can connect with.”
U.K. Website Copy. Our revamped website copy was just as strong. As Anthony puts it, we were “adept at translating what message I wanted to convey, but in a subtle, British way.” And although the website hasn’t yet officially gone live, it’s already proving useful to the PM Credit Management brand. Using it to convince his partner that he’s serious about the U.K. market, Anthony says the new website shows he’s “ahead of the game and knows how to communicate to a British audience.”
New Flyer. Anthony was thrilled with his revamped flyer too. Like the website, after all, it abandoned Americanisms for a genuine British tone. And like the website, says Anthony, “it showed our partners that we can communicate effectively with a British audience.”
Video Script. Regal was just as happy with the video script MarketSmiths wrote for PM Credit. Aimed at regular U.K. consumers—and read by a famous local broadcaster—Anthony is certain its professional style and authentic turns of phrase were perfect to reassure a new audience without experience of credit management. “I know it will go a long way in alleviating the top two concerns of the British audience,” he says.
Prager Metis Copy. In contrast to other blurbs on the Prager Metis site, Anthony read MarketSmiths’ partner page—and declared that we knocked it out of the park. “You guys created a blurb that would instantly zing—and be the best on their site. It explains exactly how we can benefit their clients,” he says.
Cybercrime and Average Joe Articles. We wrote these articles, honing in on the sheer relevance (in these times) of PM Credit’s services—and the data that substantiates their value. Once again, Anthony was impressed. “This is PERFECT! Thank you guys!” he told us of one piece, adding we’d done a “great job” on another.
These last comments feel perfect to describe our relationship with Anthony generally. Whatever we did for him and Regal, he was pleased—and more importantly his new U.K. business is now ready to thrive.
