About FMUK
What is FMUK?
Financial Marketing UK (or FMUK) is the UK's only online community dedicated to financial services marketing. There are, of course, resources in existence aimed at this huge industry sector, but there is nothing that enables like-minded marketing professionals and practitioners to read, post and discuss content that is focused purely on this particular area of expertise.
No cost
FMUK is free and our intention is to keep it that way. It's designed to be largely open but with the emphasis on joining and taking part. You can register for free, and get involved in any of the groups and discussions. You can even become a contributor and post your own articles. There may come a time where we have some premium content that we need to charge for, but the vast majority of content and tools will remain gratis.
Why UK?
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is unsual in having such a large financial services sector. No other nation of comparable size can boast such a broad and diverse industry. Switzerland and Liechtenstein may employ a greater number of financial services staff per capita, but they lack the coverage of the UK. Here you can find indices, brokers, funds, managers, dealers, analysts, suppliers, underwriters, agents, banks and many, many more types of business involved either directly in, or on the periphery of, financial services. And like any industry, marketing is a vital and central disclipline on which vast sums of money are expended.
FMUK Features
Financial Marketing UK is designed to be a source of news, information, discussion and viewpoints from the UK's financial marketing industry. With the advent and growth of online communities, it's now possible to pull together information and data from a variety of sources and present them in (almost) real-time, on your computer screen. In addition, you can discuss anything with your peers without having to leave the comfort of your egonomially-designed executive chair.
FMUK has various sections:
News: - gathered from news sites around the nation, including Marketing Week, Brandrepublic, Mad.co.uk and more. We use RSS technology to pull this in automatically, mix it up and list it in chronological order for your enjoyment. It's updated every hour.
Jobs: - same as news, but gathered from any site that we can find that lists financial marketing positions and provides an RSS stream. This is also updated every hour.
Editorial: - proprietary content written by our experts and published either exclusively on FMUK, or here first and then syndicated elsewhere. This is our 'killer-app' and will be expanding rapidly as we bring in new experts and contributors.
Community: - the meat of the site and the area that will (finger's crossed) provide the greatest growth. Here we have specialist Groups, focusing on niches within financial marketing and split into Sectors (e.g. Alternative Investments) and Services (e.g. Direct Marketing). These are designed to allow people in those areas, both client and agency-side, to discuss topics close to their hearts. You can use them for more or less anything - including job postings, requests for and giving of advice, announcements and so on.
We also have Discussion, which is designed to be a higher level of chat based on the wider world of financial marketing.
Forum:- a discussion board for anything and everything to do with financial marketing. This features debates on pertinent topics, and allows members to post notices, including jobs, news and anything else you care to mention.
Directory: - a list of all the agencies and suppliers that specialise in financial marketing in the UK. There are always new ones springing up, and old ones disappearing, so we may not be 100% accurate at any given moment. But if you work client-side and are looking for a specialist, or are looking for a potential employer/partner, then here's the place to look. New features planned for the future include; example case-studies (a showcase for an agency's flagship work); a services matrix, so you can find the best supplier for any given project; 'ask an agency' - a platform to ask agency experts their advice on a potential project. And much more.
Word on the street: - a list of the latest blogs from people in the financial marketing industry. This is slower moving than news or jobs, but represents thoughts from the coal-face (so to speak).
Associate sites: - there are (believe it or not) other sites in the world that do a similar thing (though not as well as us, obviously). This section provides links to those sites we consider our associates - being of like mind. We aim to promote each other's content.
Coming soon:
Polls: - on a variety of interesting and thought-provoking topics and issues.
Glossaries: - lists of words and jargon that may currently fly harmlessly over your head in meetings, but then reappear ominously when you're trying to write a proposal. We're aiming to provide the essential guide to all things financial marketing and our glossaries will give you the inside track.
Our experts
FMUK is written by financial marketers FOR financial marketers. Our contributors are experts in their own fields and have years of experience working in financial marketing.
Andrew Thomas
Founder of Communicate Magazine, Andrew has over 20 years of experience in corporate communications across financial and professional services. He provides regular editorial content on the challenges facing financial institutions in communicating with their clients, staff and stakeholders.
Read editorial by Andrew Thomas
Niki Natarajan
Editor and Publisher of Investhedge, Niki is one of London's leading experts on hedge fund communications and marketing. She was previously Editor at Institutional Investor News and she now contributes a monthly column to FMUK on the world of alternative investment marketing.
Read editorial by Niki Natarajan
Simon Philips
Managing Director of Structured Marketing Solutions, Simon was formerly Global Head of Communications & Marketing at UBS Investment Bank. As a consultant and mentor, Simon now advises both established firms and start-ups on marketing and sales strategy, business development and general business planning.
Read editorial by Simon Philips
James Wrighton
Co-founder of SWA Communications Ltd and FMUK, James brings 15 years of experience in financial services marketing. Having started out in retail banking product management, James's career has taken him from debit cards and online banking through stockbroking and private banking, to capital markets and securities trading.
Read editorial by James Wrighton
Mike Symes
Co-founder of Strand Financial and FMUK, Mike Symes is a leading financial marketing specialist, with 18 years' extensive experience in senior marketing director and management roles. He was Vice President and Head of Marketing at Bank of New York Financial. Mike is a Freeman of The City of London and founder of FIDES.
Robert Youdale
Robert is a mobile payments expert currently providing his expertise to Monitise Group. Previously he spent several years with Vodafone developing mobile technology and now writes exclusively for Financial Marketing UK on mobile financial services.
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