“It’s offered a mirror to check how we’re doing,” Caspian Films on Investment Readiness and giving female auteurs a voice
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Marketing… there’s no getting around it. If you’ve got a great idea, you’ll eventually have to sell it to audiences and to be successful, it helps to know what you’re doing. While a quick Google search will deliver a tangle of digital resources, having bespoke training on the skills you’ll need to gather and speak to your desired audience is invaluable. In fact, it’s the reason why creative business founder Peter Storey set up his latest venture, Greenlit.com.
“We help creative people raise money,” says Storey, explaining his company’s expertise. Having carved out an extensive career in theatre and film, Storey eventually decided to pivot towards business building, specifically helping others get the tools they need to market their brand. “We initially focused on film but soon broadened into anything with an audience,” he adds. “We now work with theatre and music projects and we’re dipping into gaming too.”
Over the years, Storey had noticed an issue impacting most creatives: while they were great at coming up with new concepts they didn’t have the same skills when it came to the less glamorous job of shouting about them. “And why should they? It’s much more interesting to work on your creative output than doing accounting and marketing,” he reasons. “We work with creatives to help them understand business positioning and how to raise money. We do this by sharing skills that empower and make others aware of what they’re doing while explaining why it’s a good thing.”
While operating in the crowdfunding space places Greenlit alongside some pretty hefty competitors, Storey believes their personal, one-on-one approach gives them an edge. “5% of the money raised on places like Kickstarter comes as a function of the platform,” he tells us. “It comes from being featured in their newsletters or people discovering you via the platform itself. The other 95% comes from your own promotional efforts,” says Storey. “If you’re trying to raise money, you’ve got to sell and promote yourself through marketing.”
By working with Greenlit, creatives gain a better understanding of how to create an empathetic bond between their brand and their users, ultimately taking them on their growth journey. “We talk to [businesses] about what is needed to create a successful crowdfunding campaign. You need to know what you’re going to be talking about during weeks one, two, three, four and beyond because you’re telling a story and explaining why it’s significant. The more structure it has, the more effective it will be.”
From there, Greenlit unpacks the key elements of how to share this narrative across multiple platforms, keeping users engaged every step of the way. “We help people plan their communications and make sure they have their assents and content in place. We don’t do the work for them but we show them best practices and what successful campaigns have done in the past.” Ultimately, it’s these combined efforts that Storey says can help businesses reach their fundraising goals faster: “If you talk with enthusiasm, sincerity and excitement about what you’re doing, the money will follow.”
A long-time follower of Creative Enterprise Investment Readiness, Storey joined this year’s cohort to help boost his own company’s growth goals. As Greenlit evolves, Storey is adding a new feature that helps creatives gain easy access to tax credits while keeping their accounts in good order without the need for a costly middle-man.
“Very often, all this stuff goes out the window, particularly if you haven’t got somebody dedicated to it,” reasons Storey of this new chapter which is primarily aimed at games studios and theatre and film productions. “We’re working on a product that helps creatives get money that they’re entitled to by the tax credit system. At the moment, you can either go to an expensive lawyer or an expensive accountant. Both will happily take your money but not develop you as a business person. We want to be that partner that makes things easier,” says Storey. “It fits with our one-stop-shop of funding help.”
In addition to making Greenlit as investable as possible, Storey hopes to leave the Investment Readiness scheme with a new batch of useful connections. It’s a key element of company growth that’s made easier by having Creative UK in your corner. “If you want to make introductions, you have to be persistent, targeted and not afraid of being ignored. It’s arduous,” admits Storey, “but within the friendly context of Creative UK, you’re already validated and you’ve earned your seat at the table. Creative UK has brought us alongside the most useful investors within the creative sector – and that’s huge.”
By combining these new connections with investment opportunities, Storey hopes to take audiences on a journey through Greenlit’s next phase. “We want people to see Greenlit as the matchmaker between those old models sitting between art and commerce and the new ones. We also want creatives to recognize that we can help solve their business problems and make things easier, more profitable and more sustainable for them,” he smiles. “We want to be known as the place to come to if you want to finance or promote an independent creative project.”
Words and interview by Simon Bland