Kristine Brooks, Chief Country Officer, Australia, Milford Asset Management

Accelerating awareness and credibility by tapping into the heartbeat of Australian advice

For Kristine Brooks, Chief Country Officer for Milford Asset Management’s Australian business, the Ensombl advice community represents the true heartbeat of the profession in Australia. The ability to tap into this heartbeat – via a multi-faceted partnership with Ensombl – has proved vital in successfully launching and growing the Milford brand in a crowded Australian market.

Although well-established in its home market of New Zealand, Milford is a fledgling brand in Australia, which is why they looked to Ensombl to help them deliver in four key areas:

• Quickly reach advisors all over Australia
• Gain an understanding of the topics and propositions that resonated with them
• Create and distribute content that reflected those insights, and established Milford as a credible authority
• Lead generation for its rapidly growing distribution team

Delighted with the Milford/Ensombl partnership at an overall level, Brooks nevertheless singles out three specific assets she believes have been critical in their success, and which have exceeded all internal expectations.

“Our Monday morning Market Insights podcast has already had 30k downloads and has almost singlehandedly accelerated awareness of our brand and proposition. Then there’s our whitepaper. It’s already been downloaded by over 1,000 advisors and has proved so enduring and evergreen. We’ve turned it into social posts and PD Day presentations, and it’s been a strong driver of traffic to our website. And given we launched just before Covid hit, the virtual PD days have proved invaluable in allowing us to meaningfully engage with a large number of advisors in a way that is incredibly efficient from both a cost and time perspective,” said Brooks.

But for Brooks, perhaps the most powerful element of the partnership is the nature of the community itself.

“Aside from being such a giving and sharing community, it’s also very diverse in thought. You don’t get the singlemindedness of thinking you sometimes see in other groups. Secondly, its members are very growth-oriented and highly motivated to invest in, and grow, their businesses. That’s something they share with Milford, allowing us to form long-term advisor partnerships based on a shared journey of growth and success”

Kristine Brooks, Chief Country Officer, Australia, Milford Asset Management