British Pearl

Market

Target market

British Pearl targets two markets (1) property (2) savings & investments which are both worth in the trillions.

When it comes to our investors (Share & Loan Investors) we are targeting the mass affluent who want better returns on their savings and investments or would like to be invested in a trusted asset class they understand, property.

In our view, customers motivated by investing in property fall into two groups, experienced property investors and aspirational property investors. We believe that experienced property investors are motivated by the bulk buyer discounts, tax benefits, diversification opportunities and hassle-free investment we aim to provide. Aspirational property investors may be time poor professionals or those who don’t have all the funds or inclination to be a landlord by themselves.

Property developers are also our customers, through us they can access both equity and debt capital to fund their projects all in one place, and have a new sales channel to sell their completed developments.

Characteristics of target market

Property Market
Residential & commercial real estate is valued at almost £8 trillion. The residential market receives long-term support from the housing shortfall of 100,000 homes annually. Property ownership faces challenges as a result of higher taxation and reduced mortgage availability due to increased affordability checks being required by regulators and therefore banks. In our view, these dynamics will continue to drive property prices higher over the longer term resulting in a larger rental sector.

Savings & Investments Market
The total value of savings and investments is in the trillions, with retail deposits of £1.4 trillion generally earning poor returns. With low interest rates we believe there is a large pool of money seeking higher returns. We believe that asset-backed investments such as property, offer an attractive alternative, having achieved fixed rates of circa 4% p.a. with 50% equity protection and total equity returns (income and capital gains) above 6% p.a. In our view, secured, income producing investments are in demand.

Marketing strategy

Our marketing strategy has two key pillars:
1. Pull activities – brand building to communicate product benefits and USP’s to a wide audience.
2. Push activities – direct response and sales plans to convert high quality site traffic to sales.

Our current customer acquisition approach planned to be a combination of commission-based relationships and a controlled budget for paid, owned and earned media. Arrangements are implemented mostly with partners in the property or financial services sectors, but also with media businesses.

These plans are in place across digital and offline channels, and we consider them to be showing strong signs of success. We have been featured on BBC national radio as well as by the Times. We feel we are also achieving highly efficient ROI from our digital performance media.

We have acquired investors from five countries, which is a reassuring validation of our proposition. We will continue to refine our marketing approach through small scale tests before investing heavily thereby ensuring effectiveness of spend.

Competition strategy

Of the handful of unitised property investment websites, some focus solely on equity or debt, few do both. Some companies license their software and infrastructure and are not directly FCA authorised, which can result in higher operational costs (lower profit margins). By not owning their operational infrastructure we feel that they lack the agility to respond to changes in customer preferences and the market.

British Pearl’s comprehensive customer proposition and ownership of its infrastructure has resulted in what we believe is valuable company IP, agility, and no directly comparable competitor. Our FCA permissions enable share and loan investment in a wide variety of property investment types while client money holding permission means quicker and cheaper investment processing. Coupled with the software we have developed, including the Resale Market and Open API (a first), this really sets us apart.

We feel our product is unique and with 1,000 registrations since launch customers are clearly interested in our service.