The Rise of the Retail Investor & it’s Impact on Financial Publishing, a conversation with Marco Ferri, Head of Business Development at Market Wise (Formerly Beacon Street Group)

Marco is Head of Business Development at Beacon Street Group now re-branded Market Wise, who wowed the industry with the announcement of it’s $3 billion SPAC.

Founded by Porter Stansberry, it has long been one of the powerhouse’s in the industry. (I believe Q1 revenues are in the neighborhood of $119 million.)

In this conversation Marco & I discuss three main topics:

1. The meta-shift that is the rise of the retail investor. Specifically, we discuss the importance of this trend on the financial publishing industry.I spoke extensively at this topic at FMS 2021 and really wanted to get Marco’s perspective as well because he and the team at Market Wise have consistently been ahead of the curve on the business opportunities these trends imply for financial publishers.
2. The changing landscape for the financial media & publishing industry within that broader context of individual investors becoming increasingly important participants in capital markets.
3. Finally, we discuss the M&A & strategic alliance framework Market Wise (formerly Beacon Street) is using right now to identify potential acquisitions and strategic partnerships.

One of the biggest opportunities right now is that the rest of the financial world is waking up to the fact that financial publishers have aggregated the active, self directed retail investors audience at scale online.

That’s why our industry has such a massive influence on the self directed investor – we’ve scaled digital retail investor distribution.

It’s also why I’ve been saying that our industry has an opportunity to be at the heart of multiple major disruptions throughout the financial world – the changing face of capital raise, the transformation of wealth management and more. Right now, financial publishing is the retail investment research industry.

Things are changing fast.

Publishers and financial marketers need to stay on top of these trends and the risks and opportunities they are creating.

It’s also why I believe publishers need to focus on creating great customer experiences. As our industry becomes more mainstream this is going to become more importance. We’re going to see more media attention, more regulatory attention, more competition, and more discussion about publishing experiences.

Marco & I discuss  how their business culture has been consistently focused on serving the customer.

I think the importance of customer experience is very overlooked by too many of the more purely marketing & promotional minded publishers out there. If you examine the financial publishers who have built long-lasting businesses they, without exception, focus on delivering value to individual investor.

You can hear Dr. Martin Weiss, who has been a financial publisher for 50-years, share a similar perspective in this conversation.

As always, I’m happy to make a connection & introduction to Marco or anyone else in the industry if you need them.

Best,
John Newtson