CASA’s digital information supporting agri-investors

CASA’s plans for 2022 involve the launch of new digital services. CASA Agriculture Investment Database (CASA AID) aims to be one of the most comprehensive free databases of agricultural investments worldwide. Developed by CABI, it is designed to help enterprises to identify suitable investors.

The database has information on over 300 investors, combining data from Shell Foundation, with data provided by ISF Advisors on funds invested in agricultural finance and UK Aid commercial agricultural investments. The CASA team is in active negotiations with other donors, with a view of combining as many sources of information as possible. It is also exploring the feasibility of adding a section on investment-ready agribusinesses.

More information about this product will be available soon.

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In the coming year, there will be more CASA 4×4 and continue investor engagement via LinkedIn. We are also planning to hold in-person events, details of which will be available soon.

CASA publications planned this year, such as bridging the Agri-SME finance gap. Learn more about that report here.

Building on success

These developments build on the foundation of string investor engagement over the past two years.

CASA is proud to have been among the first in the agro-investment space to shift our content online.  The Rethinking Agri Business Investments Through the Pandemic webinar series in April 2020, was followed by the seven-part monthly CASA Agribusiness Breakthrough Webinars from October 2020 .

With Zoom fatigue setting, we mixed things up in June 2021 with the CASA 4×4 series  – a series of short briefings livestreamed over YouTube, based on expert viewpoints focusing on original research by CASA or our partners.

Adapting to new trends

The Brunswick Digital Investor Survey 2021 outlines exactly how the pandemic drove digital acceleration among institutional investors. Findings of the survey included:

• Over 70% of investors said they had to do most of their work in a different location than before the pandemic & mostly working from home
• Investors forced to work remotely were more likely to use LinkedIn
• More likely to subscribe to e-mail newsletters and rely on Zoom
• Investors spent more time with video in 2020, underlining the importance of rich content (such as YouTube)

Building audience engagement

The easiest way to analyse the impact of more working from home, is by comparing audiences for CASA’s virtual offerings in 2021 compared to 2020. These include:

• 50% increase in website users
• 50% increase in page views

Over 20% of our visitors were in the finance, banking or business market segments, suggesting that the correct target demographic was being attracted to our website. In addition to this

• 4,000 views of our event pages including 500 views of the event page for our first 4×4, where Grahame Dixie answers questions drawing on his recent experience at Grow Asia
• 5,000 views of research publications in our evidence section,  a 60% increase on 2020
• 2,500 views of news and blogs section

Increasing importance of LinkedIn

The CASA Programme LinkedIn page  experienced a 60% increase in followers from July 2021 – January 2022. This helped us to promote our webinars and 4x4s to more investors working from home and looking for effective ways to keep informed.

LinkedIn analytics allow us to understand a key portion of our audience, and tailor our media content accordingly. Findings include:

• 35% are in the investor/business development field
• 75% are senior or higher in their job roles.
• Over 50% working for organisations with less than 50 employees.

CASA 4×4 – an alternative to Zoom

With frequent Zoom meetings being an irritating necessity for many after a year from working from home, we wanted to reinvigorate the virtual space with the CASA 4×4 series. Instead of having to find time in busy calendars to attend webinars, the premise was simple: 4 expert viewpoints, with a limit of 4 minutes per viewpoint, that usually centre on original research by CASA or our partners. These can either be watched via a livestream, or as individual viewpoints on YouTube.

As a result of this new content, our YouTube channel saw a 110% increase in views in 2021 compared to 2020. Since the 4x4s began, our channel had 1,600 views, 92 watch hours and 9,000 impressions (when a video appears on someone’s feed). See our first 4×4 below driven Grahame Dixie, reflecting on his recent experience of delivering investment growth through his work at Grow Asia.