The target audience for these investments is broad and inclusive. We have done research through national surveys, and have been able to identify that a large proportion of most communities are likely to want to consider an investment like this. These are the key insights from that research:
The people who want to do an investment like this are people who care about the place they live. That means being engaged, and interested in what happens locally. Our surveys suggest around 50% of people fall into this category.
These investments offer fixed returns over a long term, similar to fixed term savings and accounts and ISAs. These appeal to people who have a desire to lock in a return on an element of their savings and investments, and these people typically have an organised attitude to their finances. Again, this represents a good chunk of people - around 40 - 50% or so. Bringing these two factors together we see that CMIs should be an appealing option to a very broad cross-section of communities.
It is tempting to assume that the people who will buy an investment are well off people. That is true in general for investments - you get more buyers the more affluent an area is. but this is not true for these investments. Our data shows we get strong engagement across a wide range of IMD deciles. This is because the benefits of the product - regular returns, low risk - appeal to people even if they don’t have a lot of money to invest. And the £5 minimum investment means this investment is accessible to everyone.
Perhaps surprisingly, our research indicates that even people who do not have a positive view of their council would be interested in this investment. But it is probably safe to assume that in the first instance the people who will engage will be those who already have some engagement with you - perhaps people who are in your communications channels. Investing is a very proactive act, and so starting with those closest to you is a smart move, before building out into the broader target audience defined above.