Social Media Marketing helps increase the touchpoints a firm has with clients and prospects. It's a vital consideration, because timing, quite frankly, is everything in sales, marketing, and client service.
Intimacy & Influence
Earlier this year, a colleague forwarded to me a white paper written by an outfit called Act-On Software (they are sellers of a cloud-based sales and marketing platform). Their white paper is entitled, “The Lead Nurturing 5 & 10: 5 Reasons You Can’t Ignore Lead Nurturing; 10 Fundamentals for Your Success.” If one is so inclined, it’s worth a full read.
The upshot of the white paper is that by establishing a sustained, thoughtfully-orchestrated lead nurturing campaign, B2B firms essentially exchange valuable insight and actionable information for intimacy and influence over a potential buyer over the long-term.
The article got me thinking about the idea of asset management firms working to establish “intimacy and influence” with prospects and clients.
The value of “touchpoints”
"Touchpoints” are all the channels an asset manager uses to keep in touch with its clients and prospects.
I’ve noted in the past that content marketing is among the most effective, efficient, and least obtrusive ways asset managers can consistently remain in contact with clients and prospects. And when an asset manager leverages social media to promote their thought leadership, it expands the number of touchpoints a firm can maintain with its contact list.
Let's look at a hypothetical example of using social media marketing to promote an asset manager's thought leadership, and count the potential touchpoints:
The lead portfolio manager at Jones Asset Management writes a white paper:
- Once the piece is ready for distribution, it is posted to the firm's website (#1).
- An announcement is sent to the firm's email contacts list (#2).
- The piece is published to LinkedIn, along with a status update on the accounts of both the PM and Jones Asset Management. (#s 3, 4, 5, & 6).
- LinkedIn adds these announcements to the weekly email blast it sends out to its members describing the status updates occurring within their network (#'s 7 & 8).
- The firm posts similar announcements on all social media platforms for which it has accounts. (If the firm uses Twitter, Google+, and Facebook, that's #'s 9, 10, & 11).
Importantly, each of these touchpoints enables Jones Asset Management's contacts and social media followers to easily share the white paper with their respective networks, which exponentially increases its potential audience.
When done thoughtfully and consistently, content marketing and social media marketing can enable the steady drip-drip-drip of asset management industry thought leadership and insight that can slowly influence the thinking of even the most reluctant prospect.
