Using social media marketing and content marketing to promote your firm’s thought leadership, philosophy, professionalism, and contributions to the industry and local community should be a top priority of marketing departments of asset management firms everywhere.
But I can hear it already…
“Yeah, using social media marketing and content marketing sounds good and all, but exactly HOW is it supposed to help us grow our assets under management? This just seems like another initiative in which we can’t afford an investment.”
Excellent question and observation. Let’s unpack them one by one:
How does SMM/CM grow AUM?
Any marketer or salesperson worth their salt would admit (tacitly, at the very least), that in most cases, timing is everything. A phone call placed on Monday or Friday might not have yielded the same result as a call made on Wednesday.
That’s because we never really know what is happening in the mind or on the desk of our prospects. Getting their ear is often a function of making contact at a particular moment when they are predisposed to hear us out. In another moment, when they are distracted or consumed with another project, they may take our number, or let us go to voicemail, and forget all about us 10 seconds after we make contact.
That’s just the nature of things.
However, when your prospects receive a steady drip-drip-drip of your thought leadership, vis-à-vis the markets, your unique investing insight, and/or your community involvement, it ensures your firm is consistently present in their weekly schedule. And when they are ready to speak, and you are on their mind, they will remember your name and have your contact information handy.
In essence, you’ve just made it much easier for them to contact you.
Does it guarantee top- and bottom-line results? No, but nothing does. What it does is grease the skids for scheduling an introductory or pitch meeting. Social media marketing and content marketing demonstrate that you are smart, thoughtful, professional, and that your firm is a dynamic, interesting place that isn’t content to just react to what’s happening in the industry – but to help shape its contours.
Just another initiative? Hardly.
Asset management is a highly competitive industry where differences between firms can often seem to your prospects like distinctions with little difference. And at the end of the day, all marketing for asset management firms must accomplish three tasks: explain who you are, what you do, and why. The sum message of those three points must be an expression of your firm’s unique market position; a message which provides clear differentiation from your peers.
Implied in all of this blather is the fact that your marketing has to clearly address the question, “Why should we hire you?” Market savvy. A different approach. Unique ways of looking at investing. Getting all of these ideas expressed in a 30 minute pitch meeting can be extremely difficult. What CM & SMM allows you to do is provide a steady supply of your wisdom over a longer period of time. It slowly conditions the prospect to your way of thinking, making the first face-to-face meeting play out more like the second or third. They already know who you are and how you think. And if they invite you in to their offices, you don’t have to waste valuable time on your background – you can jump right int the persuasive case for hiring you.
Generating thoughtful content that’s of use to your prospects and clients is one of the most effective ways to set yourself apart from the pack and create the optimal conditions for success.
