Asset Management Communications Blog

"What do I write about” is a common question vexing many interested in content marketing for investment managers.

The fear is that once they cover topics such as their investment philosophy and value proposition (and if the quarter or year didn't just end), what can they offer their clients and prospects on an ongoing basis that won’t be repetitive and make their message stale?

The answer is to use content to help clients and prospects solve the problems that complicate their professional lives.

Inbound marketing for investment managers is an established and highly effective strategy for building a consistent, strong pipeline of qualified leads.

While it is a seductive strategy, without proper education and (if necessary) assistance, inbound contains numerous pitfalls that can easily sabotage the strategy, leaving marketing executives and management teams alike frustrated and ultimately disinclined to pursue inbound marketing further.

While inbound marketing for investment managers is a strategy that’s been tested and has offered real results across many industries, it is a marketing strategy whose path to success is fraught with pitfalls and unseen obstacles.

Let’s take a look at the fictional asset management firm, DQ Capital. Does anything in this asset management content marketing campaign seem eerily familiar… ?

Sports metaphors are often annoying and inaccurate.

That said, the one I often use is:  “Everybody has a hole in their game.” It’s a way of remembering that nobody is perfect, and everybody can find some aspect of their performance on which to work. In sports, it can be some combination of endurance, speed, strength, quickness, or a particular skill or mental issue. But everybody can improve… even the best among us.

We humans are tribal folk. Each tribe to which we belong has its own customs and patter, shared knowledge and experience, and (if we are honest) prejudices.

And certainly those working in the investment management industry belong to a large and still-growing tribe. Yet subgroups exist: are you a fundamental investor or a quant? Value or growth? Are you a trader or a buy-and-hold investor? Active or passive management? Fixed Income or Equities?

Over the course of my career, I used to be surprised by how often I encountered investment management firms with inconsistent messaging across their library of client service and marketing materials.

Upon reflection, though, I realized that I shouldn’t be all that surprised - maintaining consistency is actually a deceptively difficult task for many reasons.

Like beauty, good writing is in the eye of the beholder; a wholly subjective judgment, aside from a few universal standards (i.e. correct punctuation, no errors in spelling or syntax, etc.).

I think such that subjectivity can often lead investment managers to think too lightly about how a firm’s outward projection of itself is deeply influenced by the quality of the writing.

But how best to define “good” writing for an investment management firm?

In a world where many asset managers don’t give a second thought to committing millions of dollars towards a new investment with a time horizon of 3- to 5- years, their reluctance to do the same with a new marketing initiative (minus the millions of dollars, of course) is curious.

Perhaps it shouldn’t be – after all, committing to an untested marketing initiative (untested for their firm, anyway…) requires a leap of faith many managers are unwilling to make. After all, isn’t it easier to simply stick with what you know and with what has delivered results in the past?

I concluded an earlier post on differentiation by observing:

True differentiation comes, not solely from a clear description of an investment process or philosophy..., but from self-awareness and a client-focused articulation about how the combined uniqueness of a firm’s individuals creates something greater than the sum of its parts.

What would an example of “client focused articulation” look like? In my view, a firm’s value proposition statement is among the most client-focused ways to provide differentiation from one’s competitors.

Is message differentiation truly a “Holy Grail” for asset managers? I don’t think so.

After all, the quest for the Holy Grail embodies a fruitless search for the unattainable. Differentiation is not so futile - after all, sometimes it can be easy.

To wit: A former client of mine is a boutique asset management firm located in Virginia. Several years ago they went into a finals presentation with a large Atlanta-based institution, competing against two global asset managers based in the Northeast.

When I start working with a new client, one of the first things I typically do is revise their statement of investment philosophy.

In my opinion, everything, from investment process to long-term portfolio management should flow from a simply written, single sentence, easily-remembered statement.

The two biggest objections to content marketing and social media marketing I hear from marketing and client service folks at asset management firms are: 1). compliance (which I examined in this post), and 2). return on investment (ROI).

Admittedly, ROI is a tricky metric to pin down when it comes to content and social media marketing in the asset management industry.

All new business initiatives require planning. Not surprisingly, then, an asset manager looking to add content marketing and social media marketing strategies to their marketing platform must do likewise.

Succession planning is one of the biggest challenges for any asset management firm, and especially so for those with a highly respected, successful founder or lead investment guru.

What happens when that person retires or leaves unexpectedly? Recently, for example, Bill Gross left PIMCO for Janus. Now ask yourself: is there anybody at PIMCO whose words will carry anywhere near the same weight?