Category: General

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Asset Managers General

Marketing & Sales Alignment Better Supports Capital Raising

Do you remember the game telephone when you were a kid? At one end of the line, your friend said “Chuck E. Cheese” and what you ended-up actually hearing was “Would you please?”

Communication Between Marketing and Sales

A game of telephone is exactly what it can be like when the marketing and sales teams don’t talk to each other. They are hearing direction from the management team and attempting to translate it into what the sales team needs from marketing.

That can often end up in a high-level mandate of: “We need more marketing materials,” “We need more leads,” or “We need more marketing activity.”

But what does that really mean? And what is the true need the sales team is expressing?

What I found in my experience is that when the people who are doing the work sit down and talk to each other, a lot of great things can happen. It opens the lines of communication to really understand what the needs of the sales team are. In our view, this is exactly what marketing should be focusing on. Syncing with the sales team.

The Feedback Loop

When sales and marketing start talking, you open a feedback loop that will allow you to create more impactful marketing materials that start and support sales conversations. The worst place to be as a marketing professional in our industry is working in a vacuum. Interaction and feedback from the sales team is critical to your success and your firm’s ability to raise capital.

As you open the lines of communication with the sales team, you may learn that they are continually encountering a certain objection that current marketing materials don’t address. Or you may learn that the same question is coming up that is blocking advisors from making the next step in investing capital with your firm. A marketing piece answering that question may help smooth the interaction and better support the sales team.

As you open the lines of communication and listen to feedback from the sales team, you’ll learn what’s working and what isn’t, as well as which topics need to be highlighted a little bit more. The conversations may also lead to ideas for other types of campaigns you can create from the marketing perspective.

Some friendly advice: salespeople love to share their opinions! Don’t take it personally. Your goal is to produce marketing that helps bring capital in the door. When you determine what this is for, your firm and for your salespeople will take some iterations. You will put out pieces that flop…it’s inevitable since marketing and what resonates with advisors over time is not static and not black and white. Do not take feedback from the sales team personally, but do take it to heart and make your next piece even better.

It Pays to Communicate

It pays to continue to meet with the sales team, have regular meetings and open the lines of communication. Start a weekly meeting between marketing and sales to get the ball rolling. Get to know each other and help each other bring capital in the door.

Syncing marketing and sales is one of our sweet spots. We love finding the gaps and bridging them so your firm can solidly compete in a crowded marketplace.

Contact us if you’re feeling tension between marketing and sales, or if you’re feeling like you’re working in a vacuum, disconnected with sales. We’d love to help sync your marketing to the sales team’s needs.

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Asset Managers General

How to Make Your Firm Easy for Advisors to Work With

You’ve probably heard of CX, which is customer experience. But in the asset management world, it’s also important to think about the AX, which is the advisor experience. As you launch an offering or you continue to try to appeal to advisors, the easier you make it to work with your firm, the better.

Here are a few ways to make sure that your firm is being accessible and easy for advisors to work with.

Access to Your Materials

First of all, it’s important to make sure advisors can access your material easily, whether that’s on your website or through contacting your sales team. Same holds true for obtaining information about your firm. You don’t want advisors to have to go to your website and search around trying to find key pieces of information. It should be front center, clear and easy to find.

Access to People

Advisors are looking for access to people. Whether that’s that sales team and being able to talk to them on demand, or the management team – accessing them through events or even one-on-one meetings. Access to the humans behind the firm and the investment can be critical and important for creating a positive experience for advisors.

Updated Materials

Advisors need the asset managers they work with to be consistent in updating their materials. No one wants to invest a client in a product and then have only outdated information to provide status updates and answer questions. That is the signature of a bad advisor experience.

For example, the latest property acquisition should be front and center, easy to find, and current. This also helps create trust with advisors by showing them you are following through on your investment philosophy

Clear Communication

Finally, clear communication is essential both before and after an advisor makes an investment in your firm. Advisors need to know and understand:

  • Your story and your investment philosophy
  • How you approach doing business
  • How you operate
  • How you communicate with advisors and investors
  • What your statements look like (are they easily understandable)
  • What types of updates are you providing on an ongoing basis

All these things can help develop trust on both the front end, as well as after advisors and investors are invested in your product, which can then help perpetuate additional investments.

If you need help evaluating your strategy and the type of experience you’re creating for advisors, contact Marketing Intent today.

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Asset Managers General

Your Brand Is More than a Logo

Designer Branding a Business Illustration

Is your brand coming across as a Nordstrom or a Kmart? In the asset management world, we’re asking investors to commit a significant amount of money to invest in companies and products.

It’s important for your brand to come across as high quality as possible, and that goes beyond just your logo.

Develop Your Brand From the Beginning

When you’re thinking about beginning your offering, develop your brand from the get-go. This means BEFORE starting your website and launching it. We see a lot of firms start with a website, then they think about how it’s coming across and want to go backwards and develop their brand. It’s much easier to start with the brand and then go with your website.

Your brand is part of your firm’s personality. It includes your logo, fonts and colors, but it also outlines graphic treatments, the types of photographs to use and the messaging tone you’ll use in your pieces.

Consistency Across the Board

From there, it’s important to think about consistency across the board. As you’re going to trade shows, conferences, sending emails, providing offering materials and creating videos, you want your brand to come through and be consistent in all of those different types of marketing communications. Over time, this helps create brand awareness with advisors – which is the first step in engaging them in conversation with your sales team.

Show Your Personality

Finally, make sure your brand is real. We are a very professional industry, but that doesn’t mean that the personality of your firm can’t come across in your brand. You can showcase qualities that are unique about your firm in your brand, as well as in your marketing pieces.

As you think about launching a new brand or product, or if you need a brand refresh, please contact us today at Marketing Intent. We’d love to help you stand out in the marketplace and with advisors.

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Asset Managers General

Creating a Powerful Fact Sheet

Female businesswoman readind financial report analyzing statistics pointing at pie chart working at her desk.

If you’ve seen one fact sheet, you’ve seen them all. Stats are crammed in and there’s no white space. That poor fact sheet is trying to fit every little bit of information about your product into one page, because we all know the second page is full of disclosures.

What if your firm wants to take a different approach to this critical marketing piece? Let’s discuss some things you can highlight on your fact sheet to make it do its job better and give advisors a quick overview of your product.

Beyond the Numbers

When creating a fact sheet, go beyond the numbers. While your stats are important, they don’t all need to be on the fact sheet. Highlight some key points advisors need to know, but don’t include every single bit of information. Keep in mind you can also create other pieces, like a terms sheet that details the exact terms of the offering. Sometimes our focus gets so granular that we forget to think outside the box.

Highlight Your Firm’s Best Qualities

The next focus should be to highlight your firm’s qualities on your fact sheet. What is your firm known for? What about your firm stands out with advisors? Where is your experience focused? Investment objectives and legalese are a dime a dozen…bring out what really makes your firm unique.

Make Your Images and Graphics Stand Out

We often see asset managers wanting to make their fact sheets look just like other firm’s fact sheets. While we agree there are some key components to fact sheets, they don’t need to all be identical. Use graphics and images to make your fact sheet easier to read and to help get your story across. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and that works here too. If you have the right graphics, you’re going to pique their interest.

You’re motivating advisors to reach out to your wholesalers, ask questions and even to set up meetings. It’s a conversation piece to drive towards the end goal of getting their business.

If you would like us to take a look at your fact sheet and give you some ideas on how we think you can improve it, or help you create your next fact sheet, contact us today.

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Asset Managers General

Trends in Marketing

Knowing which trends are popping up in marketing and which trends are outdated is a way to remain relevant and engaged with your audience.

In – Dynamic Personal Voice
Out – Bland, Third Person Voice

First, let’s talk about using your voice. Try to avoid a bland, third-person voice. Use the words “us”, “we” and “our” to make your materials personal. People tend to gravitate toward the human element and will continue wanting to hear more and ask questions or read more.

In – Simplicity
Out – Deciphering What You’re Saying

The second focus is to keep it simple. We tend to compact so much into one piece or into meetings and conversations. And we often use a lot of jargon. Keep it simple – and keep them wanting more by being clear, concise, and making it simple for your target audience. Creating a compelling teaser will keep them interested and wanting to carry the conversation further.

In – White Space
Out – Cramming It All In

The next trend that we are seeing is white space. Don’t fill it up! Maintaining white space on your fact sheets, your white papers, or your website makes it cleaner, professional, and more inviting to the eye. A design that is aired out attracts more attention and conveys a sense of organization.

When you have a jumbled mess of content or its extremely cluttered, people equate that to what you’re doing on the backend – it’s a mental stumbling block. So, utilize white space appropriately to keep your readers engaged.

Thing’s Don’t Have to be Perfect

Marketing doesn’t have to be perfect on the first try. There’s going to be multiple iterations. We see a lot of asset managers hold onto papers, fact sheets or emails because they want to get their wording exactly perfect.

Now, do the facts need to be correct? Of course. But that first iteration doesn’t need to be perfect. The important thing is to get that first draft out there – and iterate over time based on feedback. Having a couple other people chime in on what they think may sound better, or some questions that came up when the first draft was used is what’s going to help drive it to eventually being perfect.

Would you like more insights about what’s working for asset manager marketing and what’s not? Contact us today at info@marketingintent.com.

Categories
Asset Managers General

One-Hit Wonders

What does this list have in common: Carl Douglas, Los del Rio, Soft Cell, Vanilla Ice and Wild Cherry?

They’re all “one-hit wonders”. They all have a song that we know, like Kung Fu Fighting, The Macarena, Tainted Love, Ice Ice Baby and Play That Funky Music. Those were their big hits – and they never had another one.

So what’s that have to do with alternative investments and asset managers?

One-hit wonders are advisors who do one trade with your product, and they never do another one. We know they have done a lot of research on your company and your product, they’ve completed the paperwork, and they found enough value to invest a client’s assets. So, why would they go through that entire process and do one trade and not another? The reason isn’t always clear, but the good news is we can do something about it.

Let’s talk about ways we can turn a one-hit wonder into a loyal producer for your firm.

Have a System in Place

When an advisor makes a trade, make sure you have a system set up where you thank them. Send them an email, thank them for their trade, and also highlight why they invested in your product. Give them your value add and what you plan to deliver to investors.

You also need to regularly check in with advisors. Set up a schedule after the first sale to check in with advisors at 30, 60 and 90 days or every quarter. A streamlined way to manage this is through marketing automation.

Have a Conversation

Even after – or especially after – an advisor has allocated a portion of a client’s assets with your firm, your sales team should continue to have conversations with them to understand their latest thinking about your company and product. And make sure you arm your sales team with a list of who is a one-hit wonder, so they understand where an advisor stands and that they may need additional support telling your investment story.

Always keep that dialogue open, that’s where you’ll learn why a second trade hasn’t been made. If your sales team is having that conversation, they will be able to better understand why an advisor only did that one trade and it will help you fill in the gaps.

If you would like to discuss how we can help you convert one-hit wonders into loyal producers, contact us at info@marketingintent.com.

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