Tag: Clients

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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 No one wants to invest a client in a product and then have only outdated information to provide status updates and answer questions.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

On-Demand Webinars

What’s the first thing you think of when you think of on-demand webinars? It’s likely that you think of a replay distributed by email. On-demand webinars are replays, but they can be a lot more than this.

The process to create a webinar is also extensive. You’re scheduling time with executives, developing and completing presentations, routing through compliance, scheduling invites and developing a follow up plan.

With all this work, why not elevate your final product for more than one webinar?

Maximize Your Webinar

The first thing to do when you’re thinking about a webinar is identify the topics. What do people want? What are you hearing in the field that advisors want to hear more about? Is it always about your product? Is it educational? Is it both?

Do they want a webinar series? Can you split one large webinar into three small webinars to make your content go further? And take a deep dive into what you’re doing? Maximize it since you put all that effort into creating the webinar and getting speakers lined up.

Develop Strong Visuals

When people are attending webinars, they want to be intrigued. You have to keep their attention. So, if you have a presentation up and it’s a bunch of words, everybody’s likely tuning out and nobody’s listening. They may read the words, but they may not. And they are likely doing something else as well while attending your webinar. You have to grab their attention with strong visuals, video and easy-to-understand wording.

Using Technology to Your Advantage

Finally, be sure you’re ready to use technology to your advantage to create your on-demand webinar. There are platforms where you can upload a webinar recording. You can then set a schedule, so it gives off the perception that it is a live webinar. You can send out an invitation with simple wording like, “Please sign up for our webinar. It’s next Wednesday at 2:00 p.m.” 

What your audience doesn’t know is that it’s every Wednesday at 2:00 p.m., and it looks like advisors have easy access to your management team.

You’re able to see if advisors register and if they attend. You can automate your follow up procedures and your sales team has a reason for a follow-up call with the advisor.

If you would like to learn more about how we can help you maximize your webinars, please contact us today at info@marketingintent.com.

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Asset Managers Featured

Participating and Planning

How great does it feel to be asked to participate in a task force to plan an industry conference?

Pretty darn great.

Planning the Summit Conference

That’s how Cherie felt when Stacy Chitty from Blue Vault, asked her to participate in the task force to plan the upcoming Blue Vault Bowman Alts Summit 2023. This conference is focused on alternative investments.

We’ve been hearing for a long time that the 60/40 portfolio is no longer working. Alternative investments are the way to help the financial industry break out of that mold…although it’s been a bit slow moving to do it.

A Wide Range of Alternative Investments

What we’re doing on the Alts Summit task force is looking at the different types of content that advisors need to know to understand alternative investments. This includes making sure that a wide range of product sponsors are present at the conference. It also includes making sure that whether an advisor is new to alts or has been offering them for some time, there are educational opportunities for everyone.

In addition to product sponsors, we’ll be hearing from industry experts on topics like technology, compliance, and marketing in relation to alternatives, as well as advisor practice management. 

Register Today

If you haven’t registered yet, plan on joining us in Atlanta, March 6th through March 8th for the Blue Vault Bowman 2023 Alts Summit.

We look forward to seeing you there and helping you learn more about how you can incorporate alternative investments in your practice. Register now.

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Asset Managers

3 Ways to Improve Your Website

Does your website provide a compelling journey for financial advisors, or is it a confusing maze of information? If you haven’t positioned your website as the start of your client journey, you’re missing out on a key engagement tool.

Below we’ll discuss three ways to improve your website and engage financial advisors to a greater level.

First, we’ll talk about how to design your website for financial advisors. Second, we’ll cover the information that will help them stay on your site longer. And third, we’ll discuss what you want them to do next.

Customizing Your Website

Let’s talk about customizing your website to financial advisors. In our industry, there are a lot of facets of business that commercial real estate or asset managers are involved in. There are different types of businesses, lines of business and investment strategies and sometimes we try to do a one size fits all approach to websites.

That can end up being too much information for financial advisors. So, it’s important to develop a specific path you envision advisors going down or develop a site that is specific to advisors.

Website Stickiness

How do you keep advisors on your website for longer? As you’re thinking about developing a site, think about what advisors want to know, their frequently asked questions and how to engage them. It’s a balance of giving them the information they need without providing too much information. Think about how to keep them engaged and capturing more of their time, so they go further and further into your content.

Tell Them What to Do Next

Finally, tell the advisors what you want them to do next. Do you want them to contact you for more information or to set up a meeting with your sales team? Make sure your calls to action are clear on your site.

We Can Help Improve Your Website

If you need help improving your website to engage financial advisors, please reach out to us and we’d be happy to help.

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Asset Managers Featured

Is It Time to Outsource Your Marketing?

Marketing can be a pain point for many asset managers because there’s a lack of understanding, time, and resources. As a result, marketing is commonly one of the first things to get pushed to the end of the list or to cobble together.

In this article, we’ll discuss a few key indicators that it’s time to outsource marketing.

#1 – You Don’t Thoroughly Understand Your Audience

The first sign is that your marketing team doesn’t have a good grasp of your target audience. Maybe they are new to the industry, new to the distribution channel or don’t understand what your audience needs in terms of information. If you are not able to understand your target, you can’t produce the marketing needed to help you raise capital efficiently. A deep knowledge of who you’re speaking to and how to communicate with them is essential to effective marketing.

#2 – Your Marketing Team Doesn’t Understand the Sales Process

The second sign that it’s time to outsource marketing is when your marketing team doesn’t understand the sales process. Maybe it’s because they don’t have relevant experience or maybe you have a junior marketing team. You may have people that have come from outside the industry, and they don’t understand what goes into the day-to-day of the sales process.

A lack of understanding of the sales process leads to marketing not asking the right questions of the sales team to make the sales job easier. If you’re not fostering a feedback loop with your sales team and understanding the reception of the marketing materials out in the field, you’re missing the opportunity to facilitate conversations with advisors for your sales team.

For optimal capital raising, sales and marketing should be aligned. And that responsibility often falls heavier on marketing teams to accomplish.

At Marketing Intent, we help you align your marketing and sales teams for a unified capital raising effort and a relationship that benefits both departments. Contact us today.

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Asset Managers

Your Marketing Strategy

According to a recent survey from LC Kirk & Company, twelve to eighteen months is the amount of time it takes an advisor to learn about your offering before they make an allocation to it. For some sponsors, especially new ones in the commercial real estate and alternative investment space, that can seem like a very long time.

How can we shorten that long sales cycle? The answer – sync up your sales and marketing.

Shortening the Cycle

A lot of times marketing operates in a vacuum, and they don’t understand what the sales team is seeing in the field, the objections they’re facing, and the questions they’re getting from advisors. So, it’s important to open the communication channels between marketing and sales to help shorten that sales cycle and bridge the gap between what sales actually needs and what marketing is delivering.

Brand Awareness

Next, you should focus on brand awareness. Make sure everything is synced up across the board from email, to what you’re doing at conferences and how you’re helping advisors understand what you’re doing. Some firms feel hesitant about emailing, but email is a great way to increase brand awareness about your firm and offering. Building a strong brand helps build trust and break down barriers for advisors in looking at and completing due diligence on your firm.

Boil Down Your Story

It also helps shorten the sales cycle when you communicate what you do and the details of your offering in a simple way. Get away from complicated jargon. Advisors are not going to dig into what you’re doing if they don’t understand it immediately. Make sure you’re boiling down your story into digestible chunks, so it’s easily understood. That could be anything from the demand drivers behind your commercial real estate assets or lifestyle trends that are driving demand, and what supply looks like.

If you need help syncing marketing and sales, raising brand awareness, and boiling your story down into something that’s easily understandable, contact us at Marketing Intent. We’d be happy to help you shorten your sales cycle.

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Asset Managers

Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile

You may have noticed that we at Marketing Intent have been using LinkedIn a lot more to stay in front of our target audiences, as well as our clients. LinkedIn can be a really powerful connection tool.

How do you optimize your LinkedIn profile to connect with both your prospects and your clients?  

Use the Tagline

There’s an area underneath the name on your LinkedIn profile, and a lot of people use that for their job title, but we think there might be better ways to use that real estate.

One great thing you can use is a tagline. It can be a tagline on what your company does but stay away from any jargon or messaging that may be confusing. It should be quick and to the point. It’s a great way to advertise exactly who you are. And a tagline can allude to your title and what you do, so you don’t need to have a title featured.

There is another place, as well, that a lot of people don’t use and that’s the banner. You can do the same thing there and include your tagline or feature another point about what your firm does or what you focus on.

Include Your Target Audience

We suggest making sure you include your target audience in the two areas outlined above and highlight who they are. For example, “We help single women better prepare for retirement.” That way prospects clearly understand who you serve.

Something we want to point out is that it is okay to be repetitive, because we all know that everyone skims. The key is ensuring your target audience is highlighted – it will quickly grab their attention.

Building Trust

How can advisors help build trust with prospects and clients on their LinkedIn profile? Trust is huge, especially for advisors. There is so much going on these days and during rapidly changing market conditions, building trust is very valuable. We think it serves advisors further than most people realize.

One thing you can do to earn trust is to feature content you create. Don’t just repost other people’s content. Feature content you create. It shows your personality, how you communicate and who you are.

It also gives people a glimpse of what it’s like to work with you because they can see your perspective and what you’re trying to get across to your audience.

If you need help optimizing your LinkedIn profile and making sure that it speaks to your target audience, reach out to Marketing Intent, we’d be happy to help you.

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Asset Managers

Planning your 2023 Budget

Our team likes annual budget time – that special time! We know that’s not the case for everybody.

Taking time to create your budget for the next year helps you decide what you’re going to focus on and how to help your company reach its goals.

Let Us Help You Plan Your Budget

One of the most time-consuming parts of budgeting is figuring out how much these great ideas are going to cost. At Marketing Intent, whether you’re our client or you’re not our client yet, we are happy to help you plan for your budgeting for 2023.

Understanding our Packages

We have several programs that are off the shelf. If you are launching a fund, we can look at it and explain some of the small, medium, and large packages for how you want to market. You can then understand what those costs are, going into 2023.

How Long is This Going to Take to Execute?

If you have a new idea that you want to explore, like geotargeting, or even bringing direct mail back to your marketing plan, we can help with that.  We can give you a sense for how long it takes to plan and execute a program, and how much it might cost you.

Please reach out to us and we’d be happy to help you with your marketing plans and budgeting for 2023.

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