Tag: Marketing Strategy

Categories
PowerPoint Presentations

Don’t Be Held Hostage by PowerPoint

A client we recently worked with was frustrated with their PowerPoint presentations.

Every slide was an image created by a graphic designer appearing very polished (and very hard to update).

Problems with PowerPoint

We get it. You want your presentations to be on brand and look amazing. But that doesn’t make sense when you have regular updates to make – like that last minute change from the CEO before a webinar – and you’re frantically calling an outside designer for a revision because you can’t make it yourself.

Pasting in images instead of using native PowerPoint functionality takes away PowerPoint’s…well, power. PowerPoint is meant to be a support program to make your life easier and not hold you hostage and limit your flexibility and productivity. It’s meant for you to easily update presentations. And when set up correctly, it’s like a right-hand man that can make you far more efficient.

Maximizing PowerPoint’s Functionality

Learn about the functionality that is built into PowerPoint and utilize it. One of the amazing things about PowerPoint is the master slides function. Master slides allow you to apply your brand to the template, set fonts, heading styles, a color palette, spacing, bullet styles, etc. You can set up various types of slides as well, like a cover, a content slide and a diver slide. There are very detailed settings that can be created to help you maintain your branding.

Although, branding alone does not help you raise capital. Branding is important (obviously) but if a bullet’s off or a logo is placed a little bit too low on a page, it’s not going to affect an advisor’s ability to understand or bring capital in the door. It’s a balance between maintaining brand standards to a T and ensuring you’re positioning your firm in a way that allows you to develop and deliver clear messaging to advisors on your offering that generate sales conversations.

Making PowerPoint More Efficient

How do we make our clients’ PowerPoint presentations more efficient? We always start with the master slides. Behind the scenes, it sets the stage for more efficient work going forward and less management team disappointment in timeliness of updates. We call this “being kind to your future self” because you’ll be able to be nimbler with changes and more responsive to requests for changes from management and the sales team.

We design as many elements as possible in the native PowerPoint platform. These can be supplemented with designed graphics, but any element that may change frequently we suggest keeping in PowerPoint.

We also convert charts of data to native PowerPoint charts that are linked to Excel files…another big time saver and a play that helps non-designers be more self-sufficient in PowerPoint.

A lot of people dislike PowerPoint, but if you’re using it correctly, it’s actually a great tool. When you put the work in behind the scenes, it’s easier, it’s smoother, and it just works better to help support your marketing goals.

Do your PowerPoint presentations need an overhaul? Do you need help making them more user friendly? We would love to work with you to provide suggestions on how you can improve your presentations and improve your relationship with PowerPoint. Contact us today.

Categories
Marketing Management Marketing Team

Hiring the Right Marketing Agency

How is hiring a marketing agency like prom?

I know you’re probably thinking, “I haven’t been to prom in so long, I don’t remember.” For me, I never enjoyed prom. There was the buildup to the event…getting your dress, your shoes, figuring out what you’re going to do with your hair. But then you get there, and it wasn’t what you expected. I know I felt disappointed with my prom experience.

When I was working in corporate marketing, that’s the exact feeling I had anytime we had the need to hire an outside marketing firm.

Few Marketing Firms Truly Understand Alts

You’ve been searching and you finally find a marketing firm that looks like they’re going to be amazing. They have great work on their website, they look like they’re creative and fun to work with, they have experience…but you quickly learn that they don’t have the experience you need.

Financial services marketing – and even more so alternative investments marketing – is truly unique and requires a specific marketing skill set that balances being detailed oriented and analytical with creativity. It requires an understanding of financial products and more importantly, a deep understanding of the target audiences of advisors and investors.

A challenge in the alternative investment industry is that few marketing firms understand the ins and outs of commercial real estate offerings, the compliance requirements and how to explain offerings to advisors.

Marketing Intent Has Decades of Alts Marketing Experience

When we started Marketing Intent in early 2020, we did so with the goal of bringing a firm to the alternative investments industry we wished we’d had in our corporate lives. A firm that understands the industry, the lingo, the requirements. A firm that can balance the analytical with the creative. A firm that helps its clients produce and distribute marketing that generates sales activity.

We have decades of experience, not only financial services, but alternative investments as well. We understand your offerings, we understand the compliance requirements, and we understand how to talk to financial advisors in a way that helps them engage with your sales team. We partner with our clients to help elevate their marketing and stand out among a growing number of alternative investment offerings.

Nothing Happens Until Something is Sold

At Marketing Intent, our mantra is that nothing happens until something is sold. Raising capital is at the heart of your business. That’s why our approach centers around making sure your sales team has what they need to bring capital in the door.

We start by identifying the gaps between marketing and the needs of your sales team. Next, we prioritize where marketing can generate the most activity—and streamline the sales process. Then, we bring marketing in alignment with sales.

Need help avoiding the disappointment of hiring an outside marketing firm? Do you want to work with a firm that understands your industry, the needs of your sales team, your target audience, your product and your compliance requirements? Marketing Intent will help you avoid the “prom disappointment”. Contact us today to set up a meeting.

Categories
Websites

Make Your Website Great

Websites are a journey.

When somebody visits your website, they should be taken along a path. Even though they may not necessarily know they’re on a path, you need to guide them.

Poor Functionality Interrupts the Journey

Recently, as I was searching for some clothes online for a weeklong trip, I thought of asset manager websites. I searched online at a cute boutique’s website and found some items I wanted to buy. However, the purchasing process was horrific. The functionality was outdated and time consuming. So, I just tapped out. I figured I could find the items elsewhere. I Googled the clothes and ended up spending longer on this than if I had just bought the clothes on the boutique’s website. However, I couldn’t take how annoying the boutique’s buying process and functionality was.

While advisors aren’t making a direct purchase on your website, this is exactly how you’ll make them feel if your website is clunky and cumbersome to navigate or doesn’t provide enough information to engage them. They will “tap out” and discard your firm from consideration for an investment allocation for their clients.

Clear and Concise Websites

Sometimes asset managers are too content sparse on their websites. Their homepage has little wording – it looks like a temporary page. It appears a bit boring so advisors don’t engage.

Or, there is too much information or jargon language that doesn’t immediately indicate what they do, what they invest in and what their offering is. Advisors aren’t going to spend the time to stick with this and sort through it to find the information they need.

Think about your homepage as an advertisement. You need to give enough information to gain interest, but don’t have to include detailed information on what you do, your firm and your offering here. Your goal is to tease the content, so advisors click through to additional pages to learn more. Tease your track record, your property portfolio, demand drivers and get advisors further into your site.

The Journey is The Key

After you engage advisors on your homepage, continue to lead them through your site.

Why should they invest client assets with your firm?

Why should they trust you?

Why is your asset class superior?

Tell them what to do next, where to go on the site, how to learn more. What do you want them to do next? Do you want them to contact you for more information? Do you want them to inquire about what types of properties and or investments you have to offer? Make it clear. We need to tell people what to do or else they won’t take action.

Lead them through the answers to their questions. The alts industry continues to grow, so advisors will move on from your site if you’re not answering their questions and developing trust. Build their confidence so they follow your call to action, follow the journey and ultimately engage with your sales team.

If you need help making your website clear, concise and with a clear journey for advisors – and keeping it out of the “not great” category – contact us today.

Categories
Sales Support

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.

Categories
Communication Marketing Basics

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.

Categories
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.

Categories
Offering Materials

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.

Categories
Marketing Management

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
Webinars

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.

Categories
Websites

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.

Let's start your marketing with intent.

CONTACT US
Linkedin Youtube Envelope
info@marketingintent.com
303-912-7349

Subscribe to Our Weekly Insights for Asset Managers

Discover latest trends and marketing tips uniquely curated for asset managers working to engage financial advisors.

* indicates required
Email Address

© 2022 Marketing Intent. All Rights Reserved.

Privacy Policy | Terms of Use