Give us your toughest questions on how to market your fund. We’ll give you no-nonsense opinions and insights to help build your brand and grow AUM.
About May’s Question
If there were a direct and immediate cause & effect relationship between marketing tactics and asset growth, we’d all be billionaires, and life would be very boring. Marketing’s “secret sauce” involves knowing what tactics work (and don’t work), but more importantly, having the courage to apply them consistently over the long haul. Unfortunately, too many funds are looking for quick and easy solutions.
Andrew + Selikoff Partners
Q: I need to have my name mentioned in articles, blogs, etc. Need about 5-7 mentions or articles about me within a short period of time (up to 1 month). Let me know if you can help.
Fund Manager
New York, NY
A: I’m not sure whether or not you’re just pulling my chain, but if your question is legitimate, I’d like to know if there is some way that I can short your company’s stock.
There are two major reasons why fund marketing is likely to fail, and your question suggests that you may be guilty of committing both mistakes, which are:
You view marketing as business triage. Your fund applies a collection of tactics (often labeled as a “marketing campaign”) only in response to a problem; typically involving the loss of a key client, or decline in AUM. When business is good, little or no time is invested in marketing. When business (inevitably) takes a dip, only then does marketing becomes a priority.
You expect marketing to deliver immediate results. Either because your fund always views marketing on a “cause & effect” tactical basis, or because marketing triage must be applied quickly to revive an ailing company, the marketing function is given insufficient time to produce tangible results. It’s no surprise that investor relations / business development professionals have the shortest tenure of any corporate function in the asset management business.
The hard truth is that very few fund managers either understand the marketing function, or have the discipline to design, implement, measure and adhere to a consistent marketing approach that builds brand equity and market engagement over a sustained period.
To establish the infrastructure and internal culture necessary for the marketing discipline to succeed, we offer fund managers the following simple path:
- Create a Written Marketing Plan. This need not be in a 3-inch binder; a two-page document is often sufficient. Include goals, strategies, responsibilities, timelines, budgets and ways to measure results. Without a Marketing Plan you’ll waste lots of time and money. And unless it’s a written document, you won’t have commitment or accountability.
- Gain Senior Level Commitment. The honcho in corner office (which might be you) must understand, endorse and support the Marketing Plan. This involves more than lip service. If your Plan isn’t properly staffed and funded at the outset, there’s no real commitment to marketing.
- Gain Senior Level Commitment. The honcho in corner office (which might be you) must understand, endorse and support the Marketing Plan. This involves more than lip service. If your Plan isn’t properly staffed and funded at the outset, there’s no real commitment to marketing.
- Build and Nurture your Database. Direct and easy access to your company’s clients, prospects, referral sources and opinion leaders is essential. Without this pipeline, the marketing value of the content you create is close to zero. If your firm’s thought leadership simply sits on its website or social media, you’re missing the opportunity to build relationships with people in your target audiences.
- Create Meaningful Content. Self-serving, long-winded white papers and research reports have very limited appeal. Generate content that validates your company’s intellectual capital, that’s easy to read, and focuses on timely topics that people have a genuine interest in.
- Drive Top-of-Mind Awareness. To be included on the short list of candidates for an allocation, you need to build awareness with decision-makers. To accomplish that goal, share your content directly with target audiences on a quarterly basis. (More frequently than that, and you may be viewed as a pest.)
Most importantly – with apologies to Glengarry Glen Ross – fund managers must commit to:
A…..Always
B…..Be
M….Marketing
…for the discipline to be effective. Otherwise, the traditional short-term, hair-on-fire approach to business development will keep your fund from ever reaching its full potential, regardless of its performance.