The digital pitch to investors
As far as marketing sophistication goes, the hedge fund industry has built a reputation for lagging far behind many other financial and professional services. While many have applied standard marketing tools and tactics, such as having a website and a social media presence, some fund managers continue to embrace the idea that an opaque brand image creates a sense of mystique and exclusivity that appeals to their clients.
Conversely, today’s investors are much more data-driven and have come to demand a greater level of transparency and more frequent communication from their fund managers. Enhanced by a wider range of fund information, their ability to compare and conduct their own performance analysis has intensified competition to secure funding. In turn, this has fueled a decline in management fees and added pressure on operators to be more efficient in how they manage investor relations.
Meanwhile, digitally savvy fund marketers have been able to take advantage of this trend and have deployed online technologies to scale their ability to target and communicate with investors.
Smart email marketing
Email marketing is nothing new to the fund industry, however the level of targetting has since evolved from the days of blasting prospect databases. Modern email tools can track the regularity and type of content that audiences interact with, which can inform much more relevant messaging. In addition, the data also acts as a rich measure of scoring contacts, which is invaluable information for business development teams.
Analytics & dashboards
Data-driven marketing is in full swing however, in the investment industry, this is taking form in the digitisation of fund performance. By making dashboards a self-serve feature for investors to access fund data in a transparent way, marketers are able to offer a competitive advantage over their less advanced peers. Those who go the extra mile of tracking which elements of their website and fund information their users are interacting with are able to gain a far greater understanding of their customers.
Targetted investor relations
Regularly communicating performance updates with multiple investors can take up a lot of time that could be better spent on creating new opportunities. Customer relations management (CRM) systems are a staple in many organisations, and become a powerful efficiency when integrated with other data sources. They become especially helpful when fund performance information is combined with client engagement scores to inform which charts and other updates to send to clients and prospects.
Secure document sharing
While having a central file sharing process isn’t going to flood anyone’s inbox with inquiries, for today’s fund marketers it’s a huge compliance weight off their shoulders that allows them to focus on other things.
Aside from the time savings, the more valuable aspect of having the ability to selectively share documents and centrally manage users, is that it provides evidence to investors that they are partnering with a company that is responsible with its data.
Regular mishandling’s of sensitive information has lead to an accepted level of data skepticism among consumers and investors alike. In today’s digitised world, arguably one of the greatest intangible assets a fund marketer can possess is a brand that investors can trust.
FundPortal from Edgefolio offers marketing tools, file sharing and analytics solutions for fund marketers and managers alike. If you would like to find out more or to see a demo, feel free to contact us.