Can thought leadership directly lead an advisor to invest? It’s a crucial question demanding a hard number, which has recently been identified.
The findings from the latest Advisor Pulse survey by ISS Market Intelligence provide asset management marketers with a concrete fact that has been tricky to have ‘to hand’ and justify internal budgets and resources from the C-suite:
75% of advisors say that educational or thought leadership content have influenced their decision to invest in an asset management product, or to recommend it.
Within this finding, advisors’ preferences for channels and content are sharply informed by their distribution models. Nearly half said digital copies of written reports and factsheets were the preferred option for prepared content. 37% of advisors overall want a balanced mix of in-person and virtual engagement with field reps and wholesalers (rather than “mostly in person” meetings being favoured most in 2023.)
RIAs had the strongest preference for digital at 56%, whereas wirehouse and broker-dealer advisors are the most attached to in-person engagement. In fact, 34% of RIAs want mostly virtual communications, and 24% are keen on being entirely virtual.
So, what does this mean for fund marketers?
The continuing appetite for thought leadership is a startling fact in the highly commoditised sector, especially where the onus on producing investment content has waxed and waned over the years.
But this research may also help marketers, sales teams and IRs refine their distribution strategy across advisor channels; away from sub-optimal singular means (sending all formats to all advisors), towards segmenting content by the types of channels each uses primarily.
RIA is the fastest-growing distribution segment that wants primarily digital, written and virtual engagement. Therefore, building a digital-first factsheet and virtual meeting calendar for RIA-facing teams will appeal to their needs. Accounting for any in-person capability is still useful where there is demand, for instance, for wirehouse relationships.
When three out of four advisors are essentially telling asset managers (through data) that their content is doing great distribution work besides brand-building, it provides evidence for why content marketing spend should not be ignored as part of any firm’s future plans.
Source
ISS Marketing Intelligence, “Advisor Pulse: 75% of Advisors Say Digital Content from Asset Managers Influences Investment Decisions”
