Why Centralised Data and Marketing Tools Are So Important For Funds
No matter whether a fund is an international behemoth or a boutique punching well above its weight, firms of all shapes and sizes have to deal with masses of data they can use to their advantage.
Digital channels have helped fund marketers respond to the increasing ‘data storm’, and provided new avenues to put omnichannel marketing strategies into action. But they have also become so numerous and niche that getting the best out of them is tough. With multiple systems housing different types of data, it can be pandemonium to manage the multi-channel chaos.
When you bring the channels together, you bring the data together – that’s easy, right? Not necessarily, as there’s every investor-facing team to think about, who all need to equip themselves with the means to raise the fund’s overall AuM. Centralising solutions for multiple outreach tasks is partly an engineering task, yet also requires a marketer’s touch to make it simple and effective in streamlining day-to-day workflows to find invisible investors and nurture their ideas to start investing.
Integration is the word every marketer loves and wants to achieve. HubSpot put it well in saying that integrating all of your investor data and channels – whether a website, a CRM, a social media profile, a secure customer portal, or an email automation platform – results in a “united front”. When one platform draws together the digital touchpoints of new visitors, existing investors or ‘reawakened’ leads alike, these insights inform every fund team how best to personalise the right materials to investors and encourage them to progress their buying journeys.
Marketers are no longer above the funnel. The entire firm and the eventual investor experience flourishes when man and machine is brought together, mucking in to bring the brand, services and products to the investors that matter. Doing this takes some preparation to turn any fund into an automated marketing machine.
Getting Aligned
Before the arrival of flashy new platforms, ‘the process’ existed first for funds to get their marketing underway, and that mantra still applies. After all, each critical department will approach investor outreach completely differently due to how their brains are wired. This can lead to communication mis-alignment, for example, a gung-ho email being sent without its performance information or updated branding approved by others.
Luckily, fund marketers can set up unified workflows easily enough:
Excel spreadsheets can map out who is responsible for handling each piece of content and on which channel(s) it should be distributed.
Dashboards centralise and showcase investor behaviour through categories, word maps, graphs, and historical timelines, which can be accessed or manipulated according to user permissions.
Planning out ideal customer profiles can be done cross-departmentally according to their trusted relationships with investors and by hinging on data analytics.
Lead scoring methods can also be planned fund-wide according to the importance of investor interactions (i.e. accessing a factsheet could categorise an investor as more interested than one that watched a thought leadership webinar).
Even project management tools like Asana or instant messaging platforms such as Slack can set clear objectives for content marketing, with all easily compatible for every client facing department.
Consistency is key to building brand awareness and trust with investors, which starts with a central hub.
Assess Your Stack
Omnichannel marketing is increasingly popular for widening a fund’s reach to different investor bases across the globe. When it comes to handling content creation and delivery, SEO practices, and data analytics, marketers have to wield varying technologies that store disparate data. Therefore, for every added platform, a fund reduces their efficiency by 15%.
Not every platform may be necessary. Instead, a successful marketing stack should be made up of individual channels that complete specific goals in the go to market strategy path, from initial brand awareness to closed leads. Data sources should not overlap too much – one platform will always be better than three, avoiding confusion around investor demographics, touchpoints content preferences, communication histories and more.
Many marketing platforms utilise APIs to integrate well with each other, syncing up-to-date and accurate data that every department can use safely. A CRM is a perfect example of a powerhouse repository for all your interaction data, from website forms or landing pages through to URL referrals from social links and email newsletters. It’s also scalable to the needs of growing customer bases.
Bring It On Home
When fund marketing platforms are set up as needed, delivering consistent and timely fund content to the right people relies on marketing automation. It not only allows for marketing data to be segmented according to investment appetite, as automations also help nurture leads without marketers having to get bogged down with dull, manual tasks.
Understanding individual financial needs relies on analysing this behavioural data which can be streamlined using AI. Putting a centralised and well-integrated marketing stack into practice, AI automations are the worker ants making sure every interaction is logged, tracked and optimised for a campaign. Marketers can set up processes that make sure certain investor actions trigger personalised ‘next steps’ from the fund via the channels they use the most, greatly simplifying sales and marketing alignment to convert warm leads to trusted investors. Slicker, happier teams means better outreach, as well as increased productivity of up to 14.5%.
Clearly a combination of people, platform and data is the answer to raise assets by understanding what investors are after. It just takes some tinkering to integrate every tool that can best gather and analyse investor data before leaving it to automations to handle the nitty-gritty tasks, letting marketers focus on managing the next great campaign.
At ProFundCom, we supply one platform to gather this information into one handy place specifically for the fund sector:
Integrated CRM Systems: By integrating with CRM systems commonly used by fund marketers, data synchronisation between ProFundCom and the CRM is seamless, ensuring that all customer interactions are centralised and easily accessible.
Unified Data Management: Fund marketers can consolidate customer data, engagement metrics, and campaign performance from various sources to gain a comprehensive view of their audience and marketing activities in one platform.
Cross-Channel Marketing: Marketers can coordinate email campaigns, social media promotions, and website content to ensure consistent messaging and centralised campaign management.
Automation and Workflows: ProFundCom offers automation tools and workflow capabilities that help create automated campaigns, set up lead nurturing workflows, and schedule content delivery from one place.
Customisable Reporting: Generate custom reports and analytics to track key performance indicators, measure campaign effectiveness, assess ROI, and help optimise strategies based on data-driven decisions.
Collaboration and Communication: Share insights and coordinate marketing activities within the platform to encourage teamwork and align across marketing initiatives.
If you’d like to find out more, get in contact with our team today!
