In Messy Digital Echo Chambers, How Can Fund Marketers Boost Trust?
Trust and technology have rarely gone hand in hand. Skynet and The Matrix haven’t exactly helped. But blockbusters aside, the Big Tech giants that swooped in claiming to solve real life’s many problems (including the next-day delivery of a stapler) are experiencing a ‘trust erosion’ phenomenon.
When everything’s a faceless algorithm-based advert, almost half of UK adults are lacking faith in what they’re seeing. That may signal good news for investment professionals who feared a takeover of financial services by Meta or Amazon, yet any complacency would also be misguided. The financial sector does not get much love either; only 36% find firms “honest and transparent” in how they’re treated according to the FCA.
Trusting a stranger with your savings, let alone a corporate machine, is a tall ask – and a concern funds must understand to appeal to buyers that lack confidence in money matters. Unlike tech’s leading influencers, asset and wealth managers, hedge funds and private equity firms serve hyper-focused niche markets, which they should understand back-to-front to grant investors special care and attention.The modern investor is highly digitally literate, utilising online channels 24/7 to discover funds that suit them. So even from behind screens, that essential one-to-one investor communication is more important than either to guide them toward a conversion.
Marketing and salespeople may not be viewed as an investor’s best friend, but through digital marketing funds can remain vigilant and proactive across their ever-changing customer landscape, serve a range of diverse needs, and stand out amongst noisy digital clatter as authentic voices distanced from the ‘money-making fat cat’ financial services stereotype.
This boosts trust – a mark of quality to hook hungry new investors into the fold and maintain momentum for raising AuM, while continuing to keep them on as valued, happy customers. To keep trust erosion at bay, funds should always stick to the three following principles.
Remember That Brand Reputation Proceeds Itself
“Why” you do what you do is a bit of an unwritten rule. Every fund brand has had a purpose since it was set up, and that guiding idea surreptitiously simmers underneath the daily office culture through to the marketing materials that investors get to their handsets of choice.
To understand how a brand is perceived, marketers can look to their favourite products. Why do you go back to them? Is it because of their product quality, durability or timelessness? Is it to do with their social cause, or sustainability efforts? A fund is similar. Showcasing an honest mission is more trustworthy than peddling annual returns, and can develop a positive brand reputation more quickly (which can, as we all know, take decades).
To a lot of fund marketers, presenting a tangible brand philosophy may feel too abstract or too on-the-nose. However, it can be applied well in a few ways:
An internal brand guide means everyone, from marketing to IRs to data analysts, can keep the fund’s core values in mind always. Likewise, it instills how tone of voice can be employed for outreach, or which taglines, logos, and other media should be used for brand awareness consistency.
A striking website that puts the brand’s look-and-feel and messaging upfront creates an impression with a digital visitor. ‘About Us’ pages should focus on the fund’s leading people, strategy, and what it stands for.
Storytelling is a powerful thing, from the fund’s beginnings to how it continues to serve the current climate. People will trust a credible manager’s analysis, but also their relatability, both of which should guide content brainstorming.
Charitable initiatives are not intended to score points. They’re commitments to making real-world differences in regions and sectors funds work with. Actionable change instills a positive culture at a firm, which shines outwards through blog posts, photos, social feeds, and even through award recognitions.
Use Thought Leaders Are Fund Content Forerunners
Whether someone’s interested in the FT’s macroeconomic news or delving into a favourite marketer’s brain via their latest book, people still crave shared knowledge. A lot of traditional media is still thriving, while podcasts, audiobooks, and short-form video are hugely popular.
That can play very much into a savvy firm’s hands. After all, everyone engages with content differently, and trust is gained by adhering to visual and audible learners. Investors might enjoy hearing your portfolio manager’s commentaries while they’re hitting the gym or travelling, where you can reach them anytime, anywhere. Marketers can flex their creative muscle by including humorous anecdotes into their blogs or market outlooks, or repurposing an in-depth report for an investment topic that’s reemerged in importance. Some brilliant examples include Rory Sutherland, OpalesqueTV, and Cognito.
Of course, all content has to have quality. When your fund’s thought leaders know their stuff, their perspectives are novel, fresh, and personable. They become trustworthy voices, especially if they can contextualise complex investing strategies around what’s going on in the world, and how this affects investors in the good times and the bad.
Thought leadership is not about returns and fund performance. Those details (especially in factsheets) are important for established investors, yet not for highlighting a brand’s ideals. Even off the page or away from the headphones, connection can be built from seeing an advisor’s photograph in an email newsletter, or interacting with an executive at industry event speaking slots – all human mouthpieces for the fund’s overarching narrative.
Connect With Data to Drive Personalised Marketing
Building trust is notoriously lengthy, as all salespeople know from seeing the path from initial interest to raised AuM. But once brand awareness ignites digital journeys online, maintaining an eagle eye over touchpoint data can help fast-track the most interested parties (and ideal investor profiles) toward the content they’ll want to see, and cement the relationship between the fund and its prospects.
An automated digital marketing platform is an asset-raising treasure chest for the augmented sales and marketing team. Lead scores can be implemented, and rack up to show which individuals are returning to fund ranges, or key themed webinars or newsletters they’ve subscribed to, or if they’ve had conversations with sales representatives already. You understand their motivations deeply from their tracked activity, and can fulfil their interests without them asking first in the following ways:
Dynamic content: this delivers highly personalised recommendations for investors across emails or website pages, based on their previous marketing behaviours and interactions. It’s an automated targeted way of showcasing subsequent content features they may not have looked at.
Email sequences: entering investors into segmented campaigns helps tailor nurture steps based on content they’re keen on, re-establishing trust that the fund is listening to them and assisting them on their investment journey. It’s useful to see which prospects are dormant, and which enjoy everything they’re sent.
One to one communication: LinkedIn direct messages may seem very personal, but it can build further rapport with a friendly face once a prospect is showing signs of genuine interest in investing.
Remember too that all your staff are brand ambassadors. Whether sharing content through their social profiles or making recommendations to friends and families, this personifies how human-centred the brand is. Maintaining a friendly presence online and offline can make people warm to an organisation which, after all, only runs because of its people.
Truth Prevails!
It may seem obvious, but trust gets lost if a brand fails to live up to what it claims. Distrustful information is a major problem on digital channels now, and just as ignoring compliance measures (such as risk warnings and disclosures) can look fishy, conveniently stretching the truth through content will wreck relationships with warmed prospects and existing investors.
Even if you have made a mistake or need to deliver bad news, that’s more trustworthy than a fund making sweeping comments. Truth dictates fund marketing trustworthiness – and it’s only the most genuine brands that investors will choose to place their money with. That’s a lesson for everyone, and an enduring one when trust in the technological world continues to teeter on a knife’s edge.
ProFundCom can help fund marketers boost brand awareness and adhere to investors’ preferences with an automated platform tailored to the financial industry:
Thought Leadership Promotion: Leverage ProFundCom to promote thought leadership content, whitepapers, research reports, and industry insights to showcase expertise and credibility within the financial sector.
Personalised Communication: deliver tailored content recommendations, and targeted offers to clients and prospects based on their preferences and engagement history to help increase client satisfaction and retention.
Client Engagement Tracking: See engagement across digital channels including email interactions, website visits, and social media engagement and identify opportunities to enhance communication and strengthen relationships with investors.
Automated Lead Nurturing: Set up automated lead nurturing workflows to engage with leads at different stages of the customer journey, delivering targeted content, follow-up emails, and personalised messages to drive conversions.
