‘More With Less’ Strategies for Experimenting With HQ Fund Content Formats
When a fund marketer delves deep into the mine of investor data, they’ll realise their audience is far from one-note. Marketers always cater to different tastes – by offering a fund range on one hand, but also in designing content across an ecosystem of digital platforms. Existing investors have their preferences bookmarked, while potential customers could start investing with you through a LinkedIn post or from attending a webinar.
‘Content’ is a ubiquitous phrase nowadays; the key being that it can be in all manner of formats. Your prospects may buy into Netflix, Paramount+ and every other streaming service to stay up-to-date, and you have to see your fund marketing in the same way. Give busy investors the choice out of a mixture of attention-grabbing pieces and they’ll find their favourites to nurture their interests (what they’ll want to binge-watch) over time.
In fact, it’s the financial sector that has mostly long wrestled with the idea that their content doesn’t have to be a complicated heavily researched pay-for-play report. The best fund content still applies to Three Golden Rules – educate, enlighten and entertain – which could reach investors who spend a lot of time on their phones sporting minimal or chunky headphones. Being able to consistently portray your brand ideals through various content (some of which are perfectly suited to individual channels where investors hide) is about maximising what you have – even without the budgets, time or production teams of Amazon or Vanguard.
Make an episodic thematic series, record your strategist’s market views, share quotations, and film the ‘human side’ of a business to make content king for weeks, months and, in some cases, years. Your leading, trustworthy industry voice keeps them coming back for more, when presented in these following ways.
Video: You Don’t Need to Be Hollywood
A lot that can be said for video: a quick snack-break watch can pick apart a fund manager’s brain in mere minutes making financial complexity simple, honest and emotionally engaging. Videos can also be shared on WhatsApp with ease, so it’s no wonder video posts attract three times more inbound links than written forms. YouTube attracts 2.5 billion logins per month as the net’s second biggest search engine, and fund marketers are seeing its ease and educational value with greater uptake for long and short-form videos.
Here’s how to get started:
Planning: While some investment managers could reel off their opinions whenever, wherever, it’s helpful to jot down a guide for talking points that are most relevant to investors’ pain points. A refined script can cover detailed points as straightforwardly as possible, which are cheap to produce on Word or G-Drive rather than specific software.
Shooting: Even novices can now make professional-looking videos. A microphone and lighting equipment (with careful placement) are paramount, but even a smartphone camera on a tripod will produce high-quality clips. A felt green sheet hanging from a wall is optional, but surprisingly works wonders for background edits.
Editing: This software can be more fiddly (like Adobe Premiere Pro) but there’s likely plenty of amateur filmmakers within a marketing team that can give quick tutorials on adding transitions and music or adjusting lighting. Freelancers on Upwork or Fiverr can also mock up a brilliant animation for your logo to emphasise branding.
Sharing: Social feeds and designated YouTube channels are primetime for video, but so too can emails draw in potential investors subscribers with a personalised ‘Message from the CIO’ video embedded within, breaking up the text or linking to a CTA. They can live forever on website landing pages, where videos can boost conversions by over 86%!
Events: Virtual & Offline
Visiting a music gig or a conference both carry buzz, where you usually find promotions via social media or email newsletters. Investment-centric events are the same, employing every channel to build anticipation before delivering an expert roundtable, and far easier to conduct via online event platforms.
Webinars are integral to generate leads and attendees are effectively giving you permission to speak to them by registering. Often events are aimed toward the end of the sales process after identifying ‘hot’ leads, so making them interactive thought leadership pieces can be that extra push to convert them, as follows:
Build awareness: Use email templates or sales calls to reach interested parties outlined in your CRM data. Also target your ideal investors with a catchy name – “Unmissable ESG Trends” – or whether it’s an informative “Fireside Chat” or “Portfolio Masterclass” depending on the level of expertise.
Create an inventive: Pre-event comms is about drumming hype, but also letting investors know what’s in it for them. Think about summarising the clear benefits you’ll outline in the presentation, and be open to a Q&A to directly chat to their needs.
Automate a workflow: Many sign-ups might forget the date after registering, so automatic reminders can increase on-the-day attendees or those that want a replay.
On the day: Use colourful branded backgrounds, show screenshots of reports, feature videos and animations, host polls, and engage your guest speakers to craft a debate worth signing up for, beyond your own on-script pointers.
Make it evergreen: send out thank you emails, replays, and gate the event on a landing page – tracking activity gives you future lead generation opportunities.
Online events drive conversions, but AuM decisions get made out in the field. In-person investor meetups are hugely important and can use the same digital marketing event principles above to drive interest. They do not have to be Fund Forums either, but intimate presentations and networking in a restaurant. Many funds sponsor sporting or charity events too, where attendance from your people is an organic way to build community engagement and drive PR.
White Papers: The Ever-Giving Gift
As great as digestible content is, sometimes you need time to unpack a huge sector opportunity or industry specialism which calls on e-books. They may be more time-consuming to put together, but as gated downloads they’re linchpins for your resource library for every future potential leads. There are, in fact, some quick wins to get writing:
No content is old content: Some investment themes are evergreen and guides may only need a quick refresh with contemporary updates, statistics, and commentaries.
Compile a blog series: If you’ve kept investors engaged with themed instalments, repackage them into a guide that works differently ROI-wise as a lead magnet.
Utilise GenAI: It’s a no-go to rely on AI for authentic expert copy, but tools can compile recommended structures or contents-of-note from trawling your popular content based on your accurate prompts. AI can contextualise content against market sentiment and compliance too, while simpler checking plugins like Grammarly can improve writing as an editorial helper.
Hire a professional: Copywriters can get to know your brand voice and tie that into a well-written document following briefs or links from your marketing team. Or, split writing tasks amongst yourselves and have fun putting together the final product!
It should go without saying that reports should also be professionally designed for readability, with a cover to look striking on a landing page or as a promotional graphic on email or social channels. Once complete, an e-book can be broken down and reformatted into multiple elements such as four or five blog posts, integral for nurture campaigns, or fuelling a series of online webinars. Infographics can be constructed using noteworthy quotes from a fund manager or with colourful graphs and tables. Graphic designers can be found on freelancer websites, while many act specifically in financial services to make them extra-appealing to investors.
Podcasts: Reach On-the-Go Learners
Modern day educational content has inexplicably moved to podcasting across a range of niche topics. Well-informed daily or weekly market updates are absolutely something that investors will seek out before making an investment decision, so your expert voice should get out there! The views of your fund managers aren’t like anyone else’s, which means the content can be well-aligned to your philosophy. All podcasters technically need is a microphone and a phone to record on-the-fly for five minutes, or an hour or two.
Many productions also include video podcasting to make the most of YouTube; if that’s your bag, the same video techniques above apply. While multiple podcast platforms exist, it’s quick to sign-up and manage listener metrics for each, while you can own your podcasts on a designated resource page on your website, or even on a multimedia proxy website dedicated to your alternative content formats.
Looking for content inspiration is all about assessing the landscape. A Google search may rack up creative campaigns you may not think of (even hand-delivered notes or QR codes), while examples you admire from major financial companies can be recreated with smaller creative teams or resources. They borrow the same idea that different content formats make a brand more prominent online, and there’s no harm trialling a quick experiment that could deliver ROI.
Combining a little creativity, digital helpers, analysis of competitors’ resonant content, and that constant post-it note in your brain to “recycle, repurpose, repeat” and you’ll have a multi-format content schedule that’s on brand, attractive to leads and tough to beat in driving long-term fund marketing campaigns for upped AuM.
ProFundCom can help fund marketers retain and raise AuM through content marketing tools and strategies 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.
Website Optimisation: By improving website design, content quality, user experience and SEO strategies, marketers can attract more visitors and strengthen brand visibility online.
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.
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.
Cross-Selling Opportunities: analyse client behaviour and preferences to recommend additional products or services to existing clients, thereby increasing AuM through upselling.
Lead Nurturing Campaigns: guide prospects through the sales funnel by delivering relevant content, educational resources, and timely follow-ups, nurturing leads and converting them into investors.
Data Analytics and Reporting: data analytics tools allow fund marketers to analyse the performance of their digital marketing campaigns, track AuM growth, and measure client retention rates.
