The Most Pressing Issues And Challenges For Fund Marketers
At ProFundCom we like to keep our fingers on the pulse of funds marketing. That’s why we recently asked a group of marketing experts in asset management and hedge fund marketing what they felt were the most pressing issues and challenges in the funds marketing sector.
What really stood out from their comments is that marketing teams in hedge funds and asset management are seen as a cost that can be reduced, rather than an investment in the business process. In fact, our panel of marketing professionals in asset management and hedge fund marketing saw this is as the single biggest issue facing the profession.
Our investigations have shown many reasons for this:
Marketing is not aligned closely enough with the fund’s business/financial/strategic objectives of raising funds and retaining investors. Instead it is seen as a necessary evil for publishing weekly and/or monthly performance numbers or valuation statements.
Marketing is not aligned closely enough with the sales team. As a result, sales teams have no idea which prospects are really interested in their funds or products.
Agencies are not providing the right kind of value to clients. They may be good at cutting rate card prices, but are not brave enough to suggest projects be stopped or suggest alternative (lower-cost) marketing programmes with deeper and more precise analytics.
Marketing does not having a sensible and informed dialogue with the true budget holder. Efforts need to be made to talk in the language of budget holders when discussing plans and budgets, such as outlining potential ROI.
Marketing is trying to service too many short-term ad hoc projects/requests when they should actually be focused on a few, long-term programmes. These should be based on cross-selling programmes, dormant contact engagement and analysing which marketing programmes are actually working.
Marketing teams at hedge funds and asset managers can address the issues above through analytics that provide some of the following details:
Sales intelligence:
Identifies which prospects are interested in which products
Recognises cross-selling opportunities
Qualifies leads to help create a targeted sales approach
Marketing intelligence:
Establishes which communications will work best in your campaign
Determines how contacts are engaging with your communications
Analyses what factors contribute to a successful marketing campaign
93% of all our respondents suggested that ProFundCom was ‘front-of-mind’ when deciding which platform to select to address these issues.
