Asset management companies have a powerful opportunity to harness the true power of modern digital marketing to create more personalized engagements with financial advisors. By capitalizing on critical marketing moments, they can build dynamic campaigns that deliver the right messages at the right place and time. Unfortunately, most marketing organizations in this space have yet to catch up to the industries in which such people-based approaches have gained traction. Despite facing significant challenges, asset management marketers must move forward with these game-changing marketing strategies. Financial advisors, who still represent the most important sales channel for asset management companies, are immersed in digital media throughout every other aspect of their lives. So it stands to reason that early movers who seize this opportunity will use these highly traveled digital pathways to create personalized experiences—and in doing so, build their own competitive advantage.
Does this sound familiar? You may be falling behind
Because asset management companies are historically product and sales driven, excuses abound as to why people-based marketing cannot be achieved. Some of the common shortcomings and gaps within asset management marketing include:
- Struggling to create efficacy of advisor and end-customer interactions
- Using marketing as a substitute for the financial advisor
- Inadequate use of customer and advisor data
- Difficulty creating one voice for marketing and sales
- Trouble creating advisor-centric communications
- Not knowing the needs of the advisor intimately and demonstrating it
- Failure to use the channel and communication preferences of individual advisors (e.g., email, visit, phone call, search, etc.)
The past decade has introduced more change in the marketing and communications space than we’ve seen since the rise of the Internet itself. Now mature and ubiquitously adopted, social and mobile are the prevailing platforms for modern interaction. These digital experiences surround us, and advisors are impacted as much as anybody. The traditional campaign model of prefabricated messages fired on a predetermined schedule is inadequate. Asset management companies must provide exceptional, dynamic, personalized digital experiences in order to build sales, maintain profits, and meet the expectations of today’s digitally-empowered advisors. Modern asset management marketing should aspire to:
- Make advisors feel that the asset management company really knows them.
- Ensure a well-connected strategy across both sales and marketing.
- Move marketing beyond campaigns, connecting content and context to provide powerful interactions that respond to real-world changes.
- Enhance the entire sales funnel, from building awareness to building loyalty.
- Use data to drive the advisor experience, dependent on interactions with both sales and marketing.
- Create exceptional marketing experiences, enabled by data, analytics, technology, creative, and organizational support.
Asset management companies are still behind the curve in their pursuit of state-of-the-art digital marketing and dynamic advisor experiences. The good news, though, is that very few companies have fully harnessed new marketing and emerged vastly ahead of every other competitor. This means the opportunity is ripe. The early movers today will capture this powerful competitive advantage and find their advisors – as well as their revenues – ready to blossom. Smart asset management marketers should be eager to start a comprehensive and energetic conversation about how they can realize the true power of marketing. Your advisors and your sales colleagues are expecting it. Give it to them and you all will thrive.
