There has been a lot of talk recently about the importance of branding in the asset management industry - with recent research from Brand Finance claiming that brand strength and assets under management (AUM) go hand-in-hand - there has never been a better time to focus on building your firm’s brand.
It is understandable that the asset management industry relies heavily on performance as a core brand value – after all there is no denying that without good returns your AUM will suffer. But the argument can be made that in order to maximise your marketing impact - marrying a more meaningful brand message with competitive returns might just be the golden ticket to effectively gaining and retaining more clients.
According to a recent study, over 60 per cent of advisers feel that the quality of a firm’s online capabilities influences their perception of that manager’s brand.
So when Ecclesiastical Investment Management was re-branded to become EdenTree IM, the firm’s corporate website was prioritised as the most important channel for their new imaging. Getting the site perfect was their number one priority.
What did EdenTree do?
Profit with principles
With the belief that the companies profiting tomorrow are the ones acting sustainably today, EdenTree’s central proposal is to provide good returns over the long term through sustainable investment. The firm developed a solid client-centric brand value on which to build their mission statement - ‘profit with principles’.
This is a simple concept, but one that the firm knew had to be backed up with proof of success - particularly when it comes to performance. Sustainable investing alone on its own is not as enticing to the investor, but couple this message with solid returns that rival its mainstream peers – then you have a product that is attractive.
In order to market all of this, EdenTree knew that their new site had to prioritise information about the performance of their funds as well as clearly communicating the company’s brand message.
The data
EdenTree then looked to clean, accurate and timely data to underline its investment successes.
FE provided, and continues to supply, the firm with all of its data so that EdenTree could showcase their products’ positive performance records across their new site.
Charting tool
Performance charting tools, like the below, come as part of FE's Precision+ offering and are populated by FE Datafeeds:
This chart clearly shows investors and advisers that EdenTree’s ‘profit with principles’ form of investing can really pay off. This is because we can see clearly that the fund is outperforming its sector average.
To further promote transparency and be user friendly, the chart is interactive so that visitors can specifically look at certain time periods if they want deeper insight into how the fund fared during times of market turmoil.
But this is not all.
Factsheets
The cumulative performance table below, taken from a fund factsheet, is also populated by FE’s Datafeeds:
This clearly shows visitors that over one, three and five years this particular fund has delivered positive returns and outperformed its sector. It also shows how this fund has ranked in the first sector quartile over 6m, 1y, 3y, 5y and 10y.
The same fund data is also used to show the discrete performance:
Having a single source of fund data means that the fund’s performance track records are consistent across factsheets, charts and webpages. And because this process is fully automated by FE, it takes up very little resource from the firm.
Finally, all charts and factsheets are branded as per the EdenTree’s specifications. This is one of the advantages of using a fully automated data solution, the data can be incorporated to fit any format.
Breakdown data
As well as clear and accurate performance data, the EdenTree website features automatically updated breakdown data on their top 10 holdings, as well as regional and sector weightings.
Importantly, all the data is validated for accuracy. FE’s data process checks all holdings data with the fund group’s data – thus removing the laborious task of manually double checking for the information for inconsistencies and taking the right steps towards compliance.
Results
The new website saw a massive surge in usage within the first week, with an estimated 500% increase.
With such a clear and reliable way of comparing performance on their website, EdenTree are also excited that they are able demonstrate returns more directly to the end investor, and build an emotional connection to their deeper brand values.
If you are interested in having a consistent and accurate supply of fund data to support your website and brand, talk to us.
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