The UK’s £6.6 trillion UK asset management industry is indeed one of the most competitive. The traditional fund market is saturated to an extent by countless products overlapping with regards to both asset class and style. Furthermore, the rise of one-stop-shop multi-asset solutions and model portfolios has left traditional funds looking less attractive to advisers looking to diversify clients’ assets.
Lastly, and not least, the rise of cheaper passive products has had a powerful impact on the flows into active funds, forcing managers to up their game in terms of justifying their fees.
Standing out in such an increasingly crowded market place is a challenge for many in the asset management industry. The need for firms to differentiate themselves from their peers has led groups to focus on their brand proposition, messaging and service which are increasingly becoming crucial parts of attracting fund selectors and retaining assets.
In fact, a recent report from Cerulli Associates found that 78 per cent of small and mid-sized asset managers increased their marketing budget for 2016, with a lot of the additional spending specifically going to developing content marketing strategies.
For advisers, the need to keep abreast of ever-changing markets and regulation means that they are ever thirstier for content from asset managers - content that helps them justify their investment decisions.
For fund providers, educating fund selectors with quality research and analysis that can assist them with their due diligence and investment process is mutually beneficial. It is simultaneously an opportunity to promote their funds as well as an ‘added value’ service opportunity to advisers, not offered by all asset managers.
However, it’s not always easy to implement. Advisers often complain about information overload. They are, in reality, often bombarded with news, blogs, market commentaries, event invitations and other content – the sheer volume of which leaves them simultaneously over and underwhelmed with what is provided. This has meant that for asset managers, ensuring their content stands out has become ever more difficult.
So what can fund houses do to make sure their content has maximum reach and influence?
Firstly, distribution is key. Hiring a team of investment writers to create beautiful content is all very well, but thinking about how to distribute the final product should bear as much weight as goes into creating it. Blogs and social media can be an effective way of achieving impressions, and email updates and newsletters can help click-through rates, but thinking outside the box when it comes to creating a content distribution strategy will make asset managers’ content go further and have more impact.
During a recent workshop we hosted with some of the readers of FE Trustnet, we found that a fund manager’s website would not be the first point of call for fund news and analysis for many advisers. While this doesn’t mean managers should stop posting news and research on their site, it does mean that their content would have better exposure if it could also be published in channels that an adviser would naturally go to for research.
Popular news outlets and services that advisers use for research are a good way of getting material out there. One way of doing this is through sponsored content, where companies pay a third party to host their editorial.
For example, promoting a thought leadership post on FE Trustnet would get a manager exposure to its some 250,000 retail and trade users - in addition to the exposure it would get on their own website.
As well as improving reach, it’s also important to focus on impact – by this I mean targeting advisers with compelling content while they are in the frame of mind where they can be most influenced. This will make what they read more effective than just coming across it in their inbox while they catch up on the headlines.
To help address this challenge, FE are creating solutions (Precision+ Connect) which enables asset managers to distribute their qualitative research content through FE Analytics. Used by over a third of the UK’s financial advisers, content can be served at the point that Advisers are researching and comparing specific funds giving asset managers an opportunity to differentiate beyond the hard data.
Once asset managers have thought clearly about how to distribute their content, they must also create content that works well with that distribution channel. For example, a white paper is not going to be read as a LinkedIn post, but a video will work really well here.
There is also a general need in the industry to make our content more engaging, to prevent advisers being bombarded with technical jargon. This is particularly the case for asset managers, as it is often said that the nature of fund performance statistics and stock market analysis is somewhat dry.
The FCA published a consultation paper last year addressing the need for smarter consumer communications across the financial sector as a whole. The FCA stated that, ‘Effective, engaging information can be a key tool in promoting effective competition to supply products and services that consumers want.’ We would argue that it’s not just consumers, but also advisers who are deserving of clearer and more innovative ways of communicating.
Adding other multimedia to the kit bag of communication options can help managers communicate their message more effectively. Researchers from Hubspot, the inbound marketing platform, found that coloured visuals increase people's willingness to read a piece of content by 80% when posting on social media. In fact, images, infographics, video and even GIFs are all increasingly being seen across asset managers’ social media accounts as the industry moves to be smarter and more engaging.
Finally, once it is published it's important to monitor the effectiveness of content, for improvement and future planning. Measuring how well it has performed against pre-agreed key performance indicators will help firms ensure they are producing consistently high impact content.
To find out more about our new Precision+ Connect service, contact us.