Management
Reaching your investors |
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| Management | |
| Written by Patrick Headley, Sales Director, GI Direct | |
| Friday, 21 May 2010 | |
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Investment managers need to maximise their marketing opportunities.
In the retail world, the benefits of sending personalised and targeted customer communications are well-established. The appearance and personalisation of direct marketing is critical in achieving standout on the doormat and many businesses put a great deal of effort into tailoring mail pieces to different types of customer. Imbuing a single document with multi-purpose is naturally highly topical during a tough economic period when efficiencies have to be found. Adding marketing messages to an existing document is cost-effective and provides an additional advertising medium for cross-selling to an existing customer base at a very low price. By tailoring the documents clients receive, firms can build brand awareness and customer loyalty and also make recipients aware of other relevant funds they may wish to invest in. The question is: how many investment management companies actually view tailored investor communications as a valuable marketing tool? And how many are really making the effort to produce personalised documents? In order to find out, GI Direct surveyed investment management companies to gain a better view of the sector. The findings suggest that 58% of investment management companies are not maximising their statements as a means of communicating on a personalised and targeted level with individual investors. While 42% said they fully viewed investor statements as a valuable tool for communicating with, and engaging, clients, 50% said they viewed investor statements as only a somewhat useful tool for maintaining contact, and the remaining 8% saw statements simply as regulatory documents that have to be sent out in compliance with the FSA. A large proportion (63%) of firms believed that more personalised and tailored communications would create loyalty or improved satisfaction with their investors. However, only 17% of respondents named building customer loyalty as the main objective of the investor statement, while 29% said it was to build brand awareness and 12% said that making investors aware of other relevant funds was the main objective. A substantial proportion fail to see the marketing potential of these communications, with 42% saying the main objective was highlighting fund performance. Different investors have different values for a business and, when it comes to how investment management companies are communicating with various categories of investor, the survey showed that only 25% of firms are sending personalised communications to all of their clients, even though 79% say they have the capability to do so. The survey also showed that 58% send different levels of communications to three or four categories of client and 17% send the same communications to all investment clients. Clearly some companies are already producing high quality personalised investment statements. However, 13% of respondents still claim to see no benefit in personalising and tailoring communications. Investment management companies that have already realised the potential of investor statements to communicate with their investors on a personal level and provide them with information specific to their needs will have an advantage over their competitors who, by not tailoring their investor communications, are throwing away the opportunity to build customer loyalty and increase ROI. The benefits are clear and print communications specialists now have the capability to carry out high quality variable print at the touch of a button. In this way, investment management companies can provide clear and easy-to-understand information on fund performance as well as eye-catching marketing communications that can encourage investors to take interest in additional products or services. Nevertheless, a significant proportion of firms are not yet maximising the communication opportunities afforded by investor statements and there are yet others who refuse to see the benefits of tailoring communications. The recession created an uncertain environment for investors and they are likely to have more confidence in firms that appear to be doing a good job and keeping investors well informed. It goes without saying that investment management companies that have not started tailoring and personalising communications could fall behind as the UK exits recession and investment activity starts to thrive again.
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