The asset and wealth management industry faces dual, seemingly opposing, pressures when it comes to their marketing efforts. Clients expect the human touch and the efficiency of automation in equal measure.
On one side, clients across all channels are demanding increasingly personalized, highly curated, and immediately relevant content and touchpoints – all delivered in a compelling manner that rings true to the firm’s brand.
At its core, this can be summarized as a push for compelling authenticity in how a firm operates and speaks to each of its clients.
On the other side, market pressures and technological advances are increasing the focus on operational efficiency, with marketing teams facing reduced budgets and being constantly asked to do more with less. Overall, this has led to calls for greater automation across most marketing activities.
Authenticity and automation, hand in hand. At first, it can feel like a contradiction. But when approached correctly, it’s a powerful combination that will likely determine the future success of firms’ marketing efforts.
But how can firms effectively balance it?
First, it’s important to view authenticity and automation not as two equally weighted opposites. Rather, they are a sequence. And this is because, at the end of the day, authenticity must be at the root of everything, including how you choose to automate.
If automation is a path down which you can nimbly evolve and pivot with your clients and the markets, authenticity should be your anchor point.
A steady foundation
How can a firm actively take steps toward embedding authenticity into their brand and marketing?
They can do so by developing a core set of messaging and values that reflect how their firm operates. More crucially, these messaging and values need to be consistently evangelized within the firm and all marketing initiatives should directly tie back to them. Clients will only perceive your firm as authentic when everyone they interact with is bought into the same worldview, works toward the same goals, and speaks the same language.
Tactics that can help firms understand who they inherently are, and what their authentic brand looks like, include articulating your brand proposition, building a detailed messaging house of foundational language, and consistently activating internally.
Pursuing automation, authentically
On this foundation, firms can then choose to automate activities as appropriate. All of this should be rooted in what the firm sees as its authentic, core values, though.
For example, if a firm says they are committed to highly personable, tailored client relationships, then sending mass, clearly automated emails announcing a new whitepaper to all clients may ring false. Segmenting your email campaigns and putting the time into writing emails that include customized recommendations of how the whitepaper’s insights can benefit each segment takes far more time but can better bolster the firm’s brand. In these instances, focus automation on the backend experience – how can you enhance your data and research on clients to create a more complete picture of their needs, so you can deliver even more tailored service.
Meanwhile, a firm rooted in data-driven, fast-moving insight may benefit more from the time advantage they can capture by automating the production and delivery of some content, as clients are more likely to have invested with them based on their efficiency.
These are high-level, simple examples. In practice, choosing what to automate, and when, will require many trade-offs – in what channels does this make the most sense? Where will we see the greatest ROI in automating with the least amount of risk? etc.
When the market is demanding asset and wealth managers operate with the authenticity of a human and the automation of a robot, investment marketers who strategically combine the best of both these elements – and make them stronger together – will succeed.
White Marble is experienced in helping brands both articulate their brand and bolster their digital capabilities – and we understand the importance of doing these in alignment. Reach out today to discuss more.