Download investment brands are different

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What makes investment
brands different?
A QUICK READ FROM WECHSLER
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• A hybrid audience
• Faith-based products
• Complex distribution
• Nuanced marketing
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INVESTMENT
BRANDS
ARE DIFFERENT
The world of investment marketing lives by its own rules. Whether you’re selling mutual
funds or institutional strategies, retirement advice or asset allocation, the tried-and-true
techniques of other marketing categories don’t necessarily apply. Investment brands don’t
behave like consumer brands—or like business-to-business brands. Here’s why.
2 knows investment brands.
A hybrid audience of professionals and consumers
Investment brands don’t behave like typical
consumer brands. By and large, they’re not marketed
directly to consumers. But they don’t behave like
business-to-business brands, either.
intellectual argument and information. But
consumer brands are built by creating an emotional
connection between the brand and the consumer.
The investment business has a unique brand model.
Its audience is a hybrid of professional buyers and
end-consumers. Professional buyers are generally
intermediaries of one sort or another, such as
financial advisors or plan sponsors. End-consumers
range from retail investors to plan participants to
high net worth clients.
Investment brands must appeal to one and all. They
must deliver the facts and figures demanded by
professionals, who are the primary decision-makers.
(They must also deliver this information to
consumers, in a lighter form.) But equally important
is giving the end-consumer a feeling of confidence
and trust. Investors must believe in the people with
whom they are entrusting their money.
The needs and desires of each segment vary wildly.
Professional buyers are swayed primarily by
That’s the blend of intellect and emotion that
drives successful investment brands.
A hybrid audience
Consumer brands
Business-to-business brands
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Investment brands
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Faith-based products and services
By now it’s a truism to say a brand is a promise.
But investment brands take this one step farther:
they require a leap of faith.
You must build a sense of trust, confidence and
reliability by providing them with a positive
experience at every step of the investment process.
Whether you’re providing advice or selling
a product, your clients are buying a promise of
future performance. Tomorrow is unknown;
they must make decisions today based on
yesterday’s information. As an investment marketer,
your challenge is to convince audiences you will
successfully fulfill their hopes and dreams.
This could mean different things for different
firms: Delivering deep intellectual insight. Providing
honest and clear communications. Supporting
advisors with great service and wholesaling.
Developing a rich online experience. Or making
that experience available everywhere through mobile
computing. Designing the right solution for your
firm depends on your business goals and the brand
you’re trying to establish.
So what does it take to persuade clients and
prospects that you’ll deliver in the future?
Faith-based products
Yesterday
Today
Tomorrow
So many channels, so little time
In the investment business, distribution drives
marketing. But with its myriad of channels,
intermediaries, audiences and market segments,
it has one of the most complex distribution systems
of any industry.
Each distribution channel has its own distinctive
culture, business model, organizational
structure, sales process and preferred methods of
communication. Marketing to an RIA, for example,
is very different from marketing to a wirehouse
advisor or institutional plan sponsor.
Some lines of business—such as retirement—
are almost absurdly complicated. The key
players in a DC plan can include a recordkeeper,
a consultant, a plan sponsor, third-party DCIO
providers, financial education and advice providers,
and several categories of plan participants, such
as executives and workers.
Without a clear understanding of what drives
the players in each channel and market segment,
no investment marketer can hope to succeed.
Complex distribution
Wirehouses
Do-it-yourself
investors
Retail
IBDs
High net worth
RIAs
Platforms
DCIO
Subadvisory
DC plans
DB
Family offices
Institutional
Consultants
Vive la différence (if you can find one)
Investment products and services are becoming
commoditized. One manager’s large cap growth
fund is not that different from another’s. Nor is one
advisor’s asset allocation process that different from
another advisor’s—at least, not in ways that are easy
to explain to a non-expert.
While the differences may be nuanced, you can
still create meaningful differentiation. Big ideas
can grow from small points of difference. But to do
so, you must translate these subtle nuances into
a meaningful value proposition that is aligned with
the needs, hopes and desires of your audiences.
So how do you differentiate your brand in a lookalike world?
Why was this product or service created? Who
benefits from it? What makes it better? Is its
advantage genuine or trivial? Only by answering
these questions can you identify a meaningful
value proposition and use it as the foundation of
an effective marketing platform.
“Big ideas can grow from
small points of difference.”
In the world of investment brands,
these questions are highly nuanced
and cannot be answered without
thoroughly understanding the hybrid
audience, faith-based products, and
complex distribution channels that
drive the marketing process and
make investment brands different.
Wechsler Ross & Partners
11 Madison Avenue, 14th floor
New York, NY 10010
2 knows investment brands.
212 924 3337
www.wechsler.com
[email protected]