Is Marketing Analytics the new Alpha?

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Asset Management

Paul Das

Managing Director

ProFundCom


When I started in the fund industry, it quickly became apparent that the main driver for all sales teams is how to raise more assets and the unrelenting search for Alpha. But the more I analysed the Greeks of a fund (the Alpha and the Betas etc) the more it struck me that there could be more to it than just a manager’s performance.

Could there be an Alpha relating to the marketing activity that helps raise and preserve AuM?

This inkling eventually led to the birth of ProFundCom. This platform, with its deep analytics and reports focused around hedge funds and asset managers, gives a huge edge to anyone looking to identify investment and redemption signals, and cross-selling opportunities – all within a compliant and secure infrastructure.

Of course, there are plenty of email and digital platforms out there – and if all you want to do is send out emails and tweets and manage hits on your website then they’ll all do a good job for you. But, and it’s a big but, they are not able to track the type of data that can add to the top line of an asset manager or hedge fund.

To do that, you need to track and review core metrics such as:

Engaged prospects who are ready to invest
New prospects who have been dormant but are now showing interest
Investors who are not engaging with your communications
• Opportunities to cross-sell to existing investors

Analysing your digital campaign closely enough to reveal this type of data provides information that will, if used and acted upon properly, add to the fund’s AuM.

There are reasons why generic platforms cannot easily provide this data. Firstly, the data being captured and processed requires a system built specifically for this purpose. Secondly, these platforms are not capable of using big-data, deep-analytics, meaning expensive third-party products have to be integrated to achieve this capability.

But this type of date is critical to raising and preserving AuM, which begs the question – why are generic platforms being used by financial institutions when they are clearly not fit for purpose? Well, the sales reps certainly won’t tell you all this and by the time you realise the limitations of the generic platform you’ve bought into, it’s too late. That’s because most digital platforms are in a three-year replacement cycle with asset managers and hedge funds.

Platform such as ProFundCom let you do this through tools that track engagement, so you know who is looking at what and can develop a plan to sell to them more effectively.

Of course there’s more to it than just tracking engagement. You have to use the information gathered to deliver reports to your sales teams that prompt action backed up by solid process. There is more on process and how to use it properly in my last blog here.

But to build solid process you first need good data, which is why you need to be very, very careful when picking your digital platform.



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