Three key insights from the Peregrine Global 100 report
3 Minute Read
Building on the findings of their 2019 Best Practice in Asset Management report, Peregrine have released their 2021 Global 100 report. Ranking the world’s asset managers on their performance across a range of marketing and communication metrics, this report is packed with interesting insights and stats on what’s working best for marketers in this space.
To save you time, we’re sharing some of the most relevant details for the Australian funds management market as food for thought.
Strategy over spend
In a saturated market, time invested in a well-executed marketing strategy can help your brand stand out and drive sales – 13 of the top 20 in the Global 100 grew their AUM over the 12 months. The fact that these top performers are mainly US-based (17 out of 20), should not be taken as a sign that size matters in marketing spend. In fact, the Peregrine report shows a high score for marketing excellence results in better brand awareness than simply having a bigger share of AUM. So, there’s no reason that small, high-performing teams can’t punch above their weight.
Given the findings of the report, what elements in your marketing strategy could have the most significant impact on your business? Here are three insights into what’s been effective for the asset managers leading the pack in effective marketing and communications.
- The channel of choice
There have never been more media channels at a marketing team’s disposal, making it hard to know where your dollars are best spent. One area that has seen momentum in the past year is LinkedIn, with an increase in online engagement of 170% on average. While this is partly a bounce-back to pre-Covid-19 levels, it highlights the channel’s growing importance as a B2B marketing tool.
We find that many of our clients in Australia don’t have a clear strategy at the brand level around how to most effectively use LinkedIn and how to co-ordinate the sales team to implement always-on social selling.
A best-practice approach to content for social media – including LinkedIn – uses a range of formats best suited to these channels, such as videos, podcasts, webinars, virtual events and animated banners.
To get the best value from written content for LinkedIn, it’s worth exploring a create once, publish everywhere (COPE) strategy that can turn a few pieces of quality long-form content into a whole awareness or nurture journey.
- Making the most of your CEO
There is one expert in each business that successful firms have focused on – the CEO. A good example of building the company brand through its leader is BlackRock. CEO Larry Fink has become far more high profile lately, with brand awareness twice as high compared to five years ago according to the Peregrine Report. His letters to companies that BlackRock is invested in, and the reported impact on their behaviour as a result, have earned him plenty of brownie points as a leader walking the talk for transparency and accountability.
While BlackRock is currently succeeding in hitching their brand to their star CEO, this strategy takes careful management. The perils of a hitching a brand to the leader can be clearly seen with the issues that Magellan has been dealing with.
- The paid search opportunity
At Lexicon we’ve found that paid search isn’t widely adopted in financial services marketing, with many having experienced poor ROI from their campaigns. As a result, 52% of asset managers have no paid search strategy at all, according to the Peregrine Report.
In our view, paid search can actually help solve one of the biggest challenges for marketing teams – curating the digital journey for their audience, by taking them directly to content they want to see from their search. With clients often segmented by investor type, region etc., paid search offers a great shortcut for connecting your audience with high-quality content relevant to their needs. The Peregrine report bears this out – two-thirds of firms with high paid search scores were also ranked above average for website effectiveness.
At Lexicon, we know success in marketing is about being smart with your spend and proving your worth with strong ROI. That’s why we provide strategic expertise that centres around brand awareness, social media and leadership communications – areas that have proven ROI.
If you’d like to hear more, get in touch today.
