Marketing is more than a support function in investment management; when done well, it can drive growth.
In our Financial Services Marketing Podcast: The Growth Engine, we discussed this with industry experts Andrew Kelly and Andy Johnson. We discussed how investment management marketing can help firms understand changing audiences, differentiate themselves in a crowded market, build long-term client relationships and demonstrate marketing’s contribution to business growth.
Here are five of the key lessons for investment management marketers.
1. Know your investment audience
One of the foundations of successful investment management marketing is knowing your audience. As Andrew Kelly said, “Know your audience and walk a mile in their shoes.”
This is especially true in financial services, where your clients can range from seasoned investors to those just starting out.
As retail clients become increasingly important, it’s easy to forget that this isn’t a one-size-fits-all audience. Some retail investors will have a deep understanding of financial products, while others will be completely new to investing.
Understanding those differences should influence everything from your channel strategy to the language and content you use.
By explaining complex ideas in simple and relatable terms – without oversimplifying the substance – investment firms can make their expertise more accessible, connect with different audiences and build trust.
2. Connect marketing with business growth
One of the biggest challenges investment management marketers face is demonstrating how marketing contributes to the wider business strategy.
When marketing activities are treated as standalone campaigns, their impact can become diluted. As Andy Johnson said, “When marketing activities are lumped together under generic budget lines, their true impact is lost.”
For marketing to be recognised as a growth driver, marketers need to show clearly how their activities align with the firm’s objectives.
That means connecting activity to outcomes rather than reporting marketing metrics in isolation. Brand building, content, digital engagement and campaigns should form part of a coherent strategy for reaching, engaging and developing the audiences the business wants to grow.
Data and analytics can help marketers demonstrate that contribution, but not everything that matters will produce an immediate conversion.
That’s particularly relevant in investment management, where consideration can be lengthy, and relationships are built over time.
3. Build client relationships across marketing and sales
In a digital-first world, client relationships are a team effort.
As our podcast guests said, “Clients shouldn’t be owned by an individual; they’re owned by the firm.”
That mindset can create stronger client relationships and better alignment between investment management, marketing and sales teams.
Marketing teams can support sales by understanding the questions, concerns and challenges that arise during client conversations and turning those insights into useful communications and content.
Sales teams, in turn, can provide marketers with a valuable window into what clients are actually thinking about.
This alignment helps create a more consistent experience across client touchpoints rather than allowing marketing communications and sales conversations to operate independently.
Digital marketing also has an increasingly important role to play in building those relationships.
As Andrew Kelly said, “The only way to reach them is through good digital marketing and having a digital presence that communicates to them the way they like to be communicated with.”
For investment firms, having a digital presence isn’t simply about being visible. It’s about providing clients and prospective clients with useful, relevant communications in the places and formats they actually want to use.
4. Differentiate your investment management brand
Investment management is a crowded market. Firms need to be able to explain why a client should choose them rather than one of the many alternatives available.
Differentiation therefore needs to be a central part of an investment management marketing strategy.
But being different isn’t simply about finding a new way to describe your products.
Marketers need to communicate how the firm’s values, expertise, approach and proposition relate to what clients actually need. Authentic brand stories can help demonstrate what the firm stands for and give audiences a reason to remember it.
The challenge is to find something genuinely distinctive rather than relying on the same broad claims about expertise, trust and client focus that competitors can make.
This becomes particularly important when communicating with retail investors.
A customer-centric approach requires firms to understand not only what investors need to know, but also the questions, concerns and emotional factors influencing their decisions.
5. Measure investment management marketing beyond immediate ROI
Sales and assets raised are clearly important business outcomes, but investment firms also need to consider the long-term impact of marketing.
As Andrew Kelly said, “Year-on-year investment in things like content and brand is mandatory.”
Building a recognisable and trusted investment management brand takes time and consistency. Judging every marketing activity solely by its immediate return risks undervaluing the work that creates future demand and strengthens client relationships.
That doesn’t mean marketing shouldn’t be accountable.
Instead, investment management firms should define measures that reflect the role different activities are intended to play. Depending on the objective, these might include brand awareness, engagement with priority audiences, content consumption, qualified enquiries, client satisfaction and, ultimately, contribution to commercial growth.
The important thing is connecting the measurement to the objective rather than expecting every activity to deliver the same type of return.
Making investment management marketing a growth driver
Marketing’s role in investment management is evolving.
For firms that want marketing to become a genuine growth driver, the answer isn’t simply to produce more campaigns or content.
It requires understanding your audiences, connecting marketing activity to business objectives, aligning marketing and sales, developing meaningful differentiation and measuring both short-term performance and long-term brand impact.
Most importantly, marketing needs to be integrated into the firm’s growth strategy rather than treated as a service function sitting alongside it.
That’s when investment management marketing can become a genuine engine for growth.
Hear more on The Growth Engine podcast
For more insights from marketing leaders, listen to Financial Services Marketing Podcast: The Growth Engine. You’ll hear stories from the front lines of financial services marketing and practical ideas you can apply to your own strategy.
