From the interesting discussions that sparked among the participants, it appeared that making marketing’s added value measurable still is a great challenge for many in the global fund management industry.

Unclear contribution of marketing

Based on the research we do, we see that marketers regularly struggle with showing how their marketing activities link to the targets of the organization.

However, a distinct group amongst the interviewed fund managers in London does have their act together. These fund management firms have set up their organization in such a way that they can monitor which part of their activities and marketing budget helps with attracting and retaining customers.

Remarkably, these fund managers and the people working in these companies think in integrated customer journeys. They look in-depth into the path their prospective and current customers follow to reach their goals and focus on facilitating all aspects of that journey. After all, a smooth journey yields the best chance of winning future clients and, thus, increasing cash flow.

They dare to test new initiatives and have not only technically implemented modern technologies, they actually use them and leverage the benefits of e.g. automated customer engagement processes and the measurability of it all. The top performers know which indicators are crucial.

There are six of these indicators that can predict future cash flows. By measuring these factors marketers and salespeople know how big their chance of ‘closing’ a deal will be. While it may seem obvious, these measurements seem to be a great challenge in practice.

• Consideration: % of people in target group who would consider your brand, product or service
• Engagement: Number of people in target group who interact with your brand, product or service
• Preference: % of people in target group who has a preference for your brand, product or service
• Satisfaction: Score on a scale from 1-10 given to the firm by clients and prospects
• Endorsement: number of positive mentions of your brand, product or service in media, web etc.
• Advocacy: number of clients that actively recommend your brand, product or company
  
  

If a fund manager wants to know what the contribution of marketing is, it is crucial to implement ways of measuring these six indicators for the most important target groups. The fund managers who already have these metrics set up and in use have started small, gathered experience with what works and what does not, showed successes, gained support and used this as the basis for further implementation.

Finally, we often hear the comment that the budget for marketing research and measuring marketing activities is too small or even non-existent. We like to respond to this notion in a practical way:

Fund managers with a developed marketing function allocate, on average, 5 percent of their marketing budget to research and measuring marketing’s contribution to the targets of the company. This investment is usually enough to use the remaining 95% of the marketing budget in a more targeted and clearly more efficient manner.