Beyond the Collateral

Beyond the Collateral Archives: Marketing Management

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April 17, 2008

Send Lawyers, Guns and Money

Retooling Compliance to Give Your Marketing a Leg Up

When it comes to financial marketing, maybe Warren Zevon had it right after all (even if taken out of context). Send lawyers to help review the 87,000 pieces of sales collateral that marketers churn out each and every year. Send money to pay all those filing fees and fines. And the guns? Let that be a tip of the cap to recently deceased Northwestern Alum Charlton Heston.

In an instant communications world—one that evolves second to second–the process for review and approval of marketing content hasn’t budged an inch in the last 20 years (much less a millimeter to our metric system pals around the world. Our props to inch and foot stalwarts Liberia and Burma! Yeah!). Not only does the process across most firms decelerate time to market on breaking news, but it completely undermines the ability to leverage most new media, including blogging and social networking. As the investing world becomes more transparent, the information advantage we’ve leaned on is fast evaporating. New media offers the opportunity to regain some of that lost footing.

Enabling the Marketer

As I see it, it is time that financial compliance organizations move beyond a role designed only to protect the firm in favor of one that does that while enabling the marketer. And I believe it possible to do both without putting the firm at risk.

For eternity, financial marketers have been held hostage to an absurd compliance process, leaving them with little choice but to negotiate for a shorter review window. 48 hours? 24 hours?

I say, how about 10-20 minutes.

The solution?

Position the compliance team physically along side the marketers, not upstairs with legal, and let marketing heads establish priority as news value dictates. Second, work to solve the challenges inherent in new media. Why can’t product managers blog?

Many today’s legal departments won’t allow this to happen for fear that the compliance team will fall under the spell of those fun marketing guys—a financial Stockholm Syndrome to be sure. But I don’t share that same concern.

Someone is going to get it right and then everybody will be falling in line. Why not be one of the smart firms and take the lead, when first mover advantage is still possible. Am I crazy?

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January 23, 2008

Does Active Management Matter Anymore?

When it comes to mutual funds, you certainly wouldn’t think so. That’s especially true given the dearth of support and ‘case-building’ coming from asset managers in recent years.

Maybe the end of Bill Miller’s stupendous 10+ year market beating run signals that even those of us in the know don’t believe that PMs can legitimately add value. Maybe we believe that the great money managers have left mutual funds behind in favor of hedge funds and managed money. Or maybe professional management seems like an old story—one more comfortable in the late 80s and early 90s when the mutual fund business was a growth story rather than a mature one.

That said, it seems to me that the risk and volatility in the markets today represents a perfect opportunity for active managers to demonstrate their ability to add alpha. And for marketers to once again remind investors of the benefits of professional management

Who’s with me? Let’s dust off the active management sales support…otherwise much of what we sell and the rich margins that come with it will go POOF!

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October 24, 2007

Can Financial Marketers Really Learn From Nike?

At first glace, the article on page one of today’s The Wall Street Journal entitled “Nike Hires Influencers” seems to hold little for financial marketers. But there are three important object lessons that translate to investment product development. First is the notion of building products for the end user. I don’t think we spend enough time researching and understanding investor needs. Instead, we defer that responsibility to the financial intermediary. Investment management marketing needs to return to a time when the “manufacturer” knew the investor better. Second, with differentiation rated the number one business problem in our most recent study with FRC, I think the idea of injecting more creativity and consumer focus into our product offerings has merit. Whether American Century’s LiveStrong Portfolios ever turn out to be a critical sales success, they do represent a fresh twist on a commodity product. Finally, the idea of identifying “influencers” really resonated with me. When we are segmenting and researching the needs of financial intermediaries, maybe gaining a better understanding of the role that these FAs play in their offices can provide some fresh insights to direct new marketing and product initiatives.

What do you think?

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October 22, 2007

11 Reasons Why Marketing Plans Fail

In this 15-minute podcast, Dave Swanson, Founder & Managing Principal of SwanDog Strategic Marketing discusses the most frequent reasons that written marketing plans fail.

Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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September 27, 2007

Leveraging The Masters: What Financial Marketers Can Learn From Consumer Marketers

In this conversation with First American Funds distribution head Frank Wheeler, SwanDog Strategic Marketing Founder & Managing Principal Dave Swanson identifies three important ways that financial marketers can put “consumer-marketing” disciplines to work in the B2B space. The discussion draws from Frank’s many years at Procter & Gamble before entering the financial space. 15 minutes

Frank Wheeler Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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September 20, 2007

Financial Services Study Envisions a Comprehensive Role for Marketing

Asset management firms focus on the production of marketing collateral and a limited number of other functions to their detriment. That’s the conclusion of the 2007 Beyond The Collateral: Unlocking Marketing’s Potential for Strategic Advantage study co-authored by SwanDog Strategic Marketing and Financial Research Corporation (FRC).

The overwhelming majority of CEOs, senior executives and heads of distribution say they expect Marketing to have a greater impact on their businesses in the next five years. (Not surprisingly, marketing heads concur!)

Yet, the study suggests that firm management is underutilizing the potential of their marketing organizations, often viewing Marketing as just a supplement to the sales effort.

“This is not meant to be a direct indictment of Marketing,” write Dave Swanson, Founder & Managing Principal of SwanDog Strategic Marketing, and Mike Evans, President of FRC. “There is plenty of evidence that suggests, for the most part, Marketing has always done what they have been asked to do, an what they have been structurally designed to do, which is to primarily create and distribute marketing materials. Traditionally, Marketing has not been asked or expected to take a strategic role within their firms. This is evident in Marketing’s typical structure, responsibilities and funding.”

Our goal, with the study and in discussion continuing on the Beyond the Collateral.com Web site, is to engage the industry—senior management, distribution heads, marketing chieftains and their teams in the pursuit of what we’re calling Comprehensive Marketing. This is in contrast to the one-sided marketing that the study documents as the status quo in the industry today.

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September 20, 2007

Dave Swanson on Beyond the Collateral Study

Dave Swanson, Founder & Managing Principal of SwanDog Strategic Marketing, provides high-level comments on the SwanDog/FRC study Beyond the Collateral: Unlocking Marketing’s Strategic Potential for Competitive Advantage.