Every alternative investment marketing campaign needs helpful content

Financial services marketing can implement inbound strategies to reach out to new audiences, investors and clients. A creative, transparent and bespoke campaign can target a huge volume of high net worth leads, at a high quality that won’t waste your sales team’s time. For more information on how you can create a high performing investment campaign read our guide to financial marketing strategies.

Julia Groves, former head of the UK Crowdfunding Association, has called for greater transparency in alternative investment marketing for the sake of new investors.

In a recent article in City A.M., Groves acknowledged the rapid growth this market is currently enjoying, but pointed out that with great success comes great responsibility.

So, in this blog we look at the essential components of any alternative investment marketing strategy. 

Balancing risk and reward

Today, savings accounts offered by banks come with financial security, but offer very low interest rates. In fact, Groves argues you can effectively lose money if interest payments drop below the rate of inflation.

“Risk is not a dirty word,” she argues. “There is no such thing as investment without risk.”

Certainly at the moment, investors are taking carefully calculated risks in order to secure far more impressive interest rates. Renewable energy bonds, for instance, are blossoming as an investment opportunity offering which offers financial rewards as well as ethical benefits. 

Now, this is all very well and good, but it’s crucial that still investors understand the risks they face. This is especially the case as the alternative investment market grows at an astounding rate.

Keeping up in a rapidly changing industry

According to PwC, the alternative investment industry looks set to hit a value of $13.6 trillion (£8.6 trillion) by 2020 – and this is just a conservative forecast.

This is thanks to a perfect storm of baby boomers acquiring more wealth, millennials developing a suspicion of the mainstream finance industry, and major banks offering unimpressive returns. As a result, PwC is confident the alternative investment industry will grow fivefold in the space of just five years.

"Alternative asset management will undergo a transformation in the years to 2020 and beyond as it adjusts to a new operating and economic environment and moves toward centre stage," PwC predicts. 

Supporting leads with the right alternative investment marketing strategy

This is all good news for your company, and you should celebrate the alternative sector’s growing influence in the investment industry!

However, as the sector swells and attracts crowds of new investors, your alternative investment marketing campaign can also help to provide essential support and guidance.  

For instance, investors need to be aware that not all independent platforms offer the same products, terms, disclosure or protection. In fact, recent feedback from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) called for greater disclosure throughout the alternative sector. 

By providing more transparency to the end investor, your alternative investment marketing strategy can actually improve your company’s reputation whilst also supporting customers.

Educate with content

Educate your audience on the nature of alternative investment industry as well as the individual investments you offer. This can be accomplished using inbound content which answers specific customer queries or solves common problems.

For instance, you could write a blog series that compares the risks and rewards of various alternative investment products, educating leads on your offering. Alternatively, you could produce a step by step guide to calculating the overall return on investment, providing practical support for your customers’ research.

Here are a few alternative investment industry topics that you can examine:

1. Asset funding: Set out all fees, commissions and additional costs. What, when and how does your company get paid? Is it funded by the lender, borrower, or a bit of both?

2. Asset risk: One of the biggest risks is the risk of the end investment – the person or business who wants your money. What will they do with it? When will you see a return? How likely is it that everything will work out, and what happens if it doesn’t? 

3. Instrumental risk: What do customers get for their money? Share, bonds, a loan contract? Are there other lenders? Is the investment secured?

4. Personal risk: Customers should consider any ethical beliefs they may hold. Does your investment support any industries which contend with these values?

So, to what extent can you limit investor risk?

 How to approach risk

“Our role as platforms isn’t to stop investors taking risks, or tell them what risks to take,” Groves stresses. Instead, an alternative investment marketing strategy should simply make clear all of the risks and rewards on offer, and let potential investors make their own minds up. Leads can best assess for themselves whether the investment is worth their while.

High net worth leads are as active – possibly even more-so – than your average internet user. Especially younger, millennial success stories; they communicate through social media and use search engines to discover new opportunities, too. So, if you want to attract these leads, read our blog'3 secrets to high net worth lead generation.'