Introduction

In this chapter

After more than fifteen years working as a digital marketer for B2B investment managers, I believe the lacklustre performance of marketing teams is often due to their strategies not being adapted for the industry.

This guide offers a practical solution by refining the inbound marketing methodology, which broadly involves:

Why inbound marketing needs adapting

To "do" inbound marketing, the marketing database needs to be divided between prospects (or leads) and customers so they can be targeted appropriately.

For most firms — including investment managers selling products directly to retail investors on their website — this is relatively straightforward.

But for B2B managers, sales might occur offline or through third-party online platforms, so there is often a lack of consistent or reliable transaction and holdings data available to marketing. Additionally, a key segment of the target audience — including fund selectors and manager research analysts — will never become "customers" in the strict sense of the word (i.e., hold an investment in the firm's products) as they don't invest money.

Furthermore, as investment products don't need to be used or experienced — they can be understood with data and information — there’s no need for case studies, testimonials, demos, or user guides. And non-product content (e.g., commentary on interest rates or inflation) can influence decisions to make brand-new investments as well as increasing or reducing allocations to existing holdings.

As a result, prospects and customers can't be differentiated in the marketing database, and teams are left without segment-specific content to use for inbound marketing.

Adapting the inbound marketing approach

Given that customers can't be identified, communications will purely be based on subscription preferences (i.e., what each contact has expressed an interest in) and won't target prospects or customers specifically.

Additionally, information about the digital behaviour of subscribers (who are being tracked by the marketing automation system) will be routed to their assigned salesperson — who will know where they sit in the sales process — instead of being used to influence marketing activity.

Overall, the focus for marketing shifts to sales enablement:

  • Attract new contacts
  • Nurture existing contacts with interest-based content
  • Equip salespeople with information about the digital behaviour of contacts to help them nurture relationships offline

This redefined focus is a much better fit for a relationship-driven industry in which salespeople are ultimately responsible for revenue.