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Developing a Brand and Marketing Strategy

By Sujatha Sivakumaran

Last week, Rubesh's blog spoke about ways to differentiate a firm for advisors. One of the ways to successfully differentiate a firm is by having a strong brand. A good brand presence has always been important, irrespective of the industry or firm. Over the past two years, however, this has become an important factor for firms to consider. The market crisis combined with an increased scrutiny over firms has made a stable and recognized brand presence even more important.

kasina's Q2 2010 FA vision survey evaluated advisors' brand perception of firms.

Our results show that several firms do not have a distinguishing characteristic about their brand that stands out against others. While firms are interested in developing a differentiated brand, many are unsure how to proceed. Following are some of the best practices firms can use to go ahead with their brand strategy:

Define a brand identity: Pick the attribute or quality you want to highlight most. For instance, Vanguard is known for being a low cost provider and PIMCO is known as the fixed income specialist. For some firms it might be performance, for others it might be a focus on risk management. Most firms tend to think there is no attribute that really differentiates them from the other players, however, it is necessary to pick any one attribute the firm and its constituents identify with, and highlight it.

Use Social/Digital Media: Top-producing advisors spend nearly 27.6 hours/week online and e-mailing for work. Clients spend increasing amounts of time online as well. Using online space effectively and using social media such as Facebook, Twitter and the firm's Web site, can help promote the brand strategy

Develop Value-added material: Value-added material focused on products, market movements, and expertise of the firm, can help in a couple of ways. For one, it can be a conversation piece between relationship managers/wholesalers and advisors. In addition, it can serve to highlight the intellectual capital of the firm.

All in all, the strategies above can help firms revamp and establish their brand identities before investing in an advertising campaign.