This is a guest post by Dan Sondhelm, CEO of Sondhelm Partners

If you were too busy dealing with the day-to-day minutiae and putting out fires instead of the mid-year distribution review, don’t worry. You still have time to kick start the year with a sound strategic plan to create or improve your growth strategy for the new year. Here’s what you need to focus on to get that done.

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Guest post by Ana Evans, Director of Marketing for Salespage Technologies.

Earlier this year, we held a client roundtable of 28 asset managers who shared insights into how they have adapted over the last year. An underlying theme that surfaced from that discussion was agility. Being able to quickly pivot to adjust and apply resources to fulfill changing needs for digital content and communication, virtual meetings and events, and advertising and media coverage, were essential to reach their audiences.

Marketing professionals are constantly striving to get the most impact with the resources they have available. We went to trusted asset manager marketing partners: Leibowitz Branding & Design, Sondhelm Partners, SunStar Strategic, and Synthesis to understand how they’ve been helping asset managers successfully adapt. This interview-style blog post shares fundamental questions and the marketing partner’s answers. Read on to learn how you can be more agile in your marketing efforts while focusing on and sharing your expertise.

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Guest post by Marianne Hewitt from The Growth Strategy Group.

The conversation about investment marketing and sales alignment began over a decade ago. After ten years, less than 50% of organizations surveyed said they aligned appropriately to achieve the financial results for which they are accountable.

The resistance persists because achieving the synergies between marketing and sales is not viewed as transformational. It does not get the top-down executive support it requires. Nor does it get the governance structure that major transformation initiatives require to succeed.

There was a point in time when alignment between the two organizations made perfect sense. In today’s digital world where buyers prefer digital self-service (Figure 1) and remote human engagement, it is no longer the right way to think about the relationship between marketing and sales.

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Guest Post by Amy Watson at Red Oak Compliance.

Asset Managers are heavily focused on bringing in new business and attracting the right clientele. Compliance, while important, is something you’d prefer to have running smoothly in the background rather than disrupting your day-to-day flow.

However, an increase in hefty fines throughout the asset management industry means compliance needs to be front-and-center. To make the most of your resources and to ensure you’re not caught by surprise when regulators review your materials, you need to ensure you’ve built efficient, compliant processes that are easy for your team to understand and comply with.

One particular pain point we’ve heard about from clients: keeping sales team collateral up to date and books and records compliant across an organization.

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