I’ve been in the computer-driven publishing industry my entire working life. For better or worse, that’s going on 30 years and six firms worth of experience building and selling systems to support the print (or print-like) communications needs of large businesses selling or supporting high-value goods and services. I’ve worked with Airlines, Pharmaceuticals, Auto Parts, Reference Publishers, Military, and Financial business. All have significant data-and-rules driven content publishing needs, including well-designed print artifacts. Supporting publishing in the financial services world makes up a majority of this experience, but we gain wisdom by understanding similarities and differences between multiple business sectors and markets.

For 87.3% of my long and illustrious career in supporting print communications, people have taken the position that Print is Dead… or soon will be. While there are specific examples and versions of this narrative that are true, I’m here to talk today about where and why it is not true!

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I had conversations this week with two new prospective investment management clients. Each expressed a “scaling problem” with marketing efforts as being their chief reason for looking into document and data automation.

I very much like that phrase. It’s straight out of my pitchbook on how a solution like Synthesis solves problems with scaling investment management marketing.  I usually define a scaling problem as:

The point in time in which either the number of documents, users, staff required, or variety of documents to meet the communication needs has passed some tipping point.

My takeaway from these two conversations is quite interesting. Although each firm was experiencing valid issues, the firm profiles and the scope of their work was vastly different. The key to efficient and profitable growth is scalability.Read More

The global pandemic and the move to working from home caused asset managers to think differently about how to retain assets and drive new business. Sales travel saw major cuts and client meetings went virtual. In response, marketers have had to pivot their plans and re-evaluate everything from messaging and go-to-market strategy to their martech stack.

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In a blog post by our CEO, he draws a comparison between setting up a rock concert and doing an investment management content automation implementation. In the post, he points out that the critical behind-the-scenes logistics of these operations are not fully appreciated. But they’re vital to the outcome.

For example, think back to a time you arrived early to a concert. You may have noticed the roadies methodically working to get all the equipment set up and working perfectly. Because of this, the band can just get up on stage, grab their instruments, and put on a great show. The roadies and logistics teams don’t get the attention from all the screaming, raging fans, but they certainly deserve some recognition for the role they play.

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