7 Problems With Automating Factsheets In PowerPoint

Maintaining a strong and positive brand image is more important now than ever. Every contact with a client and every piece of material they see from your firm needs to be professional, timely and well produced. Even something as mundane as a poorly produced factsheet can be off-putting and give an investor pause to think about the overall quality of your operations. Yes, even in the digital age, quality design and typography in printed materials really matters. That’s why automating factsheets in PowerPoint is a bad idea.

A long-time head of marketing for a major asset manager once said to me: “If you look at the most successful companies in any industry, you’ll find that they share one thing in common; excellent branding.”

Four, No FIVE things to Look for in a Content Automation Solution

I’ve written and spoken frequently in the past about what asset management firms should be looking for as they evaluate content automation for production of their templated literature; fact sheets, commentaries, sales ideas, pitch decks etc. Indeed, this article is largely an update of one I wrote in 2021. I feel compelled to revisit the topic today, however, because of one key thing that seems to be driving a lot of decision making in the market today.

The four things described in the original blog remain as on point today as they were in 2021: data source flexibility, data visualization power, real scalability, and integration capabilities.

The fifth item is hidden in the discussion of the original four and I feel it should be brought to the forefront. And that item is: the total long-term cost of ownership of the solution.

Pitchbook Problems? 3 Ways Technology Can Help

It’s tough out there for investment management sales teams and only getting more challenging. Today, pitchbooks must be customer-centric, created or changed on a dime, on-brand, compliant and have digital output and tracking options. That’s like trying to make a delicious, vegan, gluten-free, nut-free, and sugar-free wedding cake in 10 minutes.

If that hits home, then this article is for you.

(If you didn’t find that amusing, you’ve clearly never tried to make a cake in 10 minutes.)

Upscaling Your SMA Distribution Efforts

Separately Management Accounts (SMAs) are on a roll. Traditionally designed to target the wealthiest individuals and families, defined benefit plans and endowments, they’ve often been treated as a niche product or a way for managers of mutual funds to manage multimillion-dollar portfolios directly.

But that’s changing. According to research from Cerulli, assets held in SMAs grew by 34% year-over-year from the first quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of 2021 and now command a 16% share of the $9 trillion held in managed accounts. Cerulli’s research also indicated that advisors planned to boost their usage of SMAs by 19% in 2022 while reducing the use of mutual funds by 12%.