In today’s competitive business environment, marketers must have access to “the right data at the right time” in order to be effective.

At financial services firms, marketers rely heavily upon their data to market their products and report performance on a monthly and quarterly basis.  In addition to producing fact sheets, pitchbooks, and other vital communication materials, investment marketers are also using data to drive key business decisions.

In either case, it is extremely important for investment companies to place a focus on producing quality data. Otherwise, they risk running into problems from both a regulatory and brand reputation standpoint.

But what is the definition of “data quality”? Why is it important for marketing? And what is the magic formula for achieving quality data?

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If you’re like me, you worry about making marketing mistakes that might reflect negatively on your company’s brand.

Marketing blunders cause embarrassment and negative PR, but they usually blow-over in time. For example, you might recall when Shutterfly sent a “congratulations on your new arrival” email to people who hadn’t recently given birth. It was a data quality issue that caused backlash from their customer base and a lot of negative press. But, everyone eventually moved on.

In financial services, however, marketing blunders are much more serious. When they are due to data errors or inconsistencies, there can be regulatory issues, fines, and liabilities in addition to bad PR. There’s even the risk of losing your job or your license.

Because financial services marketing is driven by enormous amounts of data, the risk of making a reporting mistake is extremely high. Mistakes caused by a lack of data quality can be a huge blow to a firm, causing them to lose credibility with investors and advisers. Read More

By John Toepfer

There is art to producing multi-language documents of any sort, but the bar is set particularly high when focusing on data-driven documents of a recurring nature.  With documents like mutual fund factsheets, the cost and production timeline are key metrics of organizational success.  A traditional process of shipping off document files to a translation agency and counting the days for receipt of finished foreign language material – and a large bill – can be ridiculous.

In the age of content management systems and Google Translate, there is definitely a better way.

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As the role of blogging in asset management marketing grows, firms struggle to generate effective content. This is why it’s great to exploit your investment commentary on your blog. However, some pieces of investment commentary weather the leap to your blog better than others. Make the wrong choices and you’ll fail to attract readers. You’ll also turn off those who already navigate to your website. I have four main tips for asset managers who want to get more mileage out of their investment commentary by turning them into blog posts.Read More