7 Problems With Automating Fact Sheets In PowerPoint

By John Toepfer

With the highly competitive nature of the asset management industry, maintaining a strong and positive brand image is more important now than ever. Every contact with a client, every conversation 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.

I had the opportunity recently to speak with a long time head of marketing for a major asset manager and she spoke with passion about on the topic of brand. Among many compelling things she had to say was this: “If you look at the most successful companies in any industry, you’ll find that they share one thing in common; excellent branding.”

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The 3 Ways to Approach Content Automation

By Rachel Totten

Due to the competitive nature of the financial services industry, content automation has become a strategic priority for many.  With a finish line goal to improve scalability, risk management and brand compliance, the race is on to improve marketing and sales operations.  The challenge firms face is knowing how to approach content automation.  Is it better to build or buy?  What are the differences between the leading vendors, and their approaches?

In 2017, we commissioned some research on how asset managers are automating content production.  The research found 3 common models: Fully outsourced, DIY, and hybrid.  Here’s a brief description of each and the pros and cons.

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3 Factors that Complicate Fact Sheet Automation

By Kaitlin McInerney

When discussing content automation goals, buzzwords like ‘streamlining’, ‘consistency’, and ‘efficiency’ are often tossed around. These are good goals to strive for, but can be difficult to achieve due to business reasons beyond marketing’s control. After all, the products represent different strategies, ages, data, and audiences; therefore, the literature has to reflect this. In the end, the main goal of content automation should be to make the process as simple as your firm’s business rules and product nuances will allow.

As we discussed in a recent post, the complexity of your fact sheets is one of the main driving factors behind the cost of implementing and maintaining an automated solution. In this blog post, we’ll identify and discuss the top 3 factors that complicate fact sheet automation:

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How much does it cost to automate fact sheets? 🧐

By Kaitlin McInerney

In a budget-conscious financial services industry, marketing spend is a top concern.  That’s why, when we meet new firms looking to invest in automating their fact sheet production, one of the first questions asked by marketers is, ‘How much will it cost?’.  Before digging into their business requirements, our dreaded answer to this question is, “It depends”, as there are many factors to be considered and one size does NOT fit all.

Among the major dependencies affecting the cost of automating your marketing documents are:

• The complexity of your designs
• The number of templates and variations you have
• The complexity of your data
• The extent of your language requirements
• The amount of flexibility you have with requirements
• The number of documents to be produced

The complexity of your fact sheets and flexibility of your firm’s operating model will ultimately determine the cost to automate them. To give you a better idea of what this means, let’s look at a few common scenarios. These are actual case studies of companies who have implemented Fact Sheet automation recently and how much it cost them.Read More