Why do you need professional marketing consultants in today’s competitive investment management industry?

The institutional and high net worth investor market has grown extensively over the past 30 years. Today the defined benefit and defined contribution pension markets exceed $5 trillion. Family offices, endowments, foundations, and private company pension funds comprise over $1.5 trillion. As these markets have grown in size, the market segments that comprise this total have become more specialized and sophisticated. There are now in excess of 28,000 money managers vying for a slice of the assets of institutions (including foundations, endowments, and family offices, which are typically grouped in this category).

With this explosive growth in the assets that are available and the managers to absorb them, the need for more sophisticated and focused marketing has arisen. Institutional buyers can only work with a limited number of money management firms. These buyers establish their priorities based on the quality of the managers and the satisfaction that they gain from their individual relationships. With an enticing but monumental pool of assets for investment managers to solicit, guidance and a road map are essential. Hanover Square Associates is a specialist in marketing investment products that are tailored to the individual money management firm. We attempt to fit the style and structure of the money management firm to the clients who are best suited to the money manager. This strategy ensures success for our managers who want to increase their asset base.

How does Hanover Square provide effective direction and a strategy in this environment?

There are three parts to the marketing effort that we implement in order to enhance our managers’ probability for success:

1. We define the market for your product. Based on the style of the manager we determine the best prospects for your product. During that process we refine your communications including the articulation of the approach and the channels that you are currently using to market your ideas. We suggest strategies to improve your marketing materials whether it is to broaden your communications, or to simplify a complex package. Depending on the market that we identify, we will try to match the typical marketing package with the approach that your audience would expect. Often, a firm may have all the components for a successful product but no marketing experience to present it in a fashion that will generate new business in the institutional marketplace.

2. Once we define the best segment for your product we create a marketing plan and identify the most likely prospects for your fund product. With a significant database of investor contacts and industry relationships built over many years, we are able to generate focused and constructive prospects for our client fund managers. In addition, we will work with your organization to give you broad exposure through publicity, speaking engagements, and promotional opportunities in the media.

3. Follow-up — we continue to follow-up with candidates by contacting them on a regular basis, informing them of key developments in your organization, and updating them about performance and noteworthy investment events. This is the only way to ensure that prospects that have a long decision-making time horizon are likely to go from being prospects to becoming clients.

Why hire an outside marketing organization?

Hanover Square Associates can work in coordination with a fund manager’s in-house marketing staff to complement their efforts or can work as the exclusive marketing agent with an all-encompassing mandate, depending on your needs. Because we have a very broad base of investor contacts and experience, we are able to effectively leverage a portfolio manager’s time so that qualified and interested investors are introduced in a timely and efficient manner.

Why hire Hanover Square Associates?

Hanover Square’s efforts are devoted solely to developing relationships and helping our clients increase their assets under management. This is accomplished by making face-to-face visits (we travel at least 50% of the time) with key decision makers, attending conferences to broaden our Rolodex of contacts, and investing in tangential relationships with other salespeople in order to tap into their extended list of contacts. We also purchase outside databases and targeted publications that provide exceptional intelligence about the institutional marketplace. We have a support staff to assist us and we make ourselves available to our clients on a frequent basis. In short, for the cost of an individual marketer you gain the services and expertise of an entire organization. Hanover Square Associates has developed a reputation in the industry for working with highly talented, but lesser known, investment fund managers and is dedicated to assisting high quality managers who want to access the institutional investor marketplace.