In the age of Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn, sending an enewsletter to your investors might seem like an anachronism.However, don’t write off the enewsletter just yet. Studies show that email can be more effective than social media at reaching actual customers – nearly 40 times that of Facebook and Twitter combined. 1 So why are enewsletters still so relevant?
Their lifespan
A
social mediapost can hit thousands of investors in a second, but may also end up lasting that long before being drowned out by other new content. By its nature, email is stored by its recipient and can be referenced later and/or repeatedly.
The total package
Rather than single-issue postings, an email or enewsletter allows you to combine several relevant topics into a single deliverable.
Making it personal
Targeted emails can focus on the needs and interests of specific groups of investors and, depending on the size of your client pool, can be further individualized as well.So, if your firm isn’t putting out a regular enewsletter, or wants to reposition its existing one, it’s a good time to take another look at what could be one of the most important communication and branding tools for hedge funds. Here are some important tips and tricks to keep in mind when planning and executing your next enewsletter deployment:
Define what you are, and what you’re not
There is an incredible volume of investment-related enewsletters out there. Some are sales drivers, some charge for subscriptions, some offer investors portfolio building advice. Remain cognizant of who your investors are and build your enewsletter content around that, rather than what others in the business are doing. This will help differentiate your e-newsletter from the myriad other emails your investors might be receiving.Related:
How Hedge Funds Can Now Take Advantage of the Internet Streamline
Keep the number of individual topics to no less than three, but at most seven (three to five is a good range to start with).
It’s not (just) about you
You can build credibility by linking your investors to external articles, papers or other sources of information that might be relevant to them. It tells the reader that you are carefully screening and curating content and are plugged into objective third-party insights.
Rely on professionals
The best financial enewsletters have a design that is straightforward, but still compelling and visually on-brand. If you don’t have internal
financial services marketingresource for that, consider outsourcing production (from content to design) to a financial services marketing firm.
Make it passenger friendly
Approximately 55% of emails are opened from a mobile device.2
Ensure both your design and content is optimizedfor mobile phone browsers, particularly those on a commute. This means more vertical/scrollable design and shorter, digestible content (avoiding linking readers to pdf files, for instance).
