Roger Montgomery is an investment manager and prolific media commentator. I thought I would quickly highlight how he is using technology to drive his business development and marketing strategies. Basically Roger uses his website (blog) as a ‘content hub’ and republishes and distributes his thoughts, views, video’s etc through a number of other platforms primarily Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. His strategy is to use thoughtful content to initially engage, and then create, followers and ultimately have these individuals invest with him. Only time will tell if he is being successful on conversion but the content and engagement elements are proceeding at pace.

1. Roger's website is ranked 9,000 in Australia on Alexa. To give you some context BT Investment Management is ranked 2,500, Perpetual is 12,000 and AMP Capital is 34,000. 
2. YouTube = 367,000 video views 
3. 6800 likes on Facebook, 400 conversations 
4. 1800 Followers on Twitter 
5. Plus LinkedIn

An interesting excerpt from today’s InvestorDaily quoting Tria Investment Partners Managing Partner Andrew Baker on the difficulties some active equity managers are having in the current market. 

Baker states; "Historically, there has been a strong correlation between index performance and net inflows, but since 2009, this has broken down," He believes the outflows are partly caused by a lack of investment in product development and marketing by asset managers. Baker adds, "Let's be honest - in many asset management firms, the level of investment in marketing would be seen as a joke by a major FMCG firm. We are seeing the consequences of that lack of investment." 

The cross-industry comparison may be slightly unfair but there is a definite difference in mindsets between the two. FMCG companies see marketing as an investment to drive growth in their organisations. Until asset managers view marketing in this way nothing much is likely to change.