We've been in a glorious, if not turbulent, market upswing for quite a while now which has brought good things to countless people -- especially asset managers and their investors. In fact,  several industry reports are predicting this positive trend will continue, reaching as much as 14 trillion dollars in market growth by 2023. Encouraging metrics like this have spurred many asset managers to refocus on capital raising and acquiring new clients. 

While the opportunity for asset managers to make significant client gains is obvious, the path towards achieving and maintaining those gains is less so. Many managers are still operating under the old school assumption that pedigree and a solid performance record is enough to attract and keep investor dollars. While performance will always be an important factor, nowadays, investors want to see more in a manager's value proposition and how it aligns with their unique investment preferences. With thousands of asset managers all vying for the same select pool of institutional investor capital, investors have been able to leverage their demand in their favor by asking for individualized services and new solutions. Managers who've been able to win investor dollars with these unique offerings have realized new revenue streams and built deeper investor relationships, but have also been challenged with new IR operational burdens.

In order to satisfy the influx in unique investor servicing levels, many managers have invested in or are planning to invest in investor relations technology. Software like client portals, provide IR teams a way to scale operationally while still fostering an investor-centric experience. Client portals are an extension of a manager's public facing website and allow them to securely share detailed content such as performance charts and graphs, videos, blogs, reports and much more. A portal's versatility in permissioning each investor to a  particular set of information simplifies the effort needed to support the high-touch service level promised. Likewise, IR teams can easily nurture client relationships by triggering automatic notifications to investors of new content or events posted on the website. Best of all, providing all this information to investors on demand, 24/7 minimizes the delays of requesting information through emails and phone calls.

When a manager's investor relations practice is digitized, they gain invaluable metrics on what content drives engagement for each investor and can easily use these findings to make strategic decisions about where they are placing their efforts and what services they offer future investors. 

To learn more about the successes asset managers have achieved by going digital, check out this story about a $10 Billion Traditional Asset Manager.