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Hedge Fund PR: Some Tips

December 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Hedge fund managers have long been known for secrecy and a desire to shun the spotlight. However, the business has become highly competitive and many hedge fund operators are coming to the realization that they need an advantage and perhaps that’s where hedge fund PR comes in…

 

What good is the best performance record around if nobody knows about it? Public relations, marketing, and advertising are key elements in a successful hedge fund business plan. But unlike almost every other type of business on the universe, hedge funds managers face significant restrictions in these areas. Only registered/public funds, like mutual funds and investment companies, may market, advertise, and promote themselves and their performance records to the general public. In fact, the media is filled with these ads.

However, non-registered/private hedge funds may only market, advertise and promote themselves and their performance records in very restricted manners.

 

Enter hedge fund PR… Many hedge fund managers realize that performance alone isn’t enough to get allocations. Recent surveys of institutional investors find reputation has become a primary consideration when choosing a hedge fund manager. And with institutions now representing up to 70% of hedge fund investors, the demand has increased for high-level communications that speak to a sophisticated audience, and that’s where hedge fund PR excels.

 

The success of a hedge fund ultimately comes down to talent – a firm’s financial experts, managers and traders.

Bring your talented staff to the forefront via hedge fund PR, establishing them as experts in the hedge fund space and acting as hedge fund PR brand ambassadors. In this regard, partner with a hedge fund PR firm whose hedge fund public relations strategies include making it a priority to generate exposure for their experts. It creates additional avenues to highlight the brand, and associates expertise with firm representatives in the process.

 

These hedge fund PR tactics can include placing op-ed articles, interviews and guest contributions by firm experts with helpful investment tips and trends. The media is ripe for hedge fund PR teams to make their hedge fund managers and traders available for comment. Hedge fund PR should make it a priority to make editors of key financial columns aware of hedge fund manager availability as a resource for quotes for relevant articles. Whether covering market conditions, trends or prospects for the industry, hedge fund managers should not shy away from contributing to stories.

 

A significant part of hedge fund PR has to do with developing a step-by-step program to build a strong brand identity – the sum total of associations people have with an organization – can help a fund manager heighten name recognition and credibility. Professional-level materials, created as part of a hedge fund PR program, that reflect the brand identity can position a fund to take advantage of opportunities in the institutional space and beyond.

 

A strong brand identity backed by a strategic hedge fund PR program can help fund managers weather severe setbacks by allowing them to draw on a reservoir of good associations already in place.

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Hedge Fund PR: Some Tips for Managers of Hedge funds

November 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Hedge fund PR has to be one of the most ignored marketing tools of hedge fund managers today. While they tend to be a secretive lot, hedge fund managers have come to recognize the value of hedge fund PR, particularly seeing the benefits of making themselves more available to the press.

Hedge fund managers and their advisors – hedge fund PR experts – know that the media is hungry for real time opinions of hedge fund managers, traders and marketers. They need comments on current market conditions, trends and what prospects lay ahead for the industry as a whole.

Many hedge fund managers shy away from contributing to stories in the press while most hedge fund PR practitioners would advise that they participate as long as they stick to discussing industry trends, general market trends and long-term movements within the industry.

Hedge fund PR: Some tips to get started with:

- Speak to your legal counsel to check on exactly what you can say or not say to the press.

- Develop a list of 10-15 targeted publications which you would like to appear in.

Identify the editor of financial columns within that publication or news source and introduce yourself to them as a resource.

- Speak at public events, conferences, networking events and other places in the industry where you will be heard not only by others in the industry but probably a few members of the press as well.

- Consider writing a book on your insights and experience.

Many professionals in the hedge fund industry are often interviewed on TV after they have published a book on a specific topic in the hedge fund industry, such as regulation or quantitative trading. Yes, writing a book sounds extreme to many who are already working 50 hours a week but that is also why it would be so effective to consider doing so. Those with the time and skills to write well are often not the same with those who have the experience and insight to write something unique and valuable.

The benefits of hedge fund PR are numerous. Powerful and compliant communication will attract investors and attract key talent, while projecting and protecting fund health. Whether placing news stories covering the launch of a new fund, investment strategy, staffing announcements, financial acquisitions or profit reports, generating consistent and positive exposure is essential for hedge fund PR. Hedge fund PR efforts should extend to helping to optimize fund marketing plans and capital raising initiatives. Increasing visibility of talented hedge fund managers is a huge part of this.

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Top 9 Tips to Selecting a Fund of Hedge Funds Database

July 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Anyone who has the ability to successfully sail the many channels of capital within the hedge fund industry is deserving their weight in gold (and that’s lifting every day). There are two major components of marketing and selling a hedge fund which each act unvarying attention and refining.

1. Understand the DNA of the many distinct distribution channels open to hedge funds for raising capital and
2. Having an electronic hedge fund of fund of hedge fund database of the right people to call on within those channels.

While some populate develop their own databases from scratch this is often a retentive painful road with many days passing leaving voicemails with firms that have gone out of business, united, switched investment focus or charge too high of fees to work with. This has led to many hedge funding investing in fund hedge fund databases that are automatically updated with half a dozen pages of information on fees, structure, management information, etc. This trend with hedge fund databases goes along with the “outsource everything that is not our core competence” model that many both emerging managers and B+ players have taken.

If you need a list of hedge fund of funds or are thinking of purchasing a fund of hedge fund directory or database here are my top 9 tips:

1. Take the time to call or at least email the firm who offers a fund of hedge fund database, these will sometimes be referred to as fund of hedge fund or fof directories.
2. Only work with well known, reputable firms that specialize in providing hedge fund databases or hedge fund of fund databases. Avoid small shop fly-by-nighters at all costs
3. Take the time to really get familiar with the information provided within the database, ask for a sampleof what the information will look like. It really is an investment that could save you literally thousands of hours IF you pick the right hedge fund database for your business model. See a Hedge Fund of Fund of Hedge Fund Database Sample.
4. Ensure that the database is updated at least once a quarter, contact details and firm information gets old very quickly.
5. Expect to pay -,000 for a high quality hedge fund database, many cost around ,800 while others can cost up to ,000/year. Be sure and know the trade-offs of buying a physical database versus subscribing to one online. If you don’t have a hard copy of the data in Excel or Access format you may not be able to use it once a time-based subscription expires. For some firms this is fine, for others it would be a costly mistake.
6. Make sure the hedge fund database you use is compatible with your systems. Do you use SalesForce? Act? Goldmine? Excel? Word?(lord help you)
7. While you are kicking the tires of your potential new evade fund database make certain it has complete information on a firm. You don’t want to naming a firm asking if you can send over your PowerPoint presentation just to find away they are really a competitor or a division within another firm you called that same day.
8. Don’t steal a database. This may sound obvious, but it is common for employees to copy parts of a database for later use or use some other un-ethical means of obtaining database details. Don’t, it is not worth it. Always take the high road and you can stand behind every action you have ever taken.
9. This list merely contains 9 tips instead of 10 because this one is worth more than the rest combined. Ask hard oppugning when you are buying fund of hedge fund database. Ask how often your database detail will be updated. Ask exactly how many hedge funds are updating their information. Some databases will say that they have details on 9,000 hedge funds while the reality is that some of them haven’t updated their information in 4 years…make sure all of the data is being updated at least once a year.


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