Talk For Show, Blog For Dough

Despite being overused in finance, the golfing analogy ‘Drive for show, putt for dough' bears relevance in alternative investments. While the bigger, flashier managers in alternatives often garner the most media and investor attention, smaller managers have a real chance to exhibit their investment acumen through the power of a well-crafted blog.

Emerging managers too often believe that performance figures tell the story for their fund, and are concerned that investors won't ‘listen' to them until enough time has passed to provide a significant amount of data on record. This mindset ignores the potential for managers to articulate the strategy behind their numbers and to start a dialogue with potential clients that reaches well beyond monthly returns. Expand your investment voice beyond the numbers game of fees, rankings, and comparisons, and you can expand the potential investment base.

Fund managers are already convinced of the value of getting face time with investors, and will spend most of their marketing budgets trying to maximize these opportunities. They will budget significant amounts on conferences, personal meetings, and for third-party intermediaries, not to mention the travel time and additional expenses these efforts incur. All of these efforts are important ways to foster building communication channels with investors, but there is another underused tool largely ignored by these managers: blogging. While conferences and third-party arrangements cost thousands of dollars per occurrence, using the power of the written word to reach thousands can be both an efficient and effective part of an investor communication proces

Talk is cheap, but bogging cheaper still. Blogging is free, easy to do and, at the rate of perhaps once or twice a month, requires a minimal amount of time and effort on the part of a fund manager. Blogging can support the articulation of a manager's strategy proc......................

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This article was published in Opalesque's New Managers a top-down monthly analysis, news and research publication on the global emerging manager space.