Losses in revenue to the investment industry alone will run well into the billions of dollars. One of our goals with the survey was to learn how much of those losses Marketing is planning to absorb. Via the survey, two-thirds of marketing executives told us that they expect 10%-20% 2009 budget cuts while one-third expect cuts to exceed 20%.

As deep as even 10%-20% cuts can feel, we suspect that many chief marketing officers (CMOs) are underestimating the crisis’ impact.

The survey also asked marketers how priorities were being reset in the current environment and how they were aligning with business goals.

Please complete the form below to access Dave Swanson’s 10-minute video presentation with more about the survey findings.

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Further, a large percentage of marketing budgets are spent on literature development and fulfillment. The majority (57%) of firms with AUM of less than $50B spend more than 40% of their overall marketing budget on literature development and fulfillment. Even 38% of firms with AUM over $50B spend over 40% of their marketing budgets in this manner.

Check back next Friday for the next release of another exhibit from Beyond The Collateral. The research is being re-fielded now, with results due before the end of the year.

If not Marketing, who is responsible? The majority of respondents from the largest ($50B+ AUM) firms reported that CRM and client advocacy functions reside in the sales department. Feel free to comment below–and watch for next Friday’s release of more exhibits from the 2007 study.

As shown above, financial marketing today embraces the right and largely ignores the left side of the marketing brain. Respondents overwhelmingly report that their current marketing organizations are responsible for promotions, sales support, value-added programs and advertising—right-brain marketing. On the other hand, many of the business functions including client data management, CRM, client advocacy, product development and product management (left-brain marketing) are typically not part of Marketing.

In fact, as firms become larger and too often de-centralized, less of these functions reside in Marketing.

As announced last week, we’re posting exhibits from the 2007 study to the site every Friday–see you next week.

In the whitepaper, Dave Swanson, SwanDog’s founder and managing principal, is critical of investment management Web site updates and encourages marketers to commit to more timely communicating by adopting a “newsroom mentality.” Investment companies that have deferred investor communications to financial advisors need to use frequency, education and transparency to re-open the dialogue, we believe. Marketing communications, including imagery, need to be reworked to represent the empathy that today’s markets call for. Other recommendations relate to redefining the brand of the financial advisor and the prospects for large and small asset management brands.

The investment management industry is the business we come from and we now serve. Some of what we’re recommending is counterintuitive to legacy marketing, but we believe in marketing organizations’ ability to step it up and lead their firms’ efforts in bolstering investor confidence. There is unprecedented opportunity for those who do.

To download a copy of “The World Has Changed (Part 1),” go to www.swandog.com. The whitepaper is the first in a series of reports.

In the meantime, we’re happy to announce that we will be releasing selective exhibits from the 2007 research. Watch for a new exhibit to be posted to this site every Friday.

What are the most critical business challenges of marketers? Approximately one-quarter of marketers and non-marketers (including respondents in positions such as CEO, Head of Distribution and Head of Product Management), agreed that differentiation and brand awareness would represent their highest hurdles going forward. What a difference a year makes!

When it comes to financial marketing, maybe Warren Zevon had it right after all (even if taken out of context). Send lawyers to help review the 87,000 pieces of sales collateral that marketers churn out each and every year. Send money to pay all those filing fees and fines. And the guns? Let that be a tip of the cap to recently deceased Northwestern Alum Charlton Heston.

In an instant communications world—one that evolves second to second–the process for review and approval of marketing content hasn’t budged an inch in the last 20 years (much less a millimeter to our metric system pals around the world. Our props to inch and foot stalwarts Liberia and Burma! Yeah!). Not only does the process across most firms decelerate time to market on breaking news, but it completely undermines the ability to leverage most new media, including blogging and social networking. As the investing world becomes more transparent, the information advantage we’ve leaned on is fast evaporating. New media offers the opportunity to regain some of that lost footing.

Enabling the Marketer

As I see it, it is time that financial compliance organizations move beyond a role designed only to protect the firm in favor of one that does that while enabling the marketer. And I believe it possible to do both without putting the firm at risk.

For eternity, financial marketers have been held hostage to an absurd compliance process, leaving them with little choice but to negotiate for a shorter review window. 48 hours? 24 hours?

I say, how about 10-20 minutes.

The solution?

Position the compliance team physically along side the marketers, not upstairs with legal, and let marketing heads establish priority as news value dictates. Second, work to solve the challenges inherent in new media. Why can’t product managers blog?

Many today’s legal departments won’t allow this to happen for fear that the compliance team will fall under the spell of those fun marketing guys—a financial Stockholm Syndrome to be sure. But I don’t share that same concern.

Someone is going to get it right and then everybody will be falling in line. Why not be one of the smart firms and take the lead, when first mover advantage is still possible. Am I crazy?

Maybe the end of Bill Miller’s stupendous 10+ year market beating run signals that even those of us in the know don’t believe that PMs can legitimately add value. Maybe we believe that the great money managers have left mutual funds behind in favor of hedge funds and managed money. Or maybe professional management seems like an old story—one more comfortable in the late 80s and early 90s when the mutual fund business was a growth story rather than a mature one.

That said, it seems to me that the risk and volatility in the markets today represents a perfect opportunity for active managers to demonstrate their ability to add alpha. And for marketers to once again remind investors of the benefits of professional management

Who’s with me? Let’s dust off the active management sales support…otherwise much of what we sell and the rich margins that come with it will go POOF!

What do you think?