The Secret to Getting Around Hedge Fund Marketing Regulations

Remember that the hedge fund’s marketing regulations are regulations that apply to financial products. Non-financial products are not restricted by such regulations. Herein lies the secret of opening the entire marketing toolbox – the same toolbox marketers of consumer products use so well to sell ice to Eskimos.

Write and Market a Book

Writing a book for your hedge fund is not an easy task, but the time and effort put into such a book opens you up to a variety of new marketing methods, those typically not available to hedge funds. This article discusses the task of writing a book to market your hedge fund and the main problems you will encounter during the process. Having realistic expectations before you begin will help you know how much of your hedge fund’s resources you should dedicate to this task. The end result will be your hedge fund having a book, your hedge fund manager (or someone else within your fund) becoming a public author, and access to a wealth of marketing methods previously unavailable to you.

Writing a book will give you three more benefits. You’ll gain authority in your field. You’ll get more exposure for your hedge fund. And you’ll be able to send your book to clients, replacing the standard “about XYZ fund” pamphlet.

Your book shouldn’t be about your hedge fund itself. No one wants to read about your hedge fund. Avoid talking about your hedge fund and focus on a specific aspect in your industry. A few ideas follow.

1. Investment strategies
2. Trends in your particular field (e.g., “the Asian economy” for a Hong-Kong-based hedge fund)
3. Starting a hedge fund

Your book is an opportunity to show off your expertise, not to brag about your fund. This is a good thing. You can actually write about something you’re interested in. And because you’re writing about your expertise, it shouldn’t be a difficult task. In the end, you want to use the book to establish yourself as an industry expert, thereby gaining a shortcut to investors’ trust.

Your book can also get you into the mainstream media. Being a hedge fund CEO or hedge fund manager is usually good enough to request media exposure, but some startups find it difficult. But when you’re a hedge fund manager and a published author, media arrangements become easy.

Finally, once you have a book, you can give it to your prospects and clients as a gift. This alleviates the need to create separate gifts and educational products for your prospects and clients. Clients are also a lot less likely to toss a book into the garbage can. Books are put on bookshelves or regifted (given to other prospects). But how many financial pamphlets and sales material have you seen on your buddy’s bookshelf?

The Steps to Writing Your Hedge Fund’s Book

Don’t write your book as a book. That is, don’t copy the format of standard books in the industry. Your goal is different from the books of those authors. Your book is much like your site; its main goal is to answer the common questions prospects and investors ask you about the topic at-hand.

So start with a list of questions you frequently encounter. Segment your book by questions, and write each chapter as an answer to a single question. For example, if you’re writing a book on investment strategies and you’ve found investors asking you whether you trade any unnecessarily risky strategies (e.g., selling straddles or call options), one of your chapters can be “avoiding risk.” Everything in that chapter will be teaching readers how to effectively avoid losing too much on a single trade.

When you write, aim for 2,000 words per day. With the average book at 64,000 words, you can finish your book in one month if you write every day. This is easier than you think. Practically everyone, no matter how busy, can find an extra hour or two after dinner, instead of watching TV, or in the morning, instead of reading the newspaper, to type out 2,000 words. And if you really don’t have that much time? Just write a shorter book. Even a 100-page book is better than the standard hedge fund pamphlet.

When I say write 2,000 words per day, literally stop at 2,000 words. Not the end of your section. Not the end of a chapter. Not when you encounter writer’s blog. 2,000 words. This helps you avoid writers block because you never get to finish your next thought. If you stop at the end of a chapter, however, you’ve got to start at the beginning of a new chapter, which is a task that contains a lot of writing friction.

When you begin a book project, you’ll find yourself increasingly thinking about your book while you walk or drive. For this reason, I suggest you prepare an app or notebook to write down your ideas as they come to you. Trust me: You’ll forget them later.

Maintain your true voice when you write. It’s tempting to want to take on a “professional voice” to represent your hedge fund. But one reason why writers with voices sell more books lies in their ability to put a face to the content. By using your voice, you’ll be putting a face to your hedge fund, making it more approachable. When you read a book, do you prefer to read one that sounds like it’s come from a real human’s mouth or from a section in a textbook? To “grab” your voice, just pretend that everything you write is coming out of your mouth. You can even speak as you write, as I’m doing now. Imagine you’re teaching an investor, face-to-face. The key phrase here is “an investor” not “a group of investors.” You want to make the voice very personal, one-on-one. The idea that you only need to write in your own voice should be a relief to people who believe themselves not to be good writers. Nevertheless, you should write with correct grammar. If your grammar is lacking, hire an editor.

Your final option, should you be really writing-averse, is to outsource the entire book. You can outsource everything, from the writing and publishing to the marketing and cover design.

On the topic of cover design, don’t skimp on a good cover. Sadly, despite all your hard work writing, the cover is often the most important part of a book when you’re competing in the marketplace, whether it be a book store or the Amazon Kindle store.

Your Ticket to Unlocked Marketing Tools

Once your book is complete, you’ll be able to market you book just as any other consumer item. And because the book is marketing the hedge fund, you’re simply using the book as a proxy for marketing your hedge fund will the full toolbox of a consumer-product marketer.

While any hedge fund can run a PPC ad or newspaper ad, few put in the effort to write a book. This is your unique weapon in competing with bigger, better-funded hedge funds. Turning your hedge fund manager or CEO into an author also gives your hedge fund more status. Few hedge funds can say their managers have authored a book.

Finally, your book’s content can be repurposed and placed on your website or into a DVD. Overall, your book is a literal gift (to your clients) that keeps on giving. Putting the effort in now, will save you the effort needed in the future for content and for investor-generation.