How to Get In Front of Investors
Every firm is looking to raise capital, but not all firms are looking for new investors (at least right now). If you’ve been a part of the industry for a while or are familiar with it, then you know that many firms that have been around for more than a couple of years typically have an existing investor base that they rely on for fund rounds or perpetual investments into new projects or opportunities presented by the firm.
Additionally a lot of firms don’t have a plan to expand that investor base because they are comfortable with what they have now and the logic is that if the firm makes their investors more money then those investors will put even more into the firms projects or shared investments over time.
Are firms like that trying to get in front of new investors? No.
But are those same firms wanting to get in front of their existing investors? Yes.
We’ll talk about how to do this well later in the article.
For the investment firms that are looking to get in front of investors or be found by new investors who are looking for a firm to invest with, then we have a lot to share with you in this article about how to do that efficiently and effectively.
If you go looking online for ways to get in front of new investors most of the articles are focused on startups finding these investors and pitching them. This is why we felt compelled to create an article that was specifically tailored to give private equity firms, real estate investment firms, hedge funds and investment groups a simple way to find and get in front of new investors.
What are the Best Options for Getting in Front of New Investors?
For those firms who are actively looking to get in front of new investors we’ve broken it down by a few different channels and give our practical advice on how you can ensure they take notice.
Find New Investors Online
Getting in front of investors online is actually much easier than people think. But that usually isn’t the issue. Many firms don’t believe that trying to get in front of new investors online even works, that they aren’t “there” or won’t engage. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Investors ARE online and they will engage you if the offering makes sense.
Let’s look at a number of effective ways you can get in front of investors online
Finding Investors on LinkedIn
When it comes to getting in front of investors on LinkedIn there are two categories for doing this. You’ll either pay for ads or do it organically. Let’s look at both of them.
Here’s a video where our President, John Bracamontes talks a little about getting in front of investors on LinkedIn
Investor Ads on LinkedIn
LinkedIn has one of the most accurate and effective methods of targeting for investment firms, other financial institutions and B2B.
You have the ability to target investor groups, investor job titles, specific companies that would serve as intermediaries, family offices, and more.
Ads have a number of different types of delivery such as Message Ads (that send directly to the inbox), sponsored posts (which show in the main feed) and carousel ads (which are more creative and look like ads) as an example.
Running ads to target investors on LinkedIn is efficient because it allows you to get in front of thousands of investors quickly at scale.
Organically Getting in Front of Investors on LinkedIn
To effectively use LinkedIn organically / manually (without ads) you’ll need to purchase the Sales Navigator product offered by LinkedIn. This will allow you to search for investors, message those who aren’t connected to you and it gives you a number of other features as well.
The main difference between running ads to get in front of investors vs organically doing it is that it takes more time to do it. But by doing this outreach manually you are able to only get in front of the very specific targets that you want to speak with. For example if you target list of investors has only 150 names then you are better off reaching out to them manually / personally.
But you can also get significant reach by writing articles on LinkedIn about your firm, its strategy, its performance and share those in groups. Another thing to do in groups on LinkedIn is simply engage there. Answer questions that investors have and participate in the conversation.
Retargeting
This method is pretty straightforward. Retargeing investors or Remarketing investors (they are the same thing) is basically getting back in front of investors. They have already seen you, engaged with your firm in some way, now you are reaching back out.
This can also be done using ads or be done manually.
Retargeting Investors Using Ads
This can be done on almost every ad platform. Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram, Twitter Ads, and more. Your most successful retargeting to get back in front of investors is using Google Ads (or the Google Display Network, GDN for short), LinkedIn Ads and even Facebook Ads if you’ve got the budget (FB ads are the least effective here, but can still be worth the visibility).
The targeting criteria is going to be on a specific engagement behavior of your choosing. We recommend using visitors to your website. But there are a number of other targeting criteria that you can use instead of that or in combination with it as well.
Retargeting Investors Manually
This method requires some technology to be in place such as a CRM that is tracking the behavior of investor contacts in your database. Once this is in place you can define what actions you will track to use as triggers for reaching out to investors either by phone or by email.
Similar to ads you can track who visited the website, but also look at engagement such as who opened an email, who clicked through the email, how many times an investor has visited your website over a specific period of time, see what they have downloaded from your website, etc.
For you it will be important to define what matters most and incorporate the context of the engagement into your retargeting outreach to investors.
SEO & Content that Will Bring Investors to You
Another contentious area of marketing within the investment space is whether or not to create content & optimize it for SEO. Some firms believe this is valuable and gets them much needed visibility, while others think that it isn’t worth the time.
The truth is that content on your website that is either relevant, engaging to your target investors or will get your visibility in the search engines for valuable searches (or all 3 combined ideally) will be extremely valuable and worth the time.
Investors are looking for information on the marketing, investment opportunities, researching firms, researching Managing Directors & Partners, and more so having that content online for them to find will… “Get You Found by Investors”.
The most successful type of optimized content that you can create, control and publish is using blog posts on your website. We aren’t discounting the press releases that get syndicated or social content posted to your online profiles, but Blogs will generate a lot of traffic from new investors online at a much higher volume and frequency than most other channels (that aren’t paid).
Contact + (remarketing leads tech)
We added this channel to the list because it’s one of the most innovative & breakthrough technologies in regards to marketing for private equity, marketing for commercial real estate investment firms or marketing for any type of fund or firm in general.
Contact + is a proprietary technology delivered only by Acumen Studio that captures the personal information of anonymous visitors who come to your website. 9% to 10% of all visitors to your site can be identified and captured including their First Name, Last Name, Street Address, and Email Address. About 50% of those will have Phone Numbers.
This is done by utilizing the tracking technology and databases of companies like Google, Facebook, Experian and other credit reporting agencies.
This contact information of these anonymous visitors are delivered directly into your database so they can be marketed to and followed up with.
Attend Events & Conferences that Investors Go To
Wealth events, industry events for high earners, ceo conferences
To be honest we don’t think that we really need to go too in depth on this section because it’s what most investment firms have been doing for decades to get in front of investors. Every year there are tons of events that cater to investors.
- Wealth Events
- Industry Events for High Income Earners
- CEO Conferences
- And more
As you know these in-person events are very powerful because you have the ability to not only share information about your firm, but also connect with investors in a very human way. You can put on the charm and build relationships in a way that non face-to-face channels simply can’t replicate.
Capitalize on Relationships with Intermediaries
Again, this is yet another example of a way you can get in front of investors that has been proven to work for decades in the investment space. Firms of all types benefit from strong relationships with intermediaries that serve as trusted referral sources for investors. The best types of intermediaries are those who compliment your firm and make sense strategically.
A short list of trusted intermediary referral sources are…
- CPAs (both individual and collectively at firms)
- Advisors (plan advisors, business advisors, wealth managers)
- Investment Bankers (you know who they are)
Many of you will already have established relationships with these referral sources who will send investors your way if it’s what makes sense for the investor’s strategy at that time. The more of these relationships you have the better. This can also be a good way to niche your firm if you haven’t already or create more visibility for specific investment types that will make sense for the diversification of an investor’s portfolio.
If we look at the way this works it’s pretty simple.
- Investor has a need
- Investor goes to their CPA, Advisor or Banker
- The Intermediary assesses their need
- If the need requires an outside partner they recommend that partner
You want that partner to be you!
What Types of Investors Can You Target?
Getting in front of investors is one thing but getting in front of the right investors is another. So to do that well you need to know what types of investors can actually be targeted. In theory every investor can be targeted but for the sake of simplicity we’re focused mostly on the channels that we’ve discussed in this article so far.
Below we break out the most common investor types you’ll be targeting to get in front of
Existing investors
Not much needs to be said about this, but you do need to stay visible to your current investor base. Call them, email them, run retargeted ads that keep you in front of them and publish content that keeps them looking to you as an authority.
Accredited investors
Finding accredited investors can be easy if you know where to access them. There are lists that can be procured, there are events catering only to accredited investors and publications that are almost exclusively read by accredited investors as well.
Any of these options are good choices when getting in front of accredited investors.
Those investors likely to be accredited
This group is a little more loose because the combination of factors that make someone an accredited investor could be achieved and the person does not even know that they would be classified as accredited. So targeting people who are likely to fall into the accredited investor category will get you a lot of visibility with mostly the right people.
A couple of those groups that fall into this category are…
- Retirees
- High income earners
Targeting and getting in front of investors likely to be accredited can also be done through list acquisition, but can be done very successfully and affordably online using digital marketing and running ads or sending email.
Institutional investors
The last group we’re mentioning are institutional investors because they have so much power when it comes to liquidity and the ability to move markets. The unfortunate reality for many smaller firms is that this investor type may not work with you for a number of reasons, but regardless if you choose to pursue them you can get in front of them by targeting them directly / manually since the number of these targets is so small.
Not all of these investors are easily targeted online so you’ll find it necessary to target the events they attend, use direct mail, and email lists.
Some aren’t worth targeting depending on what type of firm you are, such as an early stage investment firm targeting institutional investors, they won’t work with you because you don’t have a proven track record and you likely can’t invest the level of capital they require at the rate of return they expect.
But you must make your firm visible, you must do whatever it takes to get in front of investors and do it in a way that makes strategic sense for your firm.
We work with firms every day on making this happen, so if you have questions about how your firm can do it as well, then contact us to talk about your vision for getting in front of and staying in front of investors.
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