It’s the start of second quarter and I know exactly what you and your marketing team are doing right now—updating sales literature!

We all know the drill. You put any chance of proactive marketing efforts on hold for 30 days while you circle the wagons, burn the midnight oil and update fact sheets, fact cards and brochures that require that current investment performance and portfolio information. At least the printers are happy!

But dude–why bother?

First, there’s little in those sales materials anymore that isn’t available right now 5 days into the month on Morningstar, Bloomberg or a half dozen other data providers have already posted. Performance? April 1. Holdings? April 15. Morningstar ratings? Now.
What’s worse is that most asset managers actually receive their data directly from these services and pipeline it into their data repository. Hmmm? In an industry where time to market is everything and all information commoditized by transparency, do we believe the numbers will look better in three weeks?

Second, over 1/3 of the stuff you are creating will be discarded anyway…after the sales team tells you that it’s crap and is too late.

One of my favorite stories involves a wholesaler friend who used to have his sales literature drop shipped for Tuesday arrival. When I asked him why he insisted on Tuesday, he noted that the UPS delivery guy knew to put the literature box on the curb next to his garbage can as pick up was on Tuesday. The benefit–he didn’t have to haul it out of the garage. OUCH!!!! More time to sell I presume.

Finally, back to the time to market theme. The web is a perfect vehicle for disseminating information that demands timeliness quickly, automatically and efficiently.

So lift your head up from the computer keyboard and stop playing the April Fool. Instead focus your marketing efforts on things that people can’t get everywhere—like your firm’s view of the markets.

Am I wrong? I don’t think so…what do you think?

Don’t look now, but somebody in mutual fund land (and investment management) better sit down at a typewriter (figuratively) and start to make the case for active management. A staple of the 80s and 90s, the “benefits of active management” story hasn’t been told very successfully since the great Y2K scare. And under the bed somewhere, there are lots of bogeymen waiting to pounce!

More and more, active managers are taking a beating in the press, with some suggesting that as few as 1 in 4 are able to beat their index. Even Legg Mason’s iconic Bill Miller stubbed his tootsie in 2006—albeit for the first time in 16 years (Now that’s one stud you’d like in your starting rotation!).

With sales of ETFs, indexing and top down allocations all “en fuego” as Everett would say, mutual funds may be quietly slipping into the “disintermediation crosshairs.” Unless somebody in marketing starts to make a case for all those expensive PMs, they both may find themselves going the way of the open outcry trading floor.

Do you still believe in active management?
Is anybody telling that story successfully?
Will the stranglehold that funds have held on retirement plans give way to ETFs and other “passive” investments?

Or is that blob under my bed just a giant dust bunny?

What do you think?