Is A Volatile Market the Right Time to Rebrand Your Fund?
When fundraising gets challenging and competitors with the same strategy gain ground, ask yourself: Have shifts in the market resulted in LPs losing touch with your value proposition, and where do you sit in their portfolio construction?
At some level, LPs still judge a book by its cover. Your visual branding helps you stand out in a volatile market, but more importantly, helps communicate relevancy to your target audience. But branding isn’t just about logos, fonts, colors, and images... it’s much more than that. It’s about how you communicate to LPs that your strategy matters today and tomorrow (not yesterday!).
The ultimate goal of rebranding is to connect LPs with their needs and to signal that you remain most relevant among competitors to provide for those needs. Here are 5 quick reasons when it might be time for a re-brand:
Performance has remained uncorrelated to markets, yet capital raising remains challenging.
Performance has remained robust, yet you are facing redemptions.
You want to reach a new audience (i.e. expanding from smaller family offices to bigger institutions).
Your brand is simply outdated (remember: an outdated brand doesn’t always refer to just the visuals!)
Your value proposition has changed. Most GPs were once Emerging Managers focused on the passion project of the founding partners. Over time, new markets were defined, and new LPs had to be kept happy. Is everyone across the firm aligned in the team’s vision?
The objective of rebranding is not just to “look modern and nice”. It’s to improve the efficiency of raising capital. To redevelop the old brand into a new form that stands out and feels relevant given how markets have shifted.
Whatever your reason to consider a rebrand, do it purposefully. Brand is the most important investment you can make for the long-term strategy of your Fund, and it will pay the most long-term dividends.