Although digital trends were in play before COVID-19, lockdowns dramatically pushed up usage levels across the firm's platforms, its founder said.

ProFundCom, an international firm providing financial sector digital marketing, such as for wealth managers, said last week that its second-quarter usage has doubled since February's levels, highlighting how the pandemic has shifted firms to using online tools.

The firm, which has offices in London, Bangalore, New York and Geneva, is a marketing analytics platform designed specifically for the asset management and private banking space. Clients can digitally track how people engage through email, web and social channels - important information in fine-tuning marketing campaigns.

“We were expecting higher numbers, but were still shocked by the strength of growth,” Paul Das, founder and managing director of ProFundCom, said. “We literally had to double our infrastructure within a weekend, just to cope with the increase.”

The business says that its information makes it easier for wealth managers to target prospects who can boost assets under management and spot investors likely to withdraw funds, and react accordingly. 

The usage data chimes with other examples that this news service has come across of wealth managers boosting the use of social media tools such as Linkedin to be more attractive in the jobs market, pitch thought leadership ideas, and raise their profiles. 

The working from home trend is undoubtedly a big factor in raising usage rates, Das said. “Lockdown has transformed the digital landscape. Online communication has progressed more in three months than in the previous thirty years. The amount of people communicating digitally just keeps growing, which gives marketers the opportunity to glean important information through ethical and compliant tracking and analysis.”