As any marketing director or head of investor relations at an alternative investment firm can attest, there are times when there just isn’t news to share with your target audiences. This gap can make it challenging to raise awareness and positively position the firm in support of fundraising or deal sourcing. There can be a tendency among marketing and IR professionals to focus inward and limit communication when news is scarce. This approach is understandable, but it leaves a lot of “white space” for your competitors.
Corporate storytelling can fill this gap, raising a firm’s visibility through sharing insights that resonate with key stakeholders. Alternative investment firms have a variety of stories that can be told, ranging from how they execute their investment strategy, or how they create value in portfolio companies, to the personal stories of senior leadership at the firm. Ideally, the core of the storytelling will communicate key attributes of the firm that drive its profile from awareness toward preference.
Every private equity firm has managed a portfolio company with business challenges of one sort or another. Whatever actions the firm undertook to resolve key issues and turn the company around are great fodder for storytelling. Many firms perceive telling these stories as exposing a weakness. The reality is that, in a world where many firms’ returns are similar, stories like these that demonstrate the firm’s ability to overcome obstacles and build value are critical to differentiation and creating a strong brand that wins allocations from LPs.
Mining Resources
The good news is that many of these stories are right in front of you, but have been overlooked—usually because the firm is too close to them to recognize their value. One of our private equity clients casually discussed a time when a portfolio company where the CEO was let go and, rather than filling the role, they operated the firm for some time with the CFO and CMO sharing leadership responsibilities. We immediately saw the potential for a compelling media story, and wrote an article on “The CEO-less Company” that we then published in a major business outlet. While the actual events were from more than a year prior, the story highlighted how the firm finds innovative solutions to managing its portfolio.
While organic opportunities like the one above are welcome, you should not leave storytelling to chance. Periodic interviews with a firm’s investment professionals can help identify and generate potential stories, as does the firm’s research around target business sectors, investor presentations, investment committee memos, and awards.
A Multi-Channel Approach
In addition to the inherent value of corporate storytelling, firms have more channels than ever to leverage in telling their story: contributed articles, video, website blogs, conference speaking and social media posts, to name a few. While firms should not feel obligated to continually generate content for all of these, there are fewer limitations than ever before on telling your story when you don’t have news.
As the rebound in private markets investment is expected to continue gaining momentum in 2026, developing corporate storytelling assets should be a priority for alternative investment firms’ communication strategies. It can make a huge difference in shoring up reputation, attracting the right investors and deal referral sources, and securing positive media coverage, regardless of deal activity.
By Kelly Holman, Senior Director at Stanton.
About Stanton
Stanton is an award-winning New York City-based public relations firm with additional presence in California and Toronto. Founded over thirty years ago by Alex Stanton, our agency pairs deep industry knowledge and creative insights to go above and beyond for our clients. We create strategic communications programs that enhance reputation and support business goals of both B2B and B2C organizations. Our clients are attracted to “The Stanton Difference,” a practitioner model with our most experienced professionals actively involved in the work to deliver results that advance and successfully position their business objectives in the marketplace. Learn more about our services or get in touch today!