How Soon Will Asset Managers Be Texting Advisors?

If financial advisors are planning to communicate with their clients via text in the next five years—as reported in recent InvestmentNews research—will they also be expecting to text with fund companies?

Here’s the survey data that prompts the question. InvestmentNews also reports that 20% of surveyed investors under the age of 45 expect to be communicating with their advisors via text in five years. 

Note that direct, personal communicating via text is practically swapping places with communicating via U.S. postal mail.

In a May post, BlueLeaf made the argument for the convenience of advisor/client texting:  

“You have a very busy day on the road, but need to contact your client about something quick. You don’t want to call and leave a voicemail in the chance that they won’t listen to it in time (or at all). Email’s no good either, as they could potentially miss important information about your upcoming meeting. You need a tool that will help you to make immediate contact to leave your brief message.”

All of the above could apply to wholesaler-to-financial advisor communicating. Texting provides for a direct, time-sensitive communication that other means don't.

And, I dare say (and the reason for the mention of SMS messaging here), Marketing might well tiptoe into permission-based texting.

But in five years? Five years in this industry is like tomorrow in others. Is it on your firms’ roadmap?

I’m aware of firms that offer text messaging capability related to: 

• Shareholder accounts (see T. Rowe Price)
• Retirement accounts (see Vanguard)
• Retirement account enrollment via text (see The Principal)
• The availability of market and economic commentary (see Northern Trust)
• A whole host of commentary and reports and fund event options (see Fidelity) 

This is almost the same list of automated content pushes that I offered in my 2012 blog post on the topic. I haven’t heard a peep yet about firms adding SMS to their call center support, enabling wholesaler-to-advisor texting or organizing for opt-in marketing communications by text.

Not A Regulatory Concern

Evidently, texting does not break new regulatory ground.

“We haven't talked about text messaging in a while,” says Theresa Hamacher, president of NICSA. “It doesn't seem to present any new areas of concern from a regulatory standpoint. My sense is that texts and emails are lumped together and handled similarly. Social media is a much bigger issue, since it's more public and harder to capture.”

How would a regulated enterprise support one-to-one (as opposed to automated) texting? I found this 2011 video about a SalesForce app that will help you visualize how a CRM might enable the communication, in the same way that a CRM supports Sales' emails. This is just for illustration, note. I know nothing about SMS Magic and have no idea whether this developer's storage of the outgoing and incoming text messages would meet FINRA recordkeeping requirements.

For Wholesalers' Best Clients

In fact, wholesalers today are using text but “only for their best clients with whom they have a relationship,” according to Rob Shore, founder of Wholesaler Masterminds.

"The great wholesaler understands the various methods of effectively communicating with their advisors and, today, texting is one of those options. That said, if wholesalers launch into a texting dialogue without knowing that this form of outreach is welcomed by the advisor it will backfire. Spam texts are more invasive than spam emails," Shore says.

True that, Rob.

(I appreciated being able to create the images above on iPhoneTextGenerator.com, but future asset manager texting will almost certainly take place on 4G-plus devices.)  

Cross-Functional And Complex

Mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) marketers are well aware of 1)the high reliance of advisors and investors on their phones and 2)the immediacy and impact that text messages have. In fact, these SMS messaging stats have been cited so frequently that the date and the source have long since been shed: Reportedly, 98% of text messages are read and responded to within 1.5 minutes versus 2.5 days for email.

Texting offers the potential to improve the relevance, timeliness and even usefulness of what's being communicated. At the same time, preparations for texting will need to be cross-functional and will be complex. My assumption is that these are in the works at least a few firms.

Do you work for the rare firm that has established an SMS capability already? If so, please let us all know below. Others' thoughts are welcome, too.

There's More To A Social Media Landing Page Than Disclosure

Firms whose every public communication needs to be evaluated in terms of its compliance with regulations can sometimes inadvertently mistake who the customer is. The customer isn’t the regulator. There’s more to do, more to be communicated once the regulations have been satisfied.

A case in point: What’s being linked to from many investment firms’ social profiles.

Let's review: 

• Establishing a presence on social networks is no cakewalk for mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) marketers. It’s a cross-functional tightrope, and the operating guidelines can take months to pull together. Even after all that, Legal and Compliance may have reservations, and there can be the veiled threat that it could all be undone at any time.

To prevail and move forward, marketers pledge to be on their very best behavior. There's no appetite for revisiting what's already been approved, and working well enough. 

• And yet, there's an opportunity to consider: The establishment of an account on a social network gives that account the potential for visibility that far exceeds any other unpaid opportunity on an Internet presence with highly engaged traffic. 

Specifically, the ability to link from the home state of the social account—the bio of the Twitter profile or the About pages on Facebook or YouTube (where more space is available)—provides a near priceless chance to move people interested in what you say on a social platform to your own domain. 

The opportunity here is different from online advertising in at least three ways: It has no expiration date, your potential reach is limitless and yet no minimum number of impressions is assured, and there's no charge. 

As with advertising, the page you link to needs to be well considered. The best practice for online ads is to direct traffic to a landing page customized to anticipate just that traffic.

However, many firms don't offer a link to a social-audience landing page to visitors to their social profile pages. There are plenty of instances where social profiles link to landing pages that are no more than the firm’s home page—you know, those kitchen sinks dressed up as extravaganzas in sight, animation and hyperlinks. Where's a newcomer supposed to go?

Worse, some bios link to a fund company’s prospectus page or Legal disclosure or documents. And that sound you hear is the sound of someone back-back-backing up and out. Too serious too soon.

While links to those pages may satisfy Compliance, they fall short of what your bio-clickers might be looking for. They need additional attention if you have any expectations to convert that traffic.

A Few Deviations On The Landing Page Theme

What are your options, while still meeting all of Compliance's requirements? A spot-check of the pages that FINRA-regulated firms link to from their Twitter, Facebook and YouTube pages show more variety than you might expect. While none of these pages is visually arresting in the way that advertising landing pages strive to be, you’ll see an effort to 1)communicate more than what’s required 2)be visitor-centric and even 3)seek to convert. 

Excerpts are shown below, which means that you may not see the required disclosures in the screenshot. Follow the links or click on the images to see the full pages.

BlackRock and Franklin Templeton (shown below) use their pages to pass on some participation guidelines.

As one of the few firms that allows commenting, U.S. Global Investors explains its YouTube guidelines. This is the rare investment firm landing page that's unique to just one social network.

It’s conceivable that that some client/prospect visitors will discover the existence of social accounts not from participating on the networks themselves but while on your site. The UBS (by including a Twitter feed in addition to lots of other options in the left- and right-hand columns) and Vanguard (by including the tweeters’ bios) pages make room for that possibility. These pages could convert Website visitors to Twitter account followers.

Yay—MainStay’s “legal notice page” includes an attempt to convert visitors to email subscribers. A sample of what to expect might also help drive signups.

This T. Rowe Price page can be arrived at from the firm’s Twitter or YouTube channel account. "Conversion" from this page would involve a gain in followers for other social accounts.

Finally, Natixis and Well Fargo Asset Management (shown below) include their own blogs in their landing pages’ social account listings. 

   

When thinking about re-opening your own kettle of worms, review your Web analytics to see how your current “landing page” performs. That should tell you all you need to know about traffic sourced from social sites.

For additional perspectives on social media landing pages, also check out these posts from other sources: 

• Why You Need Social Media Landing Pages (Not Just a Homepage!) (2014)
• The Social Media Landing Page – The Underutilized Page You’ll Kick Yourself For Not Having (2013)
• The Anatomy Of A Great Social Media Landing Page (2010) 

Heartbleed Bug: The Less Said, The Better?

I want to tread carefully on this. Online account security is nothing to trifle with. In all likelihood, concern over the Heartbleed security bug has seized the attention of the very highest levels of your mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) organization.

The timeliness, frequency and depth of what your firm communicates about your own and third parties’ systems’ status, including vulnerabilities and patches, is a function of your culture and of your executive management including your IT, Legal and Communications leadership.

Understood. At the same time, I’m guessing that your Sales and telephone staffs have been armed with scripts for institutional investors, financial advisors and individual investors since the hole in Internet security was revealed in late March/early April. The relationship managers who serve those constituencies no doubt demanded “something to tell them,” and they’ve received what they asked for.

Why haven’t more communications appeared on Websites and in social media account updates? Two weeks after the initial report, I’ve seen just a handful of communications. Not all are on Website home pages, and even fewer have been part of the Twitter or Facebook update streams. 

The media has been continuously warning people to change the passwords on their financial accounts and other accounts where they may have used passwords also used on financial accounts.

Two-thirds of all Websites are reportedly affected. Among fund companies specifically, no less than American Funds has disclosed that it had an issue.

In the screenshot below, you’ll see that one person asked about Heartbleed in an April 10 comment on an American Funds' Facebook update about something else. And, you’ll see the April 14 note that American Funds posted on its Website acknowledging a “very narrow of risk.” According to reports yesterday, American has emailed clients suggesting that they change their user information, password, security image and questions, and delete their browsing history and cookies.

This is unfortunate and, American Funds was obliged to communicate the risk to its clients.

If your firm hasn't already fielded calls about Heartbleed, American Funds' notification to its 800,000 mutual fund shareholders and their advisors likely will heighten concern and result in questions.

At times we've all wondered, “What do our clients really want from us?” In this instance, isn’t it predictable? Isn’t it logical to expect that clients arrived at mutual fund and ETF Websites or checked Twitter feeds looking for Heartbleed information?

Even if your firm's systems have not been compromised. Even if you don't operate a brokerage business. Even if your firm uses a third-party transfer agent for shareholder servicing and all your site does is provide a link to that site. Even if IT scoffs at the question whether the passwords to your advisor Website could have been hacked.

Your client is not likely to be making these distinctions. 

'Controlling The Message'

At one time, brands sought to control the size of the attention given to an issue by limiting what they said. That’s not available anymore, if it ever was. And, there's the false security in believing that an offline communication can remain under the radar just because it isn’t made available on the Web.

In delivering the self-publishing capabilities that enable individuals to share brands’ marketing news, Web 2.0 has also empowered individuals to share a full range of information with each other. In this space, we know that financial advisors tweet advisor-only conference calls and upload to their blogs images from restricted distribution publications, for instance. Shareholders regularly complain about firms' password protocols on Twitter.

On the subject of Heartbleed, citizen contributors to both Bogleheads.org and a Morningstar forum took it upon themselves to check some fund Websites on a Heartbleed hacker checker. One result, according to the posters’ claims, was that TIAA-CREF failed the test of its site. See this and this. In fact, according to a syndicated press release that appears on this Web page, TIAA-CREF at one point issued a statement denying online reports of Heartbleed vulnerability.

Like it or not, there is no such thing as keeping something quiet or controlling who or what is going to pass a communication or even an observation on. There is no flushing search engine results.

In your organization, nobody knows this better than Digital Marketing. Even when there’s nothing to report, say something because your clients want to hear from you and you know that the Website or your Twitter or Facebook page is where they’ll come to. A clear, adequate communication on the Web will keep the call volume under control, and will facilitate the peer-to-peer online communication already underway.

Marginalizing A Digital Presence

Less important for your clients but important to the contribution your work can make: A de facto policy that reserves Web and social communications for only what’s required (fund updates) or marketing-based (commentaries, appearances, announcements) marginalizes the potential value of having an open, 24/7 digital presence.

Every once in a while I hear from someone who asks why I haven’t adopted the term “social business” instead of “social media”—the implication being that brands have evolved beyond social media. I disagree. The pages of the calendar may have flipped, but this has yet to become a social business.  

Four years ago, I was surprised when more financial Twitter accounts didn’t use their Twitter accounts to communicate about the flash crash. But that was too early in the history of asset managers and social media, the news itself was confusing, firms weren’t ready.

Little more than a year ago, PBS ran a documentary about retirement funding and the expense of retirement plans. Most asset managers chose not to comment, despite the fact that the show consumed online commentary for a while. It was controversial and complex, and no firm was compelled to jump in the fray.

This slower developing Heartbleed issue, on which few fund firms were directly impacted apparently, was an opportunity for a firm to demonstrate the attributes of being social—transparency, accountability and authenticity among them.

The relevant, financial services-focused online conversation these last two weeks has been about Heartbleed and the security of financial assets. Others have had plenty to contribute, and more firms could have joined in, even if only in an informational/educational (change your passwords!) role.

It's strange to land on a financial site with no front-and-center acknowledgment of Heartbleed. Forgive me. But even to someone who knows better, the firm seems out of touch, at best.   

The topic is too hot right now for you the digital marketer to call the question internally and advocate for your “constituency.” But if you agree that it’s time to challenge those who believe “the less publicly said, the better,” you might start to think about what it will take to get your firm to think more expansively.   

To help you make your case, here are a few examples of firms that have communicated something. 

Fidelity Pop-up

T. Rowe Price Splash Page Violator

OppenheimerFunds Timely Topic

Vanguard Home Page News Item

A Glimpse At What Goes On Behind Closed Doors

Today online, there’s no telling who’s going to share what about a business, taking advantage of low-barrier publishing capabilities and distribution via social networks.

The investment industry is taking part in this trend toward full disclosure (if you will), and that's quite a departure. When investment communications were bound by the physical distribution of printed materials, investors were provided with the bare minimum that was required and maybe a shareholder newsletter printed on tissue paper. The economics prohibited fund companies from going much further.

Now that peeks at the culture, capabilities and processes are being posted by investment firms, advisors, investors and others, the rest of us are gaining a better—albeit random—idea of what's going on behind your closed doors. 

Inside SEI

I actually laughed out loud when I saw this tweet from SEI yesterday. Desks on wheels as a brand proof point! 

SEI's desks are on wheels to allow for easy collaborating. Check out @SEIRaefL on the move! pic.twitter.com/U5Ufj4fE3m

— SEI Advisor Network (@SEIAdvisors) November 12, 2013

This Meeting Is By Invitation Only But...

The notion of a closed meeting or conference call is falling by the wayside. Organizations including "the elite gathering of the nation's pre-eminent independent advisors" (#BarronsTopAdvisors) are announcing hashtags. And, even when tweeting from an event isn't fully sanctioned by the sponsor, at least one or two attendees more often than not will.

Today we’re welcoming 130 advisors to our Ascent 2013 conference. If attendees are tweeting, use #RussellAscent to share your thoughts!

— Russell Investments (@Russell_News) October 8, 2013

I am tweeting live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Thank you to @OppFunds for making this happen.

— Steinberg Financial (@steinbergfinadv) September 13, 2012

Thrilled to be here @jpmorganfunds in NYC hearing about investment opps from 5 star mgr Clare Hart pic.twitter.com/j1zD5HMFOL

— Taylor Financial Grp (@TaylorFin_Group) September 18, 2013

Mike Malinsky with @JanusCapital teaching our advisors about the "Art of Wow". Janus Labs is good stuff! pic.twitter.com/IQwOI44Yxz

— Robert Johnson (@_RLJ) October 16, 2013

The Camera Doesn't Always Lie

The next example is not from the wild, the photo appeared with others in an ad campaign/microsite. What I love about it is its realism, even if it was directed realism.

This looks pretty faithful to how work gets done at MFS, across three screens in probably three locales. Nobody spruced up, nobody’s smiling, there’s no glamorizing the job whatsoever. 

What Would You Watch?

Fidelity wrote a smart hashtag to accompany this photo of "the largest plasma screen in the world." Note the 19 retweets and 12 favorites. 

David Keller says the largest plasma screen in the world is located in our chart room! #whatwouldyouwatch pic.twitter.com/beCR2ffuAO

— Fidelity Investments (@Fidelity) August 27, 2013

Can I Get A Witness?

Let’s wrap up this skip through the Rock The Boat Marketing scrapbook by looking at a few tweets sent by investors sharing details of their investment firm experience. The images they upload are designed to both elicit a response and appeal to the court of public opinion. Not shown in the embeds are the firms' responses.

Seeing this screen more than half the time when I access my accounts is not confidence @TRowePrice pic.twitter.com/GY7Rkguw1w

— Davy Stevenson (@davystevenson) May 11, 2013

You have to agree @TC_Talks that this is a RIDICULOUS amount of mail to get in a month. pic.twitter.com/yjMUlDzPTA

— Nicole Jobst Smith (@njobst) October 14, 2013

I get the feeling @fidelity really wants me to accept electronic statements. #doesNotFeelLikeAChoice pic.twitter.com/tPfewNo21t

— Doug Selph (@dougselph) May 3, 2013

How Are You Engaging Newbie Digital Investors?

Most of what we focus on is the incremental communication. We assume that our target “audience” of financial advisors, investors and the media has a basic foundation. Our work largely involves adding to a stream of communications that build on what’s already known and understood.

More often than not, communications energy goes into the market update, whitepaper or product communication. Social media posts also tend to be incremental, appropriate for their length and the medium.

Investment basics? We leave those to the junior staffers, giving them the responsibility to periodically update the evergreen pieces, which we make available online or via PDF or in print so advisors have something to distribute.

That approach may warrant some rethinking as mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) companies get increasingly serious about engaging investors online and specifically the digital natives (loosely defined as people born after 1980).

Nonlinear And Less Structured

First, there is the issue that all established (dare I say “old school”) brands have—the need to update their communications style to better resonate with these defining characteristics of digital natives:  

• Multimedia-oriented
• Nonlinear
• Multi-tasking
• Less textual
• Collaborative
• Very creative
• Less structured
• Extremely social and predisposed to sharing

And, the investment industry has a greater distance to travel, given its reputation for producing dry, predictable and uninviting communications. No offense.

Take a look at the following videos that reflect an updated approach to introducing some basic concepts. Three are by investment companies (T. Rowe Price, iShares and Franklin Templeton on a more advanced subject). One is published by the Guardian U.S., the other by a UK filmmaker discussing European ETFs. Even if none of them is your cup of tea, you can’t deny that these video producers are making an effort here to tell a story and to keep the viewer engaged.

T. Rowe Price's What's A Mutual Fund?

iShares' An ETF Is Like A Camera

Franklin Templeton's Availability Bias

The Guardian's Your Mutual Fund

Think Tall Films' ETFs: What Investors Should Know

Do You Really Have To?

Over the years, we’ve seen investor education Web content evolve from all text to text and graphs, glossaries, calculators and quizzes. How much has any of that really done for you?

In my experience, there’s no dustier place on an investment company Website than the Investor Education pages. Most of these communications harken back to a day when only the no-load fund companies invested much energy in investor education. That's because they had to. "Load" fund companies relied on advisors to introduce and explain concepts.

That was before. Before the power of content marketing in brand-building was proven. Before online content was actively shared and discussed online. Before digital immigrants became pretty darn proficient at using the Web to extract information previously available only through other channels. Before consumers (including investors) relied more on peer recommendations than professional (including advisor) recommendations. Before investors could be assumed to do extensive online research before presenting themselves to an advisor. And before digital natives accumulated assets sufficient to attract your and your competitors' interest.

Maybe all fund companies "have to" think about how they educate investors on their sites and elsewhere today.

How? Test this yourself: Watch a digital native visit a sampling of five Websites that are new to him or her. If there’s a colorful, engaging video on the home page—talking heads not included!—that’s where the digital natives goes first, nearly every time. Video is the obvious "new" medium to be considering for investor education.

Can You Afford Not To?

Introducing video to your mix is far from a slam dunk. Significant time, thought, creativity and budget needs to be invested to create something worthy—and then promoted. (All the while Sales can be counted on to be asking, “Why are you doing that? What about what we need?”) There’s also the undeniable fact that asset manager videos distributed via YouTube continue to suffer from low viewership. Video works for every other industry and not this one? The next videos need to be better. 

What are the chances that you could create such a likeable, helpful video (or series of videos) that could make a difference (prompt Website exploration, drive interest and inquiry, foster sharing, etc.) to your brand’s awareness?

Sorry, that’s the wrong question to ask. Here’s where I'd start: How important are newbie investors (and the advisors they’ll turn to) to your firm’s growth plan, including Sales' objectives? How appealing is the way you currently present yourself to this up-and-coming set of investors who learn differently?

What are you communicating by not freshening your approach?