7 Examples Of How Context Matters For Mutual Fund, ETF Marketers

You can’t control the U.S. mail. If your large cap growth promotion happens to arrive at a financial advisor’s office on a day when the stock market is tanking, well, that’s how it is. Shake it off—you didn’t know, how could you? Looks like that piece is not going to work as well as you’d hoped.

And, that pretty much sums up the powerlessness of a direct mail marketer. Moving on…

Communicating online is less forgiving. Digital marketers are assumed to have control of their online communications including not just the What but the When and even the Where and the How.

Add to this mix the fact that financial advisors are not just reachable online but also more knowable online. This heightens expectations that communications are relevant and appropriate.

The context of what's being communicated is an increasingly important factor to consider in the planning and execution of mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) marketing. 

“Context” is a concept that’s open for interpretation, and I’ll admit to taking some liberties below. But let’s start out right, with a definition, courtesy of an ebook from StrongView, Context Changes Everything.

StrongView explains context “as a combination of the consumer’s [client’s] disposition and situation, coupled with the business’s disposition and situation.”

Disposition refers to the essence of who a consumer is and includes demographic and behavioral data. Situation refers to dimensions that are constantly changing—location, social setting, sentiment and needs, for example.

“The relevance of a firm’s interactions is related directly to its understanding of customer context,” StrongView writes.

One of my favorite non-asset management examples: Do you remember when NetFlix accidentally released Season 3 of House of Cards in mid-February? Boston residents thought that was by design, as a consolation as Boston braced for another blizzard. Think of the goodwill engendered if that had been the intention. 

If you don't already, I’d encourage you and your team to begin to pay attention to context. Who knows how the Apple Watch is going to rock content marketers’ world, starting with tomorrow's pre-orders. But it seems a safe guess that “wearable” content delivery will make context-awareness even more important.

To urge you along, I offer the following list of how context can make a difference. It’s in no particular order and in a slightly different tone. I’ve let myself go snarkier than usual to make obvious to you the need for alertness on the part of marketers, supported by enabling technology including customer relationship management (CRM) systems, marketing automation and Web, email and social analytics. Opportunities abound for relevant communicators. This is a partial, random list—surely, you can think of more?

What Not To Do

1. Overestimate The Compelling Value Of That PDF

Send a blast email with a link to a PDF at a time of day when you'd reasonably expect most recipients to be checking their email on smartphones. Do you communicate across multiple time zones? Right, well, you could stagger the email sends by location, drawing on regional information no doubt extractable from your CRM. It is more work. How important are those PDF opens to you?

1A. Burn Through Your New List

Use your hard-fought-for list of conference emails to email attendees while the conference is underway. Please don't. They won’t read your introductory message then, and all you've done is waste an opportunity. Conference attendees are battling to stay on top of their business emails, yours will be one they’ll be happy to quickly dispose of. Choose your time and message wisely.

2. Play Hide-And-Seek With People Who Are Already Stressed

Move your tax-related content from one place on the Website to another in the months between January and April. Oh, and don’t sweat the details about trying to map redirects to every single (likely Google-indexed) page. Are you trying to incur the wrath of your clients and the people who answer the phone lines at your firm?

The graphic below is excerpted from a Google Finance Trends infographic (link opens a PDF) that reports that tax-related searches are starting earlier in the year, and that more are happening on mobile devices. Plan your enhancements for during the off-season.

3. Dawdle With The News

Twitter is all about what’s happening now or maybe in the last 24 hours. A February tweet announcing the availability of your 12/31 communications is going to impress no one. That’s not what Twitter is for, I wouldn’t bother.

Did you see the number of firms that jumped on the Lipper award announcements last week? InvestmentNews published this list immediately after the evening ceremony March 31 and quite a few firms took to Twitter the very next day. Looks like Thornburg needed a full day but imagine how that ginormous image looked in a tweet stream.

That’s the way to do it. If your announcement is still working its way through your process, I’d say that ship has sailed on Twitter—the news was so last week. (Your timely addressing of bad news would be expected, too, but let's save that for another list, another day.)

Off-topic but I also really like TIAA-CREF’s use of its Twitter header image to promote its Lipper dominance. Where is it written that asset managers need to use a moody photograph of their headquarters as their Twitter image and never ever change it?  

4. Advertise 24/7 If You Can Help It

Pay for broad match AdWords searches all day and all night. Unless you are convinced that financial advisors are looking for solutions in the wee hours, I have one word for you: dayparting. Let the non-advisor (most likely) night owls amuse themselves with organic search results or run up some other firm's pay-per-click budget.

5. Get Caught Sleeping At The Wheel

Release a blog post on your firm’s philanthropy (or whatever) on the day the Fed raises interest rates for the first time in seven years. Throw your body in front of this if you have to.

If you’re not fortunate enough to have a blog contributor offering a reaction post that day, don’t publish anything. It’s better to say nothing than to reach your blog subscribers—on a day when they’ll be paying extra attention to what you contact them about—with something that suggests that your team is either on autopilot or blissfully unaware.  

6. Just Stroll In There Like It's 1999

Fail to train your wholesalers how to check for LinkedIn profiles and updates (including links to blog posts), tweets and Facebook updates prior to calling on advisors. Advisors research their clients (and vendors) and you can be certain that they expect others to be doing the same due diligence on them. I may have mentioned this before.

7. Lump Everybody Together

Track and report on your Web visitors as one homogenous group, as if desktop, table and mobile sessions all yield the same experience. As if all visitors regardless of device have the same motivations or needs. 

If you were to segment the traffic, you would see some eye-opening differences.

Note: Blane Warrene, co-founder of Arkovi Social Media Archiving, now financial technology speaker and advisor and editor at large of TheDigitalFA, and I discussed the state of asset manager marketing on Blane’s Digital Well podcast last week. Blane is fun to talk to and it’s a freewheeling discussion (what was supposed to be 30 minutes turned into 40). If you check it out, here’s hoping there will be something in it for you.

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

Content Filtering: A Mutual Fund, ETF Website Differentiator

A few years ago, Search Engine Land published a column with the headline “How Does Your Web Site Make You Feel?” The premise of the article by usability expert Kim Krause Berg was that decisions made by Website designers and developers affect us “emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually.” (For more, see the post and see my 2009 comments on the subject.)  

I was captivated by the idea. Haven't we all had the experience of landing on a Website and seeing something so creative, so appealing, so smart or so efficient that it elicited a reaction? Ahhhhh. 

 

How can we produce Ahhhhhs on a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) Website? Here’s one suggestion: content filtering. 

Less Can Be More

Good for you that your firm has a lot to say, or that it offers a broad and deep product line (or multiple lines), and/or that you publish an extensive series of communications. Not so good for the Website visitor who has landed on your site with something they want to get done. He or she goes there for a reason. 

You can elicit that feel-good response if you optimize users’ visits—including those from on mobile devices where searching and scrolling can be excruciating. Enable users to filter the wealth of what you offer. By improving their experience, you indirectly enhance their feelings about your site and yes, firm, too. 

From my perspective, Search capabilities and content filtering are a key differentiator between asset manager sites. They can make the difference between a site that holds its own with some of the finest database-driven sites today like Amazon, LinkedIn, etc. and sites that betray themselves as having been built back in the days of browsing and not recently updated. (Shockingly, some sites have yet to offer an open text Search box. My advice is to make that a priority and then build from there.)

Respect The User's Effort

There is a line that governs usability work—“respect the user’s effort”—and that’s what underlies the filtering shown in some of the following examples.

We start with a few site-wide filter-capable Search examples that may represent the most ambitious undertakings.

Filtered site-wide Search may be out of the question in the world you that live in. Many firms publish to the Web from multiple closed systems that refuse to talk to one another, making integration of content impossible. Despair not, some firms are distinguishing themselves by offering the filtering of a specific content category (e.g., Literature and Forms or Insights and Research). Screenshots of a few of these follow.

What And When: J.P. Morgan

What does J.P. Morgan have to say about gold? The Search results themselves aren’t that descriptive, but see how site visitors are enabled to narrow down the options, thanks to content type and date filters.

Expanded Categories: Invesco

While keyword, ticker and symbol searches are common on sites, Invesco Search goes further by expanding on the content categories. Fund numbers, portfolio manager names and "literature part number" filtered searches are not commonly offered.

Results Relevance: PIMCO

Despite its appearance on many firms’ Search pages, relevance as a sort isn’t intuitive. See how PIMCO offers Relevance and Date sorts as well as category, date and file type.

When 2 Filters Won’t Do: Henderson Funds

The Henderson Funds Literature page enables users to narrow options by three possible filters: document group, fund and keyword.

"I'll Have What Everybody Else Is Having"

It's an extra step to produce and keep these current, but the inclusion of thumbnails of literature covers in Search is a user-friendly move. Also helpful are the Most Recent and Most Requested sorts offered on Vanguard's Financial Advisor Literature page.

Assuring They Will Be Back: TIAA-CREF

The TIAA-CREF Asset Management Investment Data Center introduces Morningstar ratings and risk as added dimensions with which to filter. The listing can be shortened by creating a log-in to save favorites, and the My Briefcase function further organizes the user’s use of the listing.

What I love the most: The ability to turn on alerts to be notified when favorited documents are updated. 

Making The Most Of The Visit: Russell Investments

See how Russell Investments respects the effort.

Multiple filters assure that visitors are not going to lose much time looking for an Insights & Research piece. Note the win/win in how Russell presents the default, featured content page—two options for subscriptions (RSS and email) make it convenient for the user while Russell makes the most of what might otherwise be a one-time only visit.

And, not shown in this screenshot, is the fact that an RSS feed can be created from the filtered Search. Ahhhhh...

9 Random Stats Cherry-Picked Just For You

The last few weeks have seen the release of some fascinating and free research and work. I cracked open the reports to pull out the following nine numbers that made an impression on me and might on you.

10.8

Financial advisors say they’re working with about one additional mutual fund provider in 2012—10.8 versus 9.9 in 2011—and that they’re concentrating fewer assets with their top three providers.

This is just one of many insights offered in “A Fresh Look at Advisor Loyalty” from Cogent Research. The report, which you can download, also analyzes aspects of the product and service experience that are most likely to drive advisor loyalty across three types of products: mutual funds, ETFs and annuities.

Click to read more ...