SPECIAL REPORT: The Effect Of The Market Meltdown On Traffic To Top Mutual Fund, ETF Web Sites

Net outflows from equity and fixed-income funds were at record dollar levels in October, according to Lipper, Inc. How did October’s market meltdown affect traffic to mutual fund, ETF and other investment company Web sites? We’ve been eager to analyze the data.

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5 Reasons To Give Thanks To The Cornucopia Online (Some Of The Best Things In Life Are Free)

Later today, I will be one around a large dinner table, taking my turn at saying why I’m thankful. I’ll leave my personal blessings to my extended family and loved ones, but this year more than ever I feel drawn to publicly enumerate a few items that I’m thankful for professionally.

At the highest level, I’m thankful that my “occupation” is to be occupied with something I can’t get enough of. I more than like my job—I  the Internet. Working in financial services first appealed to me intellectually years ago. Rock The Boat Marketing is a self-styled crusade to help investment managers see that there’s so much more to be done online.

What I practice, what I advocate, what I believe is influenced by a motley collection—let’s call it a cornucopia—of companies, Web sites, bloggers, podcasters and other innovators I’ve serendipitously came across online. (While I still engage with companies and people in the physical world, I really need to verify them on the Web before I can muster up any enthusiasm. Really, am I alone in this? I don’t think so.)

Today, I’m stopping to give thanks for these five:

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Don't Use The Economic Downturn To Delay Building Your Digital Competency

The latest relevant data on the adoption of digital media by financial services marketers comes from our partners at SwanDog Strategic Marketing. According to survey results released today as part of a SwanDog/FRC update to the 2007 ground-breaking Beyond The Collateral research, more than 50% of investment management marketing executives expect digital media to have a significant or moderate effect on their brand in the next 24 months. That’s about 3 percentage points more than when the groundbreaking Beyond The Collateral research was conducted last year.

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How Aggressive Are You Willing To Be To Help With Customer Data?

What is Marketing’s responsibility for keeping the CRM current? A reflexive answer might be to say, “None, that’s the internal sales staff’s job.” But we’d argue that to play a strategic role within an organization Marketing must be willing to lead/help in assuring the integrity of the CRM.

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Tabbloid: Another Way To Keep Up With The Blogs

The RSS feed reader has been, for me, the [technology] highlight of the first decade of the millennium. I started out using Bloglines, then NetVibes and I keep an active Google Reader account. But I found Blogbridge one Sunday afternoon and that’s my workhorse. I can feel my pulse racing as I wait the milliseconds for my 300-plus feeds to update and sync. I like to run with the "info-junkies."

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