What Happens When The Conversation Hits Too Close To Home

The concept of “joining the conversation” can seem a bit artificial. Few online “conversations” are in progress for any length of time and they’re not that easy to pick up on. Besides, most of the time we hit the Web with our own ideas (conversation-starters, if you will) that we hope someone else will get behind and help distribute.

But on April 23, PBS’ Frontline aired a documentary that has prompted an ongoing online conversation about retirement funding and the expense of retirement plans. As tipped off by the title, The Retirement Gamble, the content was provocative. Its position: That fund fees are eroding retirement savings while fund companies and financial advisors in the 401(k) and retirement planning business profit. In the event that you missed it, here’s the link.

The documentary stimulated lots of debate. Most if not all of the online publications that cover finance or retirement issues took note of it, as did all of the leading advisor publications and a few advisor blogs. I’ve added some links at the bottom of this post for you to read a sampling of reactions.  

For another measure of the response to this one-hour television program, see the amount of commenting and social sharing happening on the sites that reported on the documentary. The 12,000 Facebook Recommends, 1,800 tweets and 448 Google+ shares on the PBS site are just the start.

Search interest in the term “retirement gamble” and the related “frontline retirement gamble” search merited a break-out appearance on Google Trends.

Some commentators thought the coverage was fair, others thought it was biased. I’m not going to weigh in on any of that. My interest was in how fund companies would react. Years ago, there would have been no response. But the industry has developed a contemporaneous communications competency, aided by the availability of digital channels and tools. I thought that firms would chime in, on their own sites and maybe in comments on others’.

The Industry's Response

Mindful that the “crafting,” routing and review of a communication on this topic could take a few weeks at some firms, I waited to do a sweep of who said what. But even though I track mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) content fairly closely, I hadn’t seen word one. So, I did what anybody else might do (indeed, lots of searchers have already done, as the Google Trends graph shows) and went to Google.

I reviewed all the Google search results for “retirement gamble” and “retirement PBS” looking for an asset manager-authored commentary. The closest I came was an endorsement on JohnCBogle.com, whose footer has a standing disclaimer: “The opinions presented do not necessarily represent those of Vanguard's current management.” 

So, then I searched the asset manager blogs. (This is the kind of topic that blogs are made for!) While I found a few posts about proprietary retirement research (representing conversations that firms wanted to start themselves), my on-site “retirement gamble” and “PBS” searches showed up nothing.

As a final check, I turned to Ignites.com, the subscription-only news site for the mutual fund industry and yes, there were a few articles about the industry’s response to the show.

The first bore the headline, “Industry Blasts PBS Documentary on Retirement,” while “Documentary Damaged Industry's Rep: Poll” headlined the second. According to a poll taken of Ignites readership, “although 38% do not perceive The Retirement Gamble as having inflicted reputational damage, most expressing that view do not perceive the industry as being unscathed either.”

It was from the second article that I learned that at least two firms—Vanguard and Buckingham Asset Management—had commented on The Retirement Gamble on their sites. Vanguard was critical while Buckingham called it a must-watch.

The Ignites article left room for the possibility that other firms are also addressing the documentary in their own way. That made sense. It would be almost impossible to believe that public television could have aired an investigative report on a $10 trillion industry and the industry would have barely made a peep. Surely, talking points were created, media availabilities were distributed to the press, customer service people were prepped with scripts.

A Sustainable Strategy?

But, what about online and in public where much of the debate is happening?

Ignites quoted marketing consultant April Rudin as suggesting (but not necessarily agreeing with) that some firms would be choosing not to refer to the documentary by name to keep from giving it any more attention.

Seriously? The industry’s response is symptomatic of thinking that predates a time before today. A time when there was a lopsided relationship between brands and consumers. When brands, which had the resources to control messaging and communication platforms, effectively dictated who gets attention and who doesn’t.            

While asset managers can refuse to dignify the documentary with a public response, they can’t impose silence on others. As shown in their comments and social shares, empowered clients (investors and advisors) are taking to the Web to react, to compare notes with others and to wonder about whether their 401(k) plan providers’ interests are aligned with theirs.

Ignoring a controversy central to the fund industry’s business won’t make it go away. And, it will endear the industry no further to its clients.

Preparing a response without acknowledging PBS or The Retirement Gamble by name advances nothing. It simply raises the likelihood that a firm's statement will be overlooked in the online debate, some of which is driven by keyword-specific searches.  

Vanguard is one of this industry’s communications leaders but it wasn’t one of the firm’s finest moments when they published an April 29 blog post that studiously avoids the documentary’s name. I count more than 30 comments, including comments made to other commenters, on the post. The first comment was to the point: “Thanks for the article. What is the name of the documentary?” It was another commenter on the post who provided the title and a link.

This is the world we live in. Others can be expected to initiate and conduct conversations that are not flattering to us or that we would prefer to avoid. The conversation on retirement funding and affordability, specifically, is one that can benefit from more discourse by more informed entities. There is a lot of confusion out there, revealed not created by The Retirement Gamble.  

From the luxury of my perch outside your four walls, this looks like a communications opportunity for asset managers that are willing to step up, to address issues head-on, to listen and to show themselves to be accountable in public even when on the defense.     

Or, maybe you disagree. If you do or if I have somehow missed something, I hope you’ll say so below.

Also see (included in part for their mix of reader comments):

401(k) Documentary Ruffles Feathers

Advisors Stung By Frontline Attack

The Dull Task of Decoding 401(k) Fees Matters

The Retirement Gamble

Winning The Retirement Gamble: Step 1 Adjust Your Mindset

Inside The iShares Social Media Strategy

Update: After being marked private for a few weeks, an edited version (representing about one-third of what was presented) of the video mentioned below is now public.

Here’s a rare treat for you. Yesterday, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions released a series of videos from its FinanceConnect:13 conference held in New York last week. Included among them was the presentation by iShares’ Eileen Loustau, Global Head of Social Media Marketing. It’s a 55-minute inside-asset-management-social media talk from one of the industry’s leaders in social media, responsible for both the iShares and the BlackRock social presence. 
 

 

You’ll hear how iShares defines its target audience as sophisticated investors—“we’ve decided to allow the competition to go ahead and talk to people who know nothing,” Loustau says at 11:27.
 

At the same time, listen to how iShares has rethought what Loustau calls investment communicators' previously deferential relationship with financial advisors. “We were shocked…financial advisors just want you to tell them what to do,” she says. Her explanation of that perspective starts at 6:09.

Loustau acknowledges that her team of 10 and the broader “content machine” is blessed by the availability of three dedicated Compliance resources, at least one of whom she insists work right next to her. Blog post review takes less than two hours and tweets about 5 minutes, she says at 53:28. (Is it just my imagination or can I hear the collective sighs of everyone else out there with a less dreamy Compliance relationship?)

And then there’s the money part. Loustau can make the case that iShares social media participation is worth as much as $18 million in earned media, a number that has climbed steadily since the launch of its @iSharesETFs Twitter account, blog and other work in late 2010. Listen starting at 45:15.

Thanks to Loustau for sharing her team’s reasoned approach and to LinkedIn for both streaming the conference live and then posting this video and others from the conference.

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...

You Know You're A Digital Marketer If...

Recently MarketingProfs asked its Facebook group to finish the sentence: “You know you’re a marketer if…” About 17 responses were then illustrated and shared yesterday in the presentation embedded below.

You Know You're a Marketer If... (17 Signs You're a Marketer) from MarketingProfs

I’d like to flatter the feature by imitating it, sort of. Digital marketers can benefit from a self-awareness exercise, too, but Rock The Boat Marketing doesn’t have the reach that MarketingProfs does. We'd be waiting quite a while if I tried to crowdsource responses to the “You know you’re a digital marketer if…”

So, I’ll go first with my list, shown below. But, please don’t leave me hanging out here all alone—mutual fund and ETF digital marketers (others welcome, too!), add your own contributions in the Comments below.

You know you’re a digital marketer if…

QR Is Never Far From Your Mind

You’re sitting in a pew at Catholic Mass, joining the choir in a spirits-lifting song. Your sister leans over and whispers, “I want this song sung at my funeral.”

Your response, also whispered: “Each song in the songbook should have a QR code so whenever there’s a random statement like this we could capture it. We’d just scan the code and the code could be added to a funeral service page layout assembly program on the Web. So, the program can be built over time and not all at the last minute and in fresh grief.” Bewildered, your sister nods her head and looks away.

Digital First—And Sometimes Only

You mark the sale of your house (after 2.5 years on the market) by hosting a mammoth two-day garage sale featuring all kinds of abandoned tech (digital pens, early ebook readers, MiniDisc players, you get the idea). You press friends and family into donating a few hours of service to staff the sale. But the turnout is disappointing, and idle talk turns into an inquisition about what kind of advertising was done.

“What do you mean that you didn’t advertise in the community newspapers? What? The only advertising you did was online? Are you serious? Not everyone is online, Pat. Typical.”

Gifts That Endure

You give domain names to children as gifts, certain that these will be treasured for years to come. And, gradually realize that the gift is a lot like giving a magazine subscription. It has impact the first year. But the enthusiasm and thanks fade as you dutifully renew year after year. Meanwhile, the domains don’t even have Google AdWords running on them!

But It’s So Pretty To Look At

You’ve added the Analytics HD app to your iPad mini, enabling you to share Google Analytics insights with friends at dinner or during lulls at parties. Only the super-nice feign interest, and then not for long.

Parallel Universes

Your brother is a financial advisor. His Website is barely findable in the search engine results, let alone on page 1. He’s not on LinkedIn, doesn’t use Twitter, enjoys YouTube for recreation only. And yet he is crazy successful. You're a digital marketer if you find this maddening.

Your turn: You know you're a digital marketer if...?

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?