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.

Below are charts from Compete.com, a free online service that enables the tracking of Web sites by basing estimates of U.S. traffic on a triangulation of multiple data sources, including Internet service providers (ISP), panels and toolbars. (Read more about how Compete estimates traffic.) Within the analytics industry and from our experience, the data estimates are reliable and most analysts use them with confidence. 

The Top 24 Fund Groups

We’ve chosen to look at traffic to the top 24 fund groups in long-term open-end funds and ETF assets as of September 2008, according to the Financial Research Corporation (FRC). Compete data is most reliable for 19 of the companies, which have at least 40,000 monthly visits. Compete qualifies the data for asset managers with less than that as “rough estimates.”

These comparisons can be considered no more than directional, for the following reasons:
• We chose to look only at the brand domains. Many of the larger and even some of the small sites use domains not represented in the data. For example, Columbia Management traffic is dispersed across at least three domains: ColumbiaManagement.com for its financial advisor site, ColumbiaFunds.com for its investor site and YoungInvestor.com for younger investors. We show data for ColumbiaFunds.com because it’s the most visited site of the three but realize that it’s not a direct comparison to other site reports, whose traffic includes all audiences.
• We looked at the top 24 in order of their AUM, according to FRC. The 24 include five companies that distribute directly to investors and could be expected to produce more traffic. Four companies are institutional and likely to have less relative traffic. We graphed the 24 in sets of three, which produced readable charts in most cases. Two exceptions are State Street Global Advisors and Dimensional Fund Advisors whose site traffic doesn’t appear to be in sync with same-size managers. Third in AUM, Fidelity.com is different from the others--much of its estimated 33 million visits in October have to be attributed to its transaction functionality.
• Traffic is a measure of heightened awareness, and we’ve compiled this to answer a single question: In a month when global markets were gyrating in a way that had rarely if ever been seen before, did people seek out asset manager sites? The path to redemptions is never exclusively via a Web site; we suspect redemptions predominantly took place by phone, whether via a call to an advisor or to an Investor Services number. The Compete graphs of site visits answer the question but can shed no light on the next logical questions: Who was visiting—new or repeat visitors? Financial advisors, the press, shareholders? Where did the traffic go—straight to the online access to check accounts? To read investment or product commentary?

Of course, executive and marketing management can get real, deep and even actionable data about what happened on their domains in October (and what’s going on now) from their own installed Web analytics. 

Vanguard, American Funds, Fidelity Site Traffic

 iShares, Franklin Templeton, Pimco Site Traffic

 T Rowe Price, Ssga, Oppenheimer Funds Site Traffic

Dodge & Cox, Columbia, Legg Mason Site Traffic

Black Rock, Dimensional, Janus Site Traffic

 Alliance Bernstein, JPMorgan Funds, MFS Site Traffic

 Van Kampen, American Century, Putnam Site Traffic

GMO, Davis Selected, SEIC Site Traffic

What’s the takeaway from these graphs?

• Traffic was up almost across the board in October. Most significantly, traffic for the big three (Vanguard, American Funds and Fidelity) was up a minimum of 15% over September. This is substantial given that their sites attract multimillions a month.
• But, overall the site traffic wasn’t off the charts. Excepting Fidelity, steeper moves can be seen in August/September. A few companies experienced higher traffic earlier in the 12-month period.
• Pimco was one of two companies whose site traffic, while up big for the year, was down in October. According to FRC, Pimco is one of only two (Ivy Funds being the second) in the top 50 fund groups with assets up, year to date and year-over-year. Traffic to Dimensional Fund Advisors also was down in October and for the year.
• Companies whose traffic for the year (but not October) is down: Van Kampen, American Century and Janus.

What Are Investors Looking For?

How does Marketing react to a spike in traffic that Marketing itself did not produce? Of course, you’d be pleased if traffic climbed in response to a promotion. But can you be neutral (or let’s hope not—uninformed) about high site traffic that external events generated? Your audience thought about your company--using high site traffic as a proxy--much more in the last few months. Shareholder/investment redemptions speak volumes but they don’t communicate everything. What are investors looking for? How deliberate are you in helping them connect with what you understand them to be seeking? Some investments don’t make sense right now, but others are “saleable.” And yet, many sites continue to present all products equally as if all were equal in terms of their current appeal. It is easier to sell straw hats in the summer.

Now while advisors and investors continue to seek information and going forward as the markets recover, you have an opportunity to tune your site to guide your audience to the best of what you have to offer. Experts in shifting investor preferences expect that marketers with ETF providers may have an advantage and marketers from mutual fund companies may have a disadvantage. Still, your rebuilding will be quicker and more relevant if you find a way to marry heightened site traffic, your understanding of what investors/advisors are looking for on your site and appealing, appropriate products.
 

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:

• The For Immediate Release podcast, a twice weekly hour-long podcast that has been expanding my world view (example: the social media travails of an Irish breadmaker) for two years, and they’ve been at it for four years. I still can’t believe that I’m asked to pay nothing for the insights of Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz and their correspondents about online communications and public relations.
• Google Analytics—A powerful Web analytics tool that we’re in and out of all day. 100% free. Just when I was about to take GA for granted, Google has gone ahead and launched advanced segments and custom reporting, supported by YouTube video training. Some mutual fund, ETF and other investment companies continue to pay for powerful Web analytics reporting packages when their needs could be met by this free application.
• Compete.com—While Compete offers subscriptions for “professional” analytic capabilities, the site gives away a lot of competive intelligence. See our recent Special Report for a look at the site analytics possible. Limited search and referral information is also available at no charge.
• Blogbridge—I mentioned this RSS reader on steroids previously but it belongs here, too. Again, I am just incredulous that something so powerful, that I rely on for the core of my business, is free. The company makes its revenue on a range of information services and consulting.
• AP Mobile News network (available in the iTunes Store)—All of the content delivered via this smartphone application is available on the Web and you could say that my reaction is more to the device (iPod Touch, in my case) than to the app. I can’t separate them. Text, video, images all just waiting to update me for free. And they keep improving it! I can access the same information from a computer, a Blackberry and an Amazon Kindle. For my money, Mobile News provides the best experience.

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.

When asked about their implementation of a range of media, the chief marketing officers (CMOs) acknowledged using video (87%) and podcasting (33%). Other options (specificially: RSS feeds, blogs, mash-ups, other forms of social media) produced crickets.

To be sure, if you don't have a digital media competency in place, you're going to need to invest (time, people, money). According to the Beyond The Collateral's information on how the financial markets crisis is impacting marketing budgets (view Dave Swanson's video presentation on the Beyond The Collateral site), now may not be the time for a big splash. But it's an excellent time to start thinking about something new with unlimited potential--you'll want to test before launching, and tests are affordable. Google AdWords anyone?

Earlier in the week Marketing Sherpa distributed the following chart, which provides a look at the digital tactics that marketers overall are turning up and turning down in this environment. Missing from this list, one commenter pointed out, is organic search engine optimization.

If you truly believe that digital marketing has the potential to impact your business over the next two years, there has to be a way now to commit to doing more than video and podcasting. (Not that there's anything wrong with video and podcasting!)

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.

The thundering herd of financial advisors on the move (see the New York Times' Broker Rebellion) represents a significant risk to every asset manager’s customer database. Firm names, phone numbers, email addresses, virtually all contact information will be outdated for a while until the advisors settle and commercial databases can be updated. Losing touch with customers and prospects is rarely good for business.

What can Marketing do about it? Take another look at how you ask for names on the Web. Many investment management Web sites could be operating speakeasies for the way they hide their offers to email newsletters. Registrations to advisor Web sites are politely tucked in corners or buried at the bottom, for fear they’d get in the users’ way. And yet… we believe our newsletters and password-restricted sites offer value, don’t we?

Today the Mequoda Daily, one of my all-time favorite Web sites, reported on an interruptive technique that I hesitate to mention. But the reported results are too compelling not to. (We respect the aesthete that asset management sites tend to pride themselves on. But at the very least, asset managers that sponsor the Web site usability study pop-ups might give this a look.)

Mequoda's story was about how Digital-Photography-School.com increased its new subscribers to 350 a day from 40 a day by introducing a floater on the Web site. It’s a Pop Over subscription form that hovers over the content on the page, after a predetermined time. Here’s a screenshot of it and you can read all publisher Darren Rowse's details on ProBlogger.Net.

If your company has a business need for name acquisition/lead generation/CRM updating and if you’re motivated to coax anonymous Web site users into giving you their name for their benefit (that’s what you believe, right?), this or an approach like it merits consideration.

You’d have to think through which pages, how long, what offer and how much more information you need beyond the email address. Then you’d have to assure that the data you collect gets into the CRM. In order to assess whether this aggressiveness is worth it, you’d want to consider the quality of the leads collected against any abandonment from the Web site traffic on the pages with the floaters.

It's work. All we ask is that you open yourself to the possibilities. If not this, what else can you do on the Web to help with what will certainly be a data issue for most of 2009?

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."

But I understand—and sometimes am reminded—that it takes all kinds. For those of you not interested in pouncing on Web page updates, Hewlett Packard recently introduced a free service that might appeal. Go to Tabbloid.com, enter one or more RSS feeds and Tabbloid will email you a "print-ready" .pdf on whatever schedule you prefer. Not my cup of tea but it's a service you or others in your company might appreciate as an offline way of keeping up.

Megan S. was mugged on campus by two squirrels working together. DO NOT EAT POPCORN OUTSIDE. Details when we talk.

Immediately after I sent that text message to my college freshman niece, I had to wonder where Katy would be when her phone vibrated and she read it. We haven’t spoken in a week and the last time we texted was a day ago, on a different subject. And yet I knew that she would take the information in, modify her behavior and wait to hear more later. My communication was efficient. Like most text messages and lots of other electronic communicating, it didn’t need a salutation or a signoff. Really, anything else would have been in the way.

This is an apt illustration of how “conversations” between people are extending over days and topics and media. The next time Katy and I communicate, we’ll start up again in the middle of the conversation we’ve been having for 18 years. By contrast, when I was in college, the letters I received from home had a start and a finish. They struggled to keep me in touch with the homefront. When I’d read them, the communication ended until someone on either side would start the process all over again. Texting and other means available to us today aid understanding and keep precious relationships current.

I mention all this by way of encouraging financial services marketers to consider how the external world is adapting to a new kind of continuous communicating. There is a gaping difference between how freely and frequently others (yes, companies too) are exchanging information and the stilted annual and semiannual communications investment managers distribute weeks after the close of an investment period.

Election Night “Barack Obama” sent me a text: “I’m about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first.” After he commented on his victory, he promised to “get back in touch soon about what comes next.”

How many portfolio managers have reached out to their mutual fund shareholders during this financial market meltdown with a brief update and a promise to keep in touch? What impact might this have had on investors? I know that the Barack who wrote me the email was no more real than the Santa Claus I saw outside a store the other day. And yet both had the effect of strengthening my commitment to their work. Behind both were marketers who know the value of nurturing a relationship.

With just weeks to go before the close of the year, we urge investment managers to be especially thoughtful as they prepare their explanations of how their funds have fared. There’s an excellent chance that these shareholder reports will be read. Having been scolded by legislators and others in Washington for not paying attention, the American public—even those who rely on the recommendations of their financial advisors--can be expected to be taking an interest and piecing things together. Year-end communications tend to be either on auto-pilot or relegated to the most junior on the Marketing staff. You may have to throw your body in front of the perennial capital gains press release that starts with, “We are pleased to announce capital gains distributions…”

Beyond the required communications, though, we believe that much more can be done to initiate and conduct conversations with investors using digital media. At some point (I’m guessing), telephones might have been considered avant garde for businesses. Today, you can’t be in business without a phone. We may be heading toward a time when companies content to communicate twice a year with their end-users will be endangered.

Other than to pile on with our admiration (and to below point you to a few blog posts), we can’t add much to the recent extensive commentary about how the Barack Obama presidential campaign has fully leveraged the Internet. But while listening to yet another podcast on the subject, I was struck by a quote attributed to Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post that Obama would not be president if not for the Internet.

Assuming that you accept the premise that savvy use of the Internet changed the outcome of the U.S. general election, how would you gauge the impact that the Internet's had on your business? Have financial services institutions been altered by their presence on the Web? The Web has empowered many in the financial services realm. Yahoo Finance became a publisher and many offline publishers now produce online. And yes, we now have online access for our bank and brokerage accounts. Wesabe.com, Mint.com and Geezeo.com all are examples of relatively new community sites for people who are determined to manage their money better.

But Internet-driven disruption and transformation? We think that’s yet to come for financial services. (And would love to hear your thoughts.)

For inspiration, check out the following posts on the Obama campaign’s use of digital strategies:

The Internet As A Force In Politics: “Obama Would Not Have Won Without The Internet”

Lessons for User Experience Consultants from Barack Obama

Election 2008: What You Should Have Learned
 

Google and Yahoo both continue to improve their image search capabilities (see the brief article on SearchEngineLand.com), which will reward Web sites that go to the trouble of making sure their images are findable on the Web.

This is a worthwhile undertaking for investment management company sites, in particular. Just about every mutual fund Web site offers economic and market commentary chockfull of valuable graphs and charts. Yet if the images are not tagged appropriately, they’ll never do the job they could in drawing search engine users to your site.

Although we could look at just about any money manager site, I’ll use a graph from a Pimco viewpoint as an example. Below is a screenshot of a graph tracking Long Term U.S. Yields from 1900 to August 2008. Interesting data that no doubt would be useful to more than just the readers of this commentary. And yet, because it doesn’t have what’s called an "alt attribute" it’s not findable on the Pimco search engine, let alone Google or Yahoo.

Alt attributes are used in HTML to provide a text alternative for an image. Search engines (which, after all, can’t see) and the visually impaired need the inclusion of alt attributes in order to understand what the image is communicating to the sighted. You can see them in the yellow boxes in this screenshot from Amazon.com (I've used a Firefox browser add-on Web Developer to display the HTML).

We advocate adding alt attributes to only the images that communicate information. They’re not necessary to describe photos or icons that merely decorate a page. But it is extra work and you can expect some pushback. All will be happy when the work produces greater visibility for the content your organization is creating.
 

Congratulations to Fidelity Investments, whose mashups rank today on Peter Kim’s list of notable brand examples of social media.

Voters' concerns about the economy--including the financial markets--are believed to be what struck the difference in the presidential race, ultimately driving Barack Obama to win. Over the next hours and days, all forms of broadcast, online and offline media will be interviewing investment strategists, economists, portfolio managers for their views on what happens next.

Is your company lending its expertise/content to a media company by making your spokesmen available? Of course, why wouldn't you? But we encourage you to think of your own Web site and your own marketing as a publishing operation, as well. You need to be delivering the content that you're lending out and on the same turnaround as the traditional media companies are insisting on.

We have a dream: In a perfect world, you would have gone home last night with two videos in the can--one with your investment guru commenting on an Obama administration and one with comments on a McCain administration. Late last night, you would have published the Obama video and distributed 1)a press release and 2)an email to advisors and subscribed shareholders announcing the availability of your company's viewpoint--in video, in audio and as a transcript. Doing this would have assured that your company was taking part in today's conversations. (When your spokesmen make themselves available to others, they and their message are at the mercy of the producers' agendas, scheduling issues and they never have control over exactly what's delivered. You can control it all when publishing from your domain.)

Never have American voters been so engaged in a presidential election and its outcome--and at the center of their concerns are the markets that drive your business. I woke up this morning eager to read and listen to the coverage from the outlets I've come to rely on. Is it too idealistic to expect that someday Investment Manager XYZ will be one of the "publishers" I count on hearing from first? That an investor could become so engaged in the thinking that's driving the management of their investments? This can happen only if the speed to communicating about market events is compressed to near real-time.

Investment product marketing needs to adopt a newsroom mentality. That's what SwanDog Strategic Marketing called for in the whitepaper The World Has Changed, Part 1, released last month. It's in line with a broader conviction that marketing online is about content and that online marketers need to think of themselves as publishers. It's only in the delivering of relevant content when it's being sought that we can become relevant--promotional messages dictated by a provider's schedule are not going to cut it nor will election commentaries produced and distributed next week.

For more on this, we recommend David Merriman Scott's The New Rules of Marketing and PR. At the minimum, listen to a The New Newsroom: What's in Your Company? a 9-minute podcast with Scott and Provident Partners' Albert Maruggi. Meanwhile, we're trolling investment management Web sites looking for election commentary. If you're operating like a publisher, we'd love to see your work--please drop us a line.