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Category Archives: Mobile
25 Content Highlights Of 2011
There are some people who are theatre people. There are some people who are music people. And—getting closer to the point of this post—there are the book-lovers. Me, I’m an online content junkie.
With this post, 12 months in the making, I delight in that special piece of content found swimming out there in a sea of perfectly average content. This is my list of what I found to be the best marketing, digital marketing and/or investment-related content—with a few wildcards—of 2011. It’s an updated edition of a similar list published last year at this time.
Are You Delighting Or Disappointing Mobile Users?
How’s that mobile strategy coming along? Considering the growing mound of data reporting financial advisor and investor reliance on smartphones, there isn’t a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) firm today that isn’t giving some thought to mobile.
Assuming that’s the case, you and your team really need to spend at least 40 minutes watching this 76-minute video by Avinash Kaushik. Kaushik is the digital marketing evangelist for Google and Web analytics guru that I’ve mentioned a few times previously.
How About Google Hangouts For Impromptu Strategist, Money Manager Meet-ups?
Google is making it clear that its Google+ project launched in beta last week is not brand-ready. Still, don’t let that be your excuse for learning what you can about it now. Spend some time on the official site to start to get grounded in what Google+ encompasses.
At this early stage, I’m most intrigued by the Hangouts part of the project for asset management firms. Hangouts provides the capability to spontaneously engage in multi-person video sessions with people in your circles.
Because its immediate focus is on consumer use, Google is positioning Hangouts as supporting “fun, fluid and serendipitous” video sessions.
Are Today’s Mutual Fund, ETF Communications Enough To Engage And Re-Engage Investors?
Today’s post draws its inspiration (if you will) from three influences:
- A Prudential study I saw yesterday reporting that 44% of investors are reluctant to ever put more of their money back into the stock market (download The Next Chapter: Meeting Investment and Retirement Challenges report).
- The 289-point market (Dow) drop yesterday. This morning I heard on Twitter that yesterday was the third time this year that the Dow has moved 200-plus points compared to nine times in 2010. There’s nothing like market volatility to shake the confidence of someone whose commitment is tenuous.
A Look At PIMCO’s Content-Dense Mobile App
PIMCO’s release this week of an iPhone/iPad mobile app is among the first (if not the first) non-transactional mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) apps.
Most of the few investment company apps are product and data-based and, as such, may have limited value to non-account-holders. Given the firm’s status as a bona fide investment thought leader, it makes sense that PIMCO would take the lead in developing a content app available to all comers—extending its reach and ostensibly using it as a customer acquisition as well as customer retention tool.
Yay! Your Long-Form Content Is In Style—Now What?
To borrow a phrase from David Letterman, asset managers don’t give digital marketer jobs to chimpanzees. And it’s a good thing, too, because you need to be at your highest-functioning as online content consumption evolves and new utilities surface as a means of providing access to content your firm produces.
Content marketing by asset managers is largely in the form of thought leadership, i.e., long-form content about the markets and market opportunities. The rising popularity of mobile devices (primarily iPads but ostensibly other tablets, too) and browser tools that accommodate saving think pieces for later is driving engagement in longer content. This should be a net positive for mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) marketers.
Investments Are Researched, Reviewed On Mobile Phones
Adobe yesterday released survey results that we just have to call your attention to, despite the fact that we commented on mobile phone apps in a post two weeks ago.
Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project’s The Rise of Apps Culture had reported on interest in finance apps. But this data from the Adobe Mobile Experience Survey: What Users Want from Media, Finance, Travel & Shopping, October 2010, zeroes in specifically on interest in mutual funds and securities (including ETFs) via both mobile phones’ browsers and applications.
Users Are Preferring Apps—And That Includes Finance Apps
Will your mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) firm eventually produce a mobile application? If your answer to that question is yes, data released in the last few weeks may help move your plans to the front-burner (yep, right alongside everything else).
A global smartphone study by Zokem points to shrinking reliance on Web browsing as mobile users show a striking preference for native applications.
“There is still a lot of usage inside the Web browser,” said Zokem founder Hannu Verkasalo. “However, as mobile consumption patterns get richer, and people learn to require more and more functionalities, the native applications in most cases provide the best user experience.”
Asset Manager Web Sites Lose Their Flash On iPad
The eagerly anticipated Apple iPad just may force a rethinking of asset managers’ reliance on Adobe Flash Player as a means of delivering some much-needed life and vitality to their Web sites.
In an industry not known for its innovation online, Flash-based presentations on a home page or on a financial advisor home page have been the go-to site enhancement on mutual fund sites. Given their young age, almost all exchange-traded fund (ETF) sites employ Flash in some way.
If your site uses Flash, you’re not going to be happy with how your pages display through Apple’s Safari browser on the iPad.
USAA App, Mint.com Cross-Selling, TradeKing Rate As Forrester Best Practices
We sat in on a Forrester Research Top 10 Financial Services Web Site Best Practices of 2009 Webinar this afternoon and thought we’d pass on a few highlights.
App Turns Phone Into An ATM
USAA’s mobile phone app (released first for the iPhone and in January for the Droid) enables registered accountholders to deposit checks simply by photographing the check and submitting the image via the phone.
We covered remote deposit capture (RDC) seven years ago when the payments industry introduced it as a solution for commercial customers that met volume requirements. It’s exciting to see the capability downstreamed to consumers for one-off use.
