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Category Archives: Web Sites
The Social Way Forces A Rethinking Of Old, Controlling Ways
When something is new, a little scary and yet ubiquitous, it may be human nature to want to limit what you absolutely need to know about it. Jersey Shore, for example, is something I’ve decided that I don’t need to follow.
In the case of investment company Web sites, mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) marketers early on realized that their sites wouldn’t be e-commerce sites. That freed them (us as I was on the inside at that point) from thinking about transaction funnels, search engine optimization and other best practices that e-commerce sites need to master in order to survive.
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.
Will FinTech Innovators Disrupt By Making Users Happy?
This post will require some indulgence on your part. Commenting on tweets coming from a conference that I didn’t attend may seem as bogus as someone recommending a book based on a book review and not having read the book.
It’s just that every day brings news and commentary that underscore the importance of financial marketers stepping up their game and sharpening their awareness of developments in this space.
Some input for your consideration today comes from Finovate Fall 2010, a conference that offers an opportunity for 50-plus fintech companies to present short video demos of their innovations. The goal of this visibility is to gain customers, venture capital funding, partnerships and media coverage.
Site Update: Best Practices Are Out, Resources & Insights In
We’ve published some changes to the Web site today that we’d like you to know about.
The Best Practices Page RIP
Not every Web site can win awards or rank on a top Web site list. The Best Practices page, part of RockTheBoatMarketing.com since its launch, was our way of acknowledging our readers’ flashes of brilliance or functionality on the investment Web sites they direct. We imagined we’d build out the page as we continued to spot best practices. Well, we did a sorry job of refreshing the content and for the last year we’ve considered the Best Practices page the shame of the site.
What One Advisor Wants From Asset Managers
What do financial advisors want? Marketing staffs (and others) spend their days developing products and creating communications they hope will resonate with the advisor community. Despite all best efforts, some fall short.
In the 11 months since the launch of AdvisorTweets, we’ve learned a lot by “listening” to financial advisors’ tweets. In this post, we’re publishing excerpts from an interview we had with John Benedict, a 12-year financial advisor who recently broke from the FINRA-regulated broker-dealer world to establish his own registered investment advisor (RIA) J2Capital Management of Troy, MI. On Twitter, Benedict is @GeckoJB.
Are You ‘Spying’ On Your Web Site Users?
You may have left work Friday thinking that you knew what this workweek would bring. But our guess is that a Saturday report by The Wall Street Journal will reset priorities for Web marketing teams at many companies, including some mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) firms.
“Marketers are spying on Internet users,” said the Journal in an extensive report on its investigation of Internet tracking technology used by the 50 most popular U.S. Web sites plus WSJ.com.
A Photo Album To Showcase Mutual Fund/ETF Adoption Of Social Media
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, this post sincerely flatters Kevin Dugan, a digital marketing and public relations professional whose accomplishments include the Bad Pitch blog.
I happened to hear in Monday’s For Immediate Release podcast that Dugan had created a Flickr group to track Signs of Social Media. The group’s purpose, according to the description of Dugan’s Flickr set, is to “show how retail, food and other brands are reaching out to consumers and asking them to follow on Facebook, Twitter and the like.”
And Now For A Splash Of Cold Water About Venturing Onto Other Domains
We consistently urge you to consider sharing your content and even limited functionality on other domains, primarily but not exclusively social networking sites. We’ve seen the effectiveness of content syndication and we stand by the recommendation.
But now seems like a good time to call your attention to the range of possibilities when venturing onto other domains. If you print and mail marketing pieces, if you advertise, if you send emails—heck, if you count on wholesalers to support a marketing campaign, you’re already familiar with the surprises/disappointments that can happen when you rely on others to deliver your message.
Google’s Top 1,000 List Includes 5 Investing Sites—And Why You Might Care
I trust that you will let me know if this blog starts sounding like a broken record. But some data became available this week that might give you added inspiration to plan for syndicating your content and exploring off your own asset manager domain.
I was checking my RSS feeds this morning when I came across the announcement that Google will now publish a list of the top 1,000 global sites on the Web by unique users as measured by Google’s AdPlanner. Huge, which is what I tweeted. Whether you’re buying online media or not, this is just interesting.
Asset Managers And Social Media—Now Via Video From ICI
Here’s a companion to our longest blog post ever, which was coverage of the May 7 Investment Company Institute panel on social media that I was privileged to moderate plus some notes from other sessions.
This morning the ICI made a video available and now you’re able to listen directly to the panel featuring:
- Amy Dobra, principal at Vanguard and head of the Retail Client Experience Group
- Sheryl Larson, Vice President and Online Marketing Manager at Northern Trust
- Lawrence P. Stadulis, partner in the Investment Management Department at the law firm of Stradley Ronon (not shown above)
