After the NAVA Conference back in February, we wrote a post for the Wall Street Technology blog on the online advisor education resources offered by Annuity Monitor firms. Interest was high at the conference, and we reported on the mixed results we saw among annuity firms. Outside of standouts like ING and Pacific Life, with extensive content including CE courses online, the industry as a whole had surprisingly little to offer advisors to help deal with certification, compliance and sales and investment strategies.

Now, with an updated advisor education report for Mutual Fund Monitor - Advisor, we can shed some light on how annuity and mutual fund firms compare. Annuities can be a more complicated and more heavily regulated product, so at the same time we would expect that advisors would require more educational resources while firms face more red tape in providing them. NAVA attendees would be reassured to know that annuity firms apparently aren’t that far behind.

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When opening up my email this morning, I was greeted with a promotional email from WaMu advertising their high-yield Online Savings account as a way to save money for holiday shopping. The retail industry tends to roll out the holiday merchandise earlier and earlier each year, so it’s not really shocking that banks are following the “Christmas Creep.” But with most people still not even considering their Halloween costumes yet, it seems a little too early for customers to start making a list and checking it twice.

Needless to say, this email promotion coinciding with the announcement of the firm’s acquisition by JP Morgan wasn’t exactly perfect timing. The email must have been sent automatically but in light of the recent news, now might not be the best time to remind people that the holidays are “just around the corner.” Continue Reading »

The past 10 days or so have clearly been turbulent ones for the financial services industry. Indeed, once the dust settled on an historically disastrous week for the markets, the investment banking industry as we know it had vanished, three major insurance companies were owned by the government and investor confidence had been broken seemingly beyond repair. Countless individuals were left jobless with shattered investment portfolios that were once expected to carry them into retirement.

Figuring out how to recover from this mess is the job of the policy wonks in Washington and the executive teams of the industry’s firms. Restoring trust in the markets and company brands for retail financial consumers, however, falls on the shoulders of financial marketers, product managers and corporate communications departments. A swift, convincing response is essential as firms look to preserve their client base and maintain a strong reputation that can help bring in new business. Continue Reading »

This past week brought more bad news about the financial markets in the wake of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac government takeovers, including rumors of troubled financial firms about to go under. While chatter of this sort has existed for months, with a solid mix of accurate and inaccurate rumors, this week’s most talked about institutions included Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual – though a fair amount of disquiet has fallen on every financial firm that has posted a loss in the last few quarters. Continue Reading »

I spent the yesrterday at JFAM:Live, a conference for financial marketers put together by the folks at the Journal of Financial Advertising and Marketing. During the sessions, the topic of relevancy in advertising came up. In the ad world, relevancy, which could be considered the holy grail of advertising, is about getting the right ad in front of the right person at the right time. For example, if a high-net-worth person were in the market for a new convertible and saw an ad for the BMW 325i convertible just as he were thinking about test driving a car, this ad would be very relevant, and very effective. In the world of financial services, it might be presenting an ad for a rollover IRA to a person who is a week away from retiring. Of course, doing that consistently is very, very difficult. Indeed, knowing what your target audience is thinking, when they’re thinking it and being able to act on that seems, well, Orewellian (or at least Googlian).  Continue Reading »

Online financial planning centers specialized for women are a fantastic idea – when they are integrated eloquently with useful resources. Though some firms try with only mediocre success, Citibank is one that seems to get it right with its special financial advice section for women. Citibank’s general planning center promotes a membership program called Women & Co., which offers women educational tools and resources to help them define and work towards their financial goals. Continue Reading »

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’re well aware of the fact that we’re currently working on a major syndicated research report - Social Media: Trends and Tactics in the Financial Services Industry - which we will publish this October. This comprehensive study promises to be the first industry-wide assessment of the way financial services firms use social media today.

We know from our research and from conversations with our clients that social media is slowly taking hold across all major financial services segments. That said, we’re interested in hearing directly from you about your firm’s plans in this area. With that in mind, we’d appreciate it if you would take two minutes to complete a brief survey regarding your firm’s plans in this area. To complete the survey, click here.

Your responses will help Corporate Insight to better understand your current and future social media initiatives, if any, which we think will enrich our research. Thanks in advance for your help.

For more information about the report, contact Jaclyn Silverberg at 212-832-2002 x.127 or jsilverberg [at] corporateinsight.com.

It’s been a growing trend for mutual fund advisor sites to reorganize their website content, with the goal seemingly to make for a cleaner appearance and provide streamlined access to information. When undergoing such changes, firms usually make site navigation simpler either by cutting down or moving information. Since mid-July, three firms have updated their website organization DWS, Fidelity and MFS. While Fidelity and MFS simply rearranged pre-existing content, DWS Scudder revamped their website (and name) completely. Continue Reading »

Charles Schwab recently announced that the Schwab.com client site will soon be revamped, as we reported in last week’s e-Monitor Update. The firm did more than simply make the announcement - they provided a preview of the new site, so clients and prospective clients will know what to expect.

We like the idea of knowing in advance what exactly is being improved or added. When rolling out a redesigned site, many firms will provide a tour - or at least highlights of the main features - so that clients are not completely lost when they log in and find the new site. Even those firms that do make an annoucement beforehand, most simply announce that there will be upcoming changes, without going into specifics. We have not seen many real site previews - complete with sample screenshots and explanations - ahead of time. Continue Reading »

Elements of social media - like blogs, community and groups - are fast becoming a part of many financial services websites. Firms have also begun to stake out their place on major social sites like Facebook and YouTube. This year in particular has seen several financial services firms wake up to the potential of social media. As more and more companies dive into this new territory, it’s inevitable that some will succeed in implementing a social media strategy, while many will fail to effectively engage their audience.

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