Today’s edition of Ignites (subscription required) features an interesting story about the drastic cuts that mutual fund firms are making to their online marketing efforts. This is hardly surprising in light of the current economic climate, but we think the story goes even deeper than that.

Over the years, Corporate Insight has consistently found that mutual fund companies take a more conservative approach to the Web than the industry’s leading banks, brokerages and credit card companies. Institutions in these other industries routinely re-design their customer account management platforms, adding new functionality and continually refining the user experience. They also spend a great deal on online advertising, particularly self-directed brokerage firms. Most mutual funds firms do neither, which makes us wonder what they plan to cut.

There are exceptions to this rule, of course. Last July, DWS unveiled an innovative new website, one that was based as much on the design of Apple’s iTunes store as it was on financial website best practices. This kind of innovation - and the necessary investment to support it - is rare among fund firms, unfortunately.

The industry’s conservative approach to the Web is discussed in our recent special report, Social Media: Trends and Tactics in the Financial Services Industry. Compared to annuity, bank, brokerage and credit card firms, mutual fund companies have done the least in the area of social media. As the Ignites piece suggests, this is a wasted opportunity. Tools like Really Simple Syndication make it easy and very inexpensive for firms to distribute information about themselves to a global audience. Hopefully, mutual fund firms will begin to explore these and other new social technologies in 2009 as a way to connect to new investors and serve existing customers. After all, now is not the time for financial services firms to bury their heads in the sand.