Firms that are looking for the blueprint on how to create an informative and focused product video should look no further than Prudential’s new HD Lifetime 6 Plus video. Available on the firm’s publicly accessible Retirement Red Zone page, the HD Lifetime 6 Plus video explains the inner-workings of the HD benefit rider that targets investors in the “Red Zone”, or critical years immediately before and following retirement. Firms have long been utilizing web demos to highlight new product releases; however, Prudential’s new video offers a wealth of basic product information on a visually enticing platform, without getting too complicated. The result is a video that is useful to both advisors and clients alike.

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In this week’s Advisor Monitor Update (Corporate Insight subscription required), we reviewed Lord Abbett’s new advisor website. As we mentioned, the site revamp upgrades the site’s overall appearance, offers far more content and increases its usability with more clearly labeled tabs.  It’s a good overall change, and the advisor homepage provides some good examples of best practices. In fact, there are five things we like about the new homepage:

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BlackRock added a 529 plan section to the Products tab. The new CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan section is divided into three education tabs, similar in design to the firm’s Retirement Plan Solutions tab. The three tabs – Overview, Investment Options and Getting Started – consist of downloadable resources, forms and a new Morningstar College Savings tool. The new section emphasizes the need for parents to establish a 529 Plan and markets a number of different 529 Plan strategies offered by the firm.

This is a good addition by Blackrock and reduces the number of firms that we track in Mutual Fund Monitor Advisor without 529 plans to three: Evergreen, Federated, and iShares.

If you are interested in learning more on 529 Plan Kits, click here to read an abstract of a May 2008 Mutual Fund -Advisor Report.

Recently, I’ve noticed that a lot of consultants seem to be hosting webinars to help financial advisors understand how to leverage social communities like Twitter and Linked-In to build their businesses. While these webinars might be useful to those who are new to social media, most address only the most basic aspects of these different platforms. Many gloss over the regulatory risk inherent to these tools. I found this somewhat disturbing since many of the financial institutions we’re in contact with have cited FINRA rules as a barrier, if not the barrier, to their adoption of a social media strategy.

On Sunday, Investment News published an interesting article entitled, “A Warning Before You Twitter,” addressing the compliance issues advisors face when participating on these sites. Reiterating many of the same concerns we’ve heard from our clients, the article suggests that, while it may be possible for advisors to use these tools in a responsible and legal fashion, pre-approval requirements make spontaneous communication difficult, which detracts from the value of participation.

That’s not to say that financial institutions can’t benefit from social media - hardly; we presented several success stories in our Social Media report recently. Still, firms must tread carefully, considering the compliance implications every step of the way as they develop and implement their social media strategy. Industry consultants and the firms they serve cannot turn a blind eye to these issues.

Advisors have long relied on mutual fund firms for tools and materials to help them sell products and services to investors. Who guides these financial institutions through developing resources that advisors truly value? Dow Jones provided some answers with a webinar entitled Winning the Allegiance of Top Financial Advisors for behind-the-scenes executives. Continue Reading »

Mutual fund firms frequently encourage advisors to segment their clients into groups based on assets,  and personalities. This technique serves as a first step to helping advisors find the right approach to handling investor types, as well as a reminder for advisors to spend the most time working with their top clients. While client segmentation is a sound back-office method, it isn’t very often that firms develop interactive tools to walk advisors through the process.

Oppenheimer broke the mold with their recent launch of a tool entitled Understanding Your Clients, this user-friendly tool can be found on the firm’s new advisor-only sitelet The Art of the Client Review. Continue Reading »

DWS Scudder recently completed their transition to DWS Investments by unveiling a sleek new advisor site, www.dws-investments.com. The site makes extensive use of dynamic Flash animation, while adhering to an efficiency theory (as described by the firm) in which 95% of content should be accessible in two mouse clicks or less.

DWS is the first in our Mutual Fund - Advisor coverage group to offer a full site design that includes a high degree of customzability and incorporates Web 2.0 elements. The site offers a unique drag-and-drop Favorites tool alongside a PDF Builder. This lets advisors collect, combine and create documents with client-ready product information and commentary. As the pace of Internet technology quickens, users increasingly expect to be able to accomplish nearly everything without leaving a site’s homepage; DWS makes impressive headway in affording advisors this luxury. Continue Reading »

In a recent Mutual Fund Monitor – Advisor Report, we explored the methods firms are employing to help advisors build their business. Overall, the limited creativity with which firms addressed the issues was discouraging. While a few offered in-person workshops, most offered only shallow resources, such as referral ideas or client meeting tips. All hope is not lost, however. Continue Reading »

We recently received an email (sent to financial advisors) from AXA Distributors requesting that we complete a 15-minute online survey focusing on our experiences with AXADistributors.com, the firm’s advisor website. The email states that the goal of the survey is to determine areas in which the firm can improve the website in the future. A link to the survey is provided followed by simple access instructions.

The survey is lengthy, consisting of 39 questions and in our experience takes closer to 20 minutes to complete. Both multiple-choice and text-response questions are asked with a focus on website usage and new site features. For their troubles, advisors who submitted the survey in full before May 30th were rewarded with a five dollar Starbucks gift card.

In our experience completing the survey, we were a bit put off by the seemingly endless amount of questions asked as well as the detail required to answer in some cases. Next time AXA sends out a survey, we think many advisors would gladly pay for their own cup of joe rather than participate in this drawn out survey.

To check out a copy of the actual email (PDF) click here.

With more people accessing the Internet via hand-held devices, website developers are being challenged to create online environments that are compatible with a wide range of hardware, from cell phones to widescreen monitors. A recent Business Week technology article highlights the problems this may cause for companies like Google. The search engine giant and other firms that generate revenue from ads must address the fact that there is less ad inventory available on the small screens of hand-held devices.

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