Mobile Adoption In Financial Services: Lack Of Awareness, Skepticism, Impatience

Typically, banks get all the attention in reports on mobile adoption in financial services. That’s as it should be, since mobile apps and banking transactions on the go are a perfect match. The investment management and insurance industries tend to bring up the rear. However, a Webinar this week presented research that included some interesting, segregated findings and consumer insights about each of the segments.

You can listen to “Deloitte’s Mobile Strategies in Financial Services: Barriers and Opportunities” in its entirety on demand, and download the slides. Also, there’s a related blog post by Jim Eckenrode, Executive Director, Deloitte Center for Financial Services, that provides this succinct summary of the findings: “Our research has found that mobile adoption across financial services has been a crazy quilt of equal parts unawareness, skepticism and impatience with financial services providers.” 

Below I’ve cherry-picked some of the more interesting statements about investment management and mobile. The findings are based on a survey that was conducted during the first two weeks of January and had a total sample of 2,193 respondents, about 22% of whom were from households with income above $100,000 per year. The sample was weighted to represent the broader U.S. smartphone population.

Calling The Call Center From A Smartphone

The consensus of the presenters and the Webinar attendees, as expressed in their response to a polling question, was that financial services has not leveraged the mobile device to any great extent.

While there’s a range of mobile services that banks can support, and insurance companies can offer account servicing and claim filing and tracking, the specifics in the presentation on what investment management firms offer via mobile was a bit light.

In fact, most non-brokerage investment apps today do little more than deliver content, replicating what can be found on the thought leadership sections of Websites, and product data, most of which can be found on any number of finance sites.

A throwaway comment—that 58% of call center interactions came from a smartphone—piqued my interest. Those of you who have this data from your own mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) operation may be well ahead of me.

Is device-appropriate client service where investment management mobile development could more meaningfully focus? Not to the exclusion of making content available but in addition to?

Any financial advisor or shareholder calling Client Services for help today on a smartphone as opposed to while in front of a desktop is likely having a subpar experience.

And yet Deloitte says mobile technology (including smartphones but also wearable technology and the Internet of things) has the potential to dramatically reshape customer engagement. It's possible to deliver a better experience to mobile users, taking advantage of the unique attributes of the channel.

As Eckenrode comments in his post, new technologies “are being added to the mobile platform that take advantage of its ability to know where it is, see what is around it, communicate with other local devices and connect with information sources that have yet to be deployed.” 

Today smartphones have onboard sensors that include accelerometers, compasses, cameras, microphones, pedometers, GPS, proximity and ambient light detectors, and gyroscopes. Future developments will likely include the ability to detect temperature, pressure, eye movement and gestures, location and magnetic fields, Eckenrode predicts.

Location-aware, Context-Specific

The Webinar discussion expanded on the importance of location-aware and context-specific experiences for mobile users.

I took a quick spin around some of investment firm mobile apps and note that just a few apps today (the screenshots show USAA, an exception) offer click-to-call capabilities. Actually, some Websites still lack clickable phone numbers for mobile visitors to use.

It’s apparent that we in this industry have a distance to travel to be in a position to offer smartphone-using advisors or others the video call support or mobile ad-hoc networks mentioned in the Webinar, for example. If you’re not making big plans already, this discussion will broaden your perspective on the mobile app and “mobility” in general.

The Status Quo

The Deloitte data provides a look at where we are today: Almost half of the survey respondents aren’t even sure whether their principal asset manager offers a mobile app.

In October 2013, the last time I took a comprehensive look at asset manager apps, I thought I detected a certain malaise regarding apps and app updates. Awareness, the presenters noted, is a prerequisite to adoption, user experience and ultimately engagement. We might tack on availability to the front of that list.

Also noteworthy from the research: 

• Only 23% of respondents said the ability to deal with their investment firm on a mobile device was extremely or very important. An advisor-only survey to advisors would produce different results. And, still, respondents would be reacting to just what they think might be delivered via mobile. Marketers could imagine and ultimately deliver more.
• More than half (54%) of investment management clients have concerns about data security over mobile devices. That’s less than bank clients (64%) but more than insurance clients (45%).  
• Survey respondents and the Webinar attendees agree that the creation of a more secure wifi or mobile network was the most appealing way to provide customers security reassurances. Eight out of 10 respondents also thought that a system that would automatically disable a stolen device would be reassuring as well.   

Heartbleed Bug: The Less Said, The Better?

I want to tread carefully on this. Online account security is nothing to trifle with. In all likelihood, concern over the Heartbleed security bug has seized the attention of the very highest levels of your mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) organization.

The timeliness, frequency and depth of what your firm communicates about your own and third parties’ systems’ status, including vulnerabilities and patches, is a function of your culture and of your executive management including your IT, Legal and Communications leadership.

Understood. At the same time, I’m guessing that your Sales and telephone staffs have been armed with scripts for institutional investors, financial advisors and individual investors since the hole in Internet security was revealed in late March/early April. The relationship managers who serve those constituencies no doubt demanded “something to tell them,” and they’ve received what they asked for.

Why haven’t more communications appeared on Websites and in social media account updates? Two weeks after the initial report, I’ve seen just a handful of communications. Not all are on Website home pages, and even fewer have been part of the Twitter or Facebook update streams. 

The media has been continuously warning people to change the passwords on their financial accounts and other accounts where they may have used passwords also used on financial accounts.

Two-thirds of all Websites are reportedly affected. Among fund companies specifically, no less than American Funds has disclosed that it had an issue.

In the screenshot below, you’ll see that one person asked about Heartbleed in an April 10 comment on an American Funds' Facebook update about something else. And, you’ll see the April 14 note that American Funds posted on its Website acknowledging a “very narrow of risk.” According to reports yesterday, American has emailed clients suggesting that they change their user information, password, security image and questions, and delete their browsing history and cookies.

This is unfortunate and, American Funds was obliged to communicate the risk to its clients.

If your firm hasn't already fielded calls about Heartbleed, American Funds' notification to its 800,000 mutual fund shareholders and their advisors likely will heighten concern and result in questions.

At times we've all wondered, “What do our clients really want from us?” In this instance, isn’t it predictable? Isn’t it logical to expect that clients arrived at mutual fund and ETF Websites or checked Twitter feeds looking for Heartbleed information?

Even if your firm's systems have not been compromised. Even if you don't operate a brokerage business. Even if your firm uses a third-party transfer agent for shareholder servicing and all your site does is provide a link to that site. Even if IT scoffs at the question whether the passwords to your advisor Website could have been hacked.

Your client is not likely to be making these distinctions. 

'Controlling The Message'

At one time, brands sought to control the size of the attention given to an issue by limiting what they said. That’s not available anymore, if it ever was. And, there's the false security in believing that an offline communication can remain under the radar just because it isn’t made available on the Web.

In delivering the self-publishing capabilities that enable individuals to share brands’ marketing news, Web 2.0 has also empowered individuals to share a full range of information with each other. In this space, we know that financial advisors tweet advisor-only conference calls and upload to their blogs images from restricted distribution publications, for instance. Shareholders regularly complain about firms' password protocols on Twitter.

On the subject of Heartbleed, citizen contributors to both Bogleheads.org and a Morningstar forum took it upon themselves to check some fund Websites on a Heartbleed hacker checker. One result, according to the posters’ claims, was that TIAA-CREF failed the test of its site. See this and this. In fact, according to a syndicated press release that appears on this Web page, TIAA-CREF at one point issued a statement denying online reports of Heartbleed vulnerability.

Like it or not, there is no such thing as keeping something quiet or controlling who or what is going to pass a communication or even an observation on. There is no flushing search engine results.

In your organization, nobody knows this better than Digital Marketing. Even when there’s nothing to report, say something because your clients want to hear from you and you know that the Website or your Twitter or Facebook page is where they’ll come to. A clear, adequate communication on the Web will keep the call volume under control, and will facilitate the peer-to-peer online communication already underway.

Marginalizing A Digital Presence

Less important for your clients but important to the contribution your work can make: A de facto policy that reserves Web and social communications for only what’s required (fund updates) or marketing-based (commentaries, appearances, announcements) marginalizes the potential value of having an open, 24/7 digital presence.

Every once in a while I hear from someone who asks why I haven’t adopted the term “social business” instead of “social media”—the implication being that brands have evolved beyond social media. I disagree. The pages of the calendar may have flipped, but this has yet to become a social business.  

Four years ago, I was surprised when more financial Twitter accounts didn’t use their Twitter accounts to communicate about the flash crash. But that was too early in the history of asset managers and social media, the news itself was confusing, firms weren’t ready.

Little more than a year ago, PBS ran a documentary about retirement funding and the expense of retirement plans. Most asset managers chose not to comment, despite the fact that the show consumed online commentary for a while. It was controversial and complex, and no firm was compelled to jump in the fray.

This slower developing Heartbleed issue, on which few fund firms were directly impacted apparently, was an opportunity for a firm to demonstrate the attributes of being social—transparency, accountability and authenticity among them.

The relevant, financial services-focused online conversation these last two weeks has been about Heartbleed and the security of financial assets. Others have had plenty to contribute, and more firms could have joined in, even if only in an informational/educational (change your passwords!) role.

It's strange to land on a financial site with no front-and-center acknowledgment of Heartbleed. Forgive me. But even to someone who knows better, the firm seems out of touch, at best.   

The topic is too hot right now for you the digital marketer to call the question internally and advocate for your “constituency.” But if you agree that it’s time to challenge those who believe “the less publicly said, the better,” you might start to think about what it will take to get your firm to think more expansively.   

To help you make your case, here are a few examples of firms that have communicated something. 

Fidelity Pop-up

T. Rowe Price Splash Page Violator

OppenheimerFunds Timely Topic

Vanguard Home Page News Item

A Must-Read Book For Fund Company Marketers

“Must be curious.”

If I were hiring a marketer for a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) company today, that’s the requirement that I’d lead with in a job posting.

Curiosity is what elevates the marketer from the daily grind of “making the donuts” and propels the kind of inquiry that produces above average work. For content marketing and storytelling, in particular, a marketer needs to be curious about the world around him or her.

There is a way to do fund marketing—just go to the meetings, pick up the work, turn around the work and then route it to everybody else to have the final say. Ugh.

Marketers who overcome this dynamic want to learn more, to know more and to develop a deeper understanding of how investment products are manufactured, managed, distributed and evaluated. With that knowledge as a basis, we should be better able to create and advocate for communications and marketing initiatives that better connect.

Toward Better Question-Asking

It’s never been easier for asset management marketers to learn more about the business they’re in. As I mentioned in my last post, the full ecosystem—financial advisors, wholesalers, investors, media, vendors—can be observed in real-time online.

This week, a new resource has been made available, and I wholeheartedly recommend it. Letters to a Young Analyst is a 99-page ebook by Tom Brakke, with contributions from other industry veterans.

Brakke describes himself as a consultant, writer, and investment advisor. Over his career, he has been an analyst, portfolio manager, director of research, professor, and “creator of investment products and systems for evaluating and communicating investment ideas.”

On Twitter, he is @researchpuzzler, an account (and related blog) that I consistently name when asked about favorite accounts to follow. Brakke discovers and shares relevant content that I wouldn’t stumble upon on my own. Links to his own work provide access to critical thinking on how professionals evaluate and present investment opportunities, including due diligence.

His is a different, increasingly influential voice that frequently comments on what investment managers (including their marketing efforts) are up to. It's helpful as a perspective on how your "audience" is reacting to your communications.

A few examples:

• Alts Boot Camp—Brakke calls out a Pioneer Investments chart as “an example of the superficial simplicity with which retail alternatives are being marketed.” 
• Years of Experience—Brakke says the promise of portfolio teams’ “years of experience” (a common measure used in asset manager marketing materials) is a mirage, and probably not worth giving so much emphasis to.
• A Fund Manager’s Actions Should Match the Message (on the Wall Street Journal Experts blog), in which Brakke answers the question, “What is the No. 1 warning sign for investors in a fund’s marketing material?”

Brakke’s tweets are a must-read, and if you were on my Marketing staff, you’d now be required to read his book. Marketing barely rates a mention in it, and that’s the point. Curious marketers excel by learning more about everything else, including—and maybe especially—thinking beyond what’s happening in Marketing and beyond your firm’s walls. This ebook is an antidote to the “investment guru worship" that asset management marketers can be sucked into (and then help perpetuate).

Letters to a Young Analyst contains a trove of insights. I’ve tried but I can’t extract pithy lines to illustrate its value. You have to surrender to the story—in two parts of the ebook, Brakke is coaching a young analyst over a series of several “letters.” It’s a career guide that draws on his experiences, his influences and his biases. Another part of the book includes commentary from others, also filled with gems.

Taken all together, it provides a grounding for marketers who aren’t trained in investment analysis. It's Inside Investing for those who work on a different floor than the Investments team.

A better understanding of what analysts do, and even where they’re vulnerable, can help tune your next information-gathering/content idea-harvesting encounters with your Investments teams. It wasn’t written for you but you can benefit from it.

The last part of the ebook is a compilation of relevant resources (books, publications and Websites) that I’ve never seen pulled together in one place before. Brakke gives a shout-out to a few lists I maintain, and I should say that he provided the book to me as a thank-you. I would have happily paid the $24.95. There's $5 off if you're among the first 100 purchasers using the offer code: puzzlepiece.

You can buy the ebook here. Those who purchase the book will automatically be signed up for a quarterly newsletter subscription.

5 Early Wins For Mutual Fund, ETF Companies Using Social Media

I couldn’t get enough of the coverage this week of the 25th birthday of the World Wide Web, celebrated yesterday.

Originally, this post was going to be about what the Web has done for mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) communicating, with a few reminiscences.

For example, I smiled when I read this line from the inventor of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee, on a Google post Tuesday.

Thanks to the Web, Berners-Lee wrote, “You can link to any piece of information. You don’t need to ask for permission.”

Right, I’d forgotten! In the late 1990s, wirehouse account people actually asked for permission to link (their Intranets) to mutual fund company Websites. Ah, the innocence of those early days.

Instead for today, I’ve gravitated toward something fresher and, at this point, evolving more dramatically: The effect that participation in social media is having on how fund companies communicate with their many stakeholders. Let’s date the start of this to four years ago, right about when FINRA released its Regulatory Notice 10-06 in January 2010. I can think of five early wins.

1. Communicating at a higher level than product

As an example, access to Twitter came at just the right time for asset managers willing to provide a steady stream of information about municipal bond markets.

Starting in 2010 with Northern Trust’s @Fixedology account (since renamed @NTInvest) and followed by municipal-focused @RochesterFunds, @MainStayMunis and other broader asset manager accounts, 140 characters have proved sufficient space for pithy updates about markets, issue sizes, demand, etc. all clustered around the #muni hashtag or derivations.

In the last four years, what's going on with municipal bonds has been a topic that many others, and most notably the media, vitally cared about. Twitter provided asset managers an easy entrée into a conversation they could contribute to.

The notion that muni communicators could use a different communication channel to call attention to in-house insights or even just facts was new. Until 2008 or so, it was the equity funds, their stories and their management teams that typically dominated the marketing and public relations resources. And, regardless of the asset class or the timeliness of the comment, there would have been a limit imposed on the number of communications PR would have been willing to initiate—as in, "We can't reach out to a reporter on the same topic too often."

But, a Twitter account can. I’m convinced that steady, consistent communicating served the tweeting firms in good stead when, late in 2010, Meredith Whitney predicted a municipal bond "day of reckoning."

A crisis was avoided but the accounts tweet on, as shown in this random collection of information-packed Rochester Funds tweets. Note that many #muni tweets simply impart information, don't even require the reader to click a link.

Net revenue collections for FY ’14, July – Feb, in Puerto Rico are 10.2% higher than last year. Higher revenues = positive for bondholders.

— Rochester Funds (@RochesterFunds) March 5, 2014

Meeting today with some Puerto Rico creditors in NYC. We were not invited, nor will we attend. PR wasn’t invited either.

— Rochester Funds (@RochesterFunds) January 16, 2014

We agree with @Muni_Mkt_Advisor's Robert Donahue: "Puerto Rico's leaders are showing considerable courage” h/t @TheBondBuyer

— Rochester Funds (@RochesterFunds) December 26, 2013

Look for more of this social media-enabled content leadership, as the industry educates on alternative investing in particular.

2. Better customer intelligence

Some firms have a much better understanding of the financial advisors who use their mutual funds or ETFs than they did five years ago.

Because of the benefits to them of participating on social networks, advisors have been creating profiles and sharing information—all of which savvy asset managers recognize as valuable customer intelligence. (See this 2009 post for an early perspective on the opportunity.)

When third-party data providers (like Meridian-IQ to name a current-day example) first made advisors’ AUM and production data available, that was the first step in asset managers growing their customer databases with more than just the uneven data input by the wholesaling staff. APIs available from LinkedIn and other social platforms today and CRM integrations available provide real-time, qualitative information that salespeople know how to use to advance offline conversations.

At the 1:14 mark of the following Nimble video, you'll see an example of how social account information is being added to CRMs.  

Nimble Grid View and Smart Summary of Contacts from Nimble Marketing on Vimeo.

It is the rare investment company that is mining this data today. However, many firms are doing something, even if in a low-tech way, or by just adding social CRM to their roadmaps. This will provide a competitive advantage. 

3. Better visibility for initiatives

It can be a thrill to work for a firm with millions of shareholders or investors. However, communicating with them in print usually takes too much time and is cost-prohibitive, two challenges somewhat addressed by the advent of Websites and email. But there, too, there are reasons to take a measured approach. A firm can’t communicate “too often” for fear of fatiguing its lists, and no single initiative can consume too much of the enterprise's communication resources.

Enter Facebook, an extremely accommodating environment to discuss corporate responsibility and community initiatives and to foster engagement. Check out the John Hancock Boston Marathon posts for one timely example. 

Or, consider the single-focus opportunity that a blog affords, as Putnam demonstrates with its five blogs on five niche topics: perspectives, wealth management, advisor technology tips, retirement and absolute return.  

Putnam is also giving a master class on how to use social media to extend the value and life of research findings.

Do you remember the social media research Putnam released last October? Previously, a firm might have conducted research, prepared a whitepaper, launched a microsite, issued a press release and then its news would fade from the news cycle in about a week. Because the research was right on-point for its Advisor Tech Tips blog, Putnam continues to post additional survey-based insights, which in turn prompts sharing and new attention for the research.

4. More natural exchanges

When you talk to people only periodically, there’s a tendency to be more formal and need to say more. Four times a year-reporting means that there's always going to be a lot to have to catch people up on. Updating via social media, though, can be more conversational, even natural.

For its plain-spokenness and word economy, this @Vanguard_Group tweet (which was as a Rock The Boat Marketing 2012 content highlight) continues to be one of my all-time favorite asset manager communications.

Our Advisors app for iPad product comparison tool was too slow. We fixed it. Try it now. http://t.co/Ltoduy5r

— Vanguard | Advisors (@Vanguard_FA) November 17, 2012

We all know how this would have been approached in every other medium—a lot of background information, a mumbo-jumbo quote and a description of the app’s new capabilities. It’s hard to imagine a Web page with just these three sentences on it. The best fund companies on Twitter are keeping it real. (Also, see 2013: Time To Show Some Personality (And All That Implies).)

Theoretically, there’s no better way to project naturalness than to sit in front of a video camera and talk. Except that over the years, investment professionals and the perfectionist marketers who work with them have developed a lot of good habits that could use some relaxing to truly succeed on YouTube.

Here again, the Vanguard channel is blazing a trail toward less stilted presentations. Check out their first Google Hangout from December. There are a few rough spots but the fresh, uncanned approach has a contemporary appeal.

Vanguard, one of the first whose blogs allowed comments, is also one of the first money managers to allow Discussion on YouTube. It's inevitable: Through its interactions on Facebook, Twitter and in comments elsewhere, this business will get the knack of responding to investors and others in public.

5. Developing a fuller sense of the ecosystem

In pre-social media days, the enlightened asset managers acknowledged that their business was influenced by people not defined by AUM and sales. Hence, the gatekeeper-type field in a CRM.

But paying attention to social media conversations and interactions surfaces others—industry leaders, investment bloggers and service providers and vendors, also with no production data next to their names. These are influencers that those of us in marketing would have had no awareness of 10 years ago.

Let’s take the example of Cate Long on Twitter, writer of Reuters’ Muniland blog and very influential on the #munis subject with journalists among her top followers. She regularly tweets asset manager (and others') #munis tweets. Of course, she’s in PR’s Contact list, but marketers watching the #munis hashtag know about her, too.

This awareness should be institutionalized—if Long were to sign up for an email newsletter or call in on the 800-number, she should be recognized as someone other than a "non-advisor" in the enterprise CRM.

See where this is going? It’s silo-busting and calls for added collaboration across functions.

A systematic understanding of social networks, as some early adopting firms are starting to develop today, can lead to a fuller sense of the thinking influencing the users of investment products, and result in proactive communicating and marketing.

In what other ways do you see the business being changed by social media? Please add your thoughts below.

State Street Uses TED Talks To Showcase Employee Ideas

Most of us could not try this at home. Nonetheless, it's wonderful to learn about how State Street committed the resources to organize its own TED event for its employees.

TED@StateStreet is the mash-up of two powerful brands—TED being the brand for “riveting talks for remarkable people” and State Street being the institutional investment firm rarely if ever described as riveting.

Following a TED format, 13 State Street employees “told their own stories of innovation, triumph and driving transformation” at an employee event held in November 2013. Those talks, on a range of topics, can now be seen here.

According to State Street’s page on TED.com, “Everyone knows that the challenges in our world of finance are considerable. But if we as an industry get the next chapter right, so too are the opportunities … for our clients, for society in general and for us. New thinking in finance will require change from within and fresh perspectives.”

That new thinking is needed in finance is not a new idea. TED@StateStreet seems to be a vote of confidence from State Street that new thinking could come from within its own walls.

Response 'Through The Roof'

The TED.com partner page went live in January. But more information and color is available from a Forbes interview with Executive VP and Head of Global Marketing Hannah Grove, published last week. (The image below is just a screenshot to click on. Forbes doesn't allow embedding.)

State Street is just one of three corporations who so far have participated in the TED Institute, the professional development arm of TED. Boston Consulting Group and Intel are the others.  

At about 4:30 in the video, you’ll hear Grove explain how the program came together. More than 200 of State Street’s 30,000 employees applied to present a talk. The TED team, not State Street, selected the speakers and, according to this Businessweek article, provided coaching. The speakers range in seniority from an associate to Alison Quirk, State Street’s chief human resources and citizenship officer.

Grove is especially tickled that four of the State Street talks have been added to TED.com. One presentation is by Joe Kowan, a graphic designer on her staff speaking about his stage fright. Watch it not just to hear what Kowan has to say but to also see some shots of the State Street crowd looking more genuine than most TED Talks audiences. 

Response to the State Street program have been “through the roof,” both externally including from clients and internally, according to Grove. 

“It felt like we started a movement,” Grove says. “Our employees have such great ideas, and to sort of bottle that up, we’ll definitely do it again.”

Maybe not under the auspices of TED and maybe not for a public audience but would an employee talent show—which is essentially what this is—be so out of the question for other firms?

Social Media Strategy

Bonus: At 9:30 in the Forbes interview, Grove discusses the “safety-first” direction of State Street’s social media strategy. And, she brags that the firm was the first business-to-business firm to use Vine. 

Below is a Vine the firm created to promote TED@StateStreet.