Category Archives: Industry Expertise

Affluent Investors: Big Emotions and Purchase Intent

Posted on by
Reply

Insights Powered by Cogent Reports™    

Ready-to-act Investors Reacted to Positive Market Environment in Q3 2018

No one appreciates being told that they “are overreacting,” especially in the midst of expressing a big emotion. On the contrary, having one’s feelings heard and validated serves as a powerful response and creates opportunity for further engagement, a valuable lesson for distributors and product providers to keep in mind.

Q3 began amid ongoing trade disputes between the US and its trading partners and news of the economy having grown 4.2% during the previous quarter, fueled by a strong labor market. Economic growth helped spark investor optimism, along with hope and confidence in the investing environment. By some accounts, the current US equity bull market earned the longest tenure in history this past summer, boosting consumer confidence to an 18-year high. The third quarter finished with the large-cap S&P 500 index turning in its best quarterly performance in nearly five years. Despite a 0.25% increase in interest rates in September, affluent investor sentiment remained consistent from June through the end of the quarter. Continue reading →

The Financial and Emotional Upside of Marketing to Caregivers

Posted on by
Reply

The Financial and Emotional Upside of Marketing to CaregiversHealthcare marketers may be talking to the people who use their products—but are they talking to the people who buy their products? It’s an important distinction, and in many cases, these two stakeholders may not be the same.

In a recent self-funded study, the healthcare research team at Market Strategies International-Morpace honed in on how caregivers interact with healthcare services and products in relation to the loved one they care for. The results are striking in their implications for healthcare marketers. Nearly one-third (29%) of the adult population is responsible for caring for another adult with a debilitating medical condition. Of this group, 52% buy over the counter (OTC) medications for their loved one and in many cases without their loved one’s input—which begs the question, why aren’t more healthcare marketers actively trying to connect with caregivers?

Role in Deciding Which OTC Medication to Buy Continue reading →

Financial Planning Games: Financial Advisors Compete Head-to-head with Planning Websites

Posted on by
Reply

Insights Powered by Cogent Reports™    

My firm’s CEO, Melissa Sauter, lives by the motto, “fail to plan, plan to fail,” and encourages her employees to do so as well. Based on life’s often harsh lessons around preparation, “fail to plan, plan to fail” seems to resonate with most people, including affluent investors, as more than half (58%) report having a financial plan and another one in five (19%) is currently working on one.

However, 17% of investors with at least $100,000 in investable assets admit to not having started to make a financial plan, including about one in five investors ages 54 to 62, arguably beyond the ideal time to already have a financial plan in place.

Financial planning is the act of creating a plan where you establish a set of goals in your life and figure out how much money it will take to achieve them. This involves saving money, investing, and getting insurance to protect you and your loved ones. It also includes having legal documents created in the event of an emergency so that your family is prepared.

Continue reading →

How to Optimize Go-to-market Strategies Quickly and Efficiently

Posted on by
Reply

Lessons from the Consumer Packaged Goods Industry

How to Optimize Go-to-market Strategies Quickly and EfficientlyThe telecom industry has always been innovative, but the innovation has been mostly incremental. Over the past century, we had telegraphs, then wired telephones, then wireless phones, then cell phones, and now we have smartphones. Up until the smartphone, the iterations were not fully reimagined products, just significant improvements on the existing products of the era. Today, we have high-speed internet and smartphones that put most of our communication and entertainment literally at our fingertips. Never has the telecom industry had to reinvent itself to the extent that it does today.

Telecom companies are now essentially media companies, not phone and internet companies. To accommodate all of these changes and to rapidly adapt, telecoms are engaging in an unprecedented number of mergers and acquisitions. A combination of these factors means telecoms need to constantly rethink their products and positioning. They also have to build and market new products—and they have to do it quickly. Continue reading →

My Mom, a Caregiver: Portrait of an Overlooked Hero

Posted on by
Reply

How the Healthcare Industry Is Failing 29% of the US Population  
My Mom-a Caregiver-Portrait of a Hidden Hero

If you’re like me, you have firsthand experience watching someone you love care for the health of another person. I watched my mother care for her husband of 50 years, who battled cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Every day for nearly 12 years she made sure he was eating right, taking his medications, attending health-related appointments, and purchasing the healthcare products he needed for the day-to-day management of his conditions.

Like many caregivers, my mother was also caring for another family member at the same time. Her father needed help as he dealt with a variety of ailments as he slid into his 90s, and she had to make sure he was getting proper nutrition, accessing wound care, keeping his body active and mobile, and addressing his vision issues. Additionally, while she cared for the two men who meant the world to her, she managed to work part-time and maintain relationships with the rest of her family and friends. She is the matriarch of our family and appeared to handle the stress effortlessly. However, I recently discovered after a heart-felt conversation with her that it was not as effortless as she made it appear. Continue reading →

Common Traps of Top-performing Customer Experience Programs

Posted on by
Reply

Common Traps of Top Performing Customer Experience Programs

You’ve achieved your customer experience (CX) goals! Congratulations! … Now what?

When our clients’ organizations commit to their CX measurement goals (CSAT, NPS), internalize the key drivers of performance improvement and integrate them with operational priorities, they often succeed in hitting their CX outcome measure goals.

While this is always good news, it can create new challenges—“happy problems,” as we’re told to see them. Here are some common CX program traps to avoid after you hit your CX goals: Continue reading →

Investing Is Not a “One Emotion” Sport

Posted on by
Reply

Insights Powered by Cogent Reports™    

Pre-retirees Express Uncertainty and Hope in Q2 2018

Most parents can attest that raising children is not a “one emotion” sport. The anticipation and joy of witnessing a child reach a milestone like starting kindergarten is often combined with feelings of sadness over the completion the toddler years. The same phenomenon occurs with investing. More often than not, investors report a mix of sometimes conflicting emotions

Global consternation over trade between the US and China coupled with tensions between the US and Russia caused a bumpy start to the second quarter of 2018, instilling feelings of uncertainty and anxiety among affluent investors. Sentiment shifted more toward hope and optimism in May with positive news about the lowest unemployment rate in 18 years and strong Q1 earnings. However, news of the Federal Reserve raising rates and the pace of US GDP growth being the slowest since 2013 overshadowed a more than 3% gain from the S&P 500 for the quarter, to which investors reacted with a mix of uncertainty and hope.

Continue reading →

Building Effective Apps and Websites for Advisors

Posted on by
Reply

Insights Powered by Cogent Reports™    

Digital tools like apps and websites are increasingly important for asset managers to incorporate and enhance within their overall advisor marketing and engagement efforts. In fact, recent quantitative data gathered by Cogent Reports have found that mobile apps generate a 47% lift in advisor consideration, with websites trailing closely at 46%. While our quant data looked at the impact of mobile apps and websites, we used qualitative techniques to uncover what providers can do to ensure their mobile apps and websites are engaging advisors and providing a consideration boost.

Digital technology is interwoven across all types of advisory tasks from client relationship management, communication, investment research and news consumption to portfolio construction, risk management and asset allocation. Advisors are seeking new technologies to streamline processes and make the dissemination of information easier. So what do advisors want when they’re using these digital tools?

Mobile Apps

While investment news and financial apps are surging in popularity among advisors and are primarily valued for news notifications, asset manager apps are gaining traction for different purposes. Advisors consider these apps valuable for staying on top of product information and accessing client information on the fly. Continue reading →

DC Plan Advisors Are Leveling Up

Posted on by
Reply

Insights Powered by Cogent Reports™    

The defined contribution (DC) plan market is increasingly dynamic with a variety of industry forces and innovations at play, and so, too, is the makeup of the DC advisor population. Findings from our newly released Retirement Plan Advisor Trends™ report reveal important changes in the profile of financial advisors who are active in the DC space, affecting the business relationships these advisors have with plan providers and investment managers.

On the surface, the DC advisor population looks stable, with two-thirds of financial advisors (65%) continuing to oversee DC plan assets. However, DC “dabblers” appear to be backing away from the complexities of servicing the DC market. Today more than nine in ten (93%) Emerging DC advisors—those managing less than $10M in DC assets—report less than one-quarter of their total AUM is comprised of DC business: a significantly greater proportion than in 2016 (88%) and 2017 (86%). Continue reading →

Three Things Utilities Can Do to Delight Their Customers

Posted on by
Reply

Insights Powered by Cogent Reports™   

Three Things Utilities Can Do to Delight Their CustomersThis article is not about building the fundamentals for strong customer engagement: operational excellence, a strong brand and value-added product offerings. Instead, it’s about the moments that catch customers off guard—in a good way—and how utilities can intentionally create those moments in their customer interactions. These moments help support a solid customer experience strategy, and more importantly, help create advocates, as customers share with friends and family, “you won’t believe what my utility company did!”

1. Invite new customers into a relationship

My colleague Chris Oberle, senior vice president of the Energy Research and Consulting group at Market Strategies International, has written about the missed opportunity for customer onboarding. Two years later, only 8% of customers new to their utility recall receiving any sort of welcome or onboarding material. Continue reading →