As the landscape and regulatory environment around environmental, social and governance (ESG) continues to evolve, the question marketers of financial investments must answer is not if they need to factor ESG into their products and messaging, but how to do it. Whatever approach you take, it needs to be accurate and credible if you want to deliver a convincing story to your stakeholders to assure them you understand ESG and are taking it seriously. That was a key takeaway from the Gramercy Institute’s 2022 ESG Marketing & Communications Awards in New York this past June.

New risks and new opportunities

The shift to ESG has created fresh opportunities for investment marketers, but it has also introduced new risks. The lack of common ground between how different regulatory bodies measure ESG and set benchmarks are some of the biggest challenges marketers need to overcome. Despite the ambiguities around some of these core elements, misleading stakeholders by making an investment sound more environmentally friendly than it actually is could be construed as “greenwashing,” which will quickly attract the ire of regulators and erode the trust of key stakeholders.  

At the Gramercy event, there was broad consensus that financial marketers need to take more time to understand what story they are trying to tell around ESG and why it matters, rather than using ESG as a marketing tactic.

Even amid the market uncertainty sparked by high inflation and rising geopolitical tensions, ESG isn’t about to fade from the conversation. Investors are concerned about returns, but, as many event panelists pointed out, ESG has become an important part of risk analysis and the due diligence process, even if it isn’t core to a strategy.

ESG is HTS (here to stay)

Institutional investors and other sophisticated allocators are increasingly asking ESG-related questions about non-ESG-labeled strategies. Measurement will be critical. Firms will be held accountable for measuring their progress to back up their messaging.

The best advice we can offer is to be authentic. Unlike the famous story of a large home improvement retailer that stocked its shelves with empty boxes in its early days to create the illusion they had lots of merchandise, fake-it-till-you-make-it won’t fly when it comes to marketing ESG.

Having supported a number of multinational financial firms with their ESG messaging, we can attest to this. How you message ESG can reveal a lot about how much an organization understands this issue. And never underestimate your audiences and stakeholders.

If you don’t have any ESG metrics you’re striving to achieve, don’t claim you do. It’s better to say you are developing your ESG strategy to set clear goals and benchmarks to track your progress than to get caught exaggerating your progress on the ESG front.

Don’t go it alone

As we noted in Five ESG trends every marketer should know, strong ESG reporting can offer an important competitive advantage in addition to being a powerful tool to mitigate reputational risk.

Just remember the golden rule of ESG marketing: If you want your messaging to be successful, it has to be authentic.

Looking for support in refining your ESG messaging? Ext. has the expertise you need. Contact us today at 1.844.243.1830 or info@ext-marketing.com.

“Set it and forget it” is a thing of the past for financial marketers. Market volatility is spurring the need for more investor education, mounting investor demand is challenging marketers to create new and better environmental, social and governance (ESG) materials, and there’s a growing imperative for your messaging to be aligned with corporate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts. The list goes on.

It’s no surprise that what once was considered an “evergreen” marketing mix is no longer as timeless as it once seemed. That’s why it’s important to audit your marketing content to ensure your messaging is aligned with your strategic marketing goals. If anything is off-kilter, it can compromise your brand story and put your hard-earned brand equity at risk.

Whether you are analyzing your marketing materials to identify stale messages, pinpointing gaps in your sales funnel, revising outdated figures or taking your marketing initiatives in a more digital direction, this five-step process will help you optimize your marketing and sales efforts.

Step 1: Analyze your marketing materials in relation to your priorities

Instead of a reactive approach to updating your materials, we recommend you be proactive to ensure your current marketing aligns with your firm’s strategic goals. Ask yourself what you want your marketing materials to achieve. Are there any risks or gaps? Have your goals evolved, and are your marketing materials keeping pace? The answers to such questions will likely be multi-faceted, so you will need an approach that takes a look at your key priorities and examines your marketing ecosystem through those diverse lenses. Here are examples of goals to guide your marketing audit:

• “We want our marketing materials to be on-message.”
• “We want to lower our marketing costs by amplifying our existing marketing materials.”
• “We want our language to reflect our ESG and DEI policies.”
• “We want our communications to be free of gender bias.”
• “We want to produce targeted materials that support our sales funnel.”

Step 2: Create a content map

Now that you’ve clearly defined your goals, it’s time to categorize, prioritize and map your marketing materials to identify opportunities, risks and gaps.

Start by using the goals you defined in Step 1 to determine how you prioritize your marketing efforts. You can group materials by client journey, theme, product or campaign. For example, if your goal is to target a specific demographic segment, such as Millennials or Gen Z, you could create a list of all the materials that apply to this segment and take stock of the touch points and assets you could use to communicate with them.

You might find that you have lots of content targeted at generating leads and awareness, but you need to fine-tune the messaging and value proposition on your website to drive conversions.

Step 3: Think digital first

While recent events have accelerated the transition away from print materials to digital assets, you may still have a library of strong materials that are only available in hard copy. And there’s an even better chance that your firm wants to take many of them in new digital directions. You can use a matrix or client journey map to help you identify where high-performing materials can be leveraged across all mediums. Digital is no longer an afterthought, because in many cases that’s how your audiences are accustomed to interreacting with your brand.

Over 50% of consumers believe that online experiences will be more important than in-person experiences.¹ All the more reason to ensure your digital experience is on point. You likely have a wealth of marketing content that can be repurposed and optimized to create engaging and sharable infographics, videos, microsites and blogs.

Step 4: Line up your resources

Is your team big enough and scalable enough to handle the updates and fill in the gaps that you identified? Are there any talent or capacity gaps? If the thought of auditing or updating your marketing strategy and materials seems daunting, think about hiring a marketing and content partner who can help create a strategy and optimize your content. For best results, look for a partner that knows what resonates with key audiences in the financial services ecosystem. It’s important they understand how to produce desired outcomes that align with your business objectives – whether that’s reinforcing your brand, driving conversions, retaining clients or all of the above.

If you need additional resources, make sure that your content partner has the product and industry knowledge to complement and round out your team. Culture, collaboration and fit are key to a productive partner relationship.

Step 5: Execute, test and optimize

Now that you know what marketing materials you have and which ones you want to refresh, retire, optimize or create from the ground up, it’s time for your writers, designers and developers to get to work. Develop a strategic project plan that allows you to prioritize your marketing initiatives. That can help you think ahead, budget wisely and make large projects more manageable. It’s no longer a set-it-and-forget-it world. You’ll want to allow room in your budget for A/B testing so that you can course-correct and make micro-adjustments to ensure your content is performing at its best.

Next steps

Is your marketing strategy positioned to withstand the forces of change? Following the five steps above will help make sure your marketing plan is resilient and moves in lockstep as your markets, consumers, stakeholders and corporate guidelines evolve. The result? A marketing department with perennial value-add.

Ready to audit your marketing strategy? Ext. has the expertise you need. Contact us today at 1.844.243.1830 or info@ext-marketing.com.

¹The Digital Consumer Appnovation Research Report

Have you started planning your summer marketing campaign? If not, time is running out.

Banking and investing used to slow down in the summer, but times have changed. Savers, investors and borrowers don’t just stop dealing with financial issues for two months. Their phones are always within reach, and they check on how their finances are doing. We know because we all do too.

In our digitally connected world, it’s dangerous to disappear over the summer. Your clients and prospects keep living and experiencing challenges; you have to move with them, so they don’t move away from you.

Here are a few ideas on why (and how) you should run a summer campaign.

1. Our digitally connected world never sleeps

The traditional seasons of investing, such as retirement savings season, are fading as we move into a 24/7/365 world in financial services. Contribution deadlines are still important, but investors are becoming more sophisticated and understand the value of investing year-round. Summer months, which were once thought of as times to disengage, have grown into a time when people now actively check their social media platforms for updates, meaning they are now great times to market to clients and prospects.

But engaging investors in the summer requires a different approach. Investors may be more likely to be away from their desks, but they’re always online. As such, consider mobile-first campaigns. Catch them when they’re out and about and taking a quick look at their phones.

2. Planning conversations happen during the summer

When people are enjoying the late evening on their deck or dock, they tend to slip into conversations about the future. And financial issues are definitely top of mind.

At the risk of repeating ourselves: people do not take two-month vacations from their finances. They may go away for a week or two. That’s why we think you should plan to run a marketing campaign for most of the summer. This will help you grab the attention of as many people as possible.

3. Keep it light, like a sunny day

People might have more headspace to talk about their plans during the summer, but you have to read the room. Don’t hit people with messages that are overly challenging. You want to make them feel easy, even fun.

The good news here: creating an engaging campaign will be more fun for you too! Choose a topic that lends itself well to positive, life-focused messages, and could spur many other wealth planning conversations.

While we hope you enjoy some downtime this summer, make sure that your marketing efforts don’t!

Start planning your summer campaign today! Contact us at 1.844.243.1830 or info@ext-marketing.com.

We have learned many marketing lessons during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are four key strategies that are likely to remain.  

1. Social distancing … is the new norm

Work from home, shop from home, do pretty much everything from home. It is a pre-pandemic trend that accelerated dramatically during lockdowns. Are we all more introverted than we thought? Whatever the case, we’ve become more comfortable with digital life. Not only digital shopping but attending virtual meetings and online conferences, taking continuing education courses, working from home – you name it. Doing it online has become the new norm.          

Clients have become accustomed to the time and location freedom provided by online transactions. So, keep developing tools that ease digital communication. Also, leverage customer relationship management (CRM) technology to obtain good digital intel on your contacts, as you may have fewer opportunities for in-person face time in the future.

2. Temperature checks … for your clients

We’re not talking about taking the temperature of your clients’ foreheads. We’re suggesting you take the “temperature” of your clients with surveys and conversations.

As business moves online, what you lose in face time you can more than make up for with “digital” time. By leveraging email, social media, webinars and virtual meetings, you can more efficiently manage your day.

You can survey clients formally via digital survey tools or informally during meetings by simply asking them what they want.

Surveys can address broad issues such as client satisfaction or target more specific areas of your business. It’s also valuable to capture information shared in informal conversations. These talks can sometimes bring nuance or a different answer than surveys alone. The insights you glean can help you develop an updated, or more highly refined, marketing strategy.

3. Clean and disinfect … your marketing strategy

To remain successful, marketing teams had to re-examine their marketing strategies in 2020 and 2021. While stressful and time consuming, most firms benefited from the changes. Some even reimagined or refined who they are.

Events weren’t cancelled, they went online. Print materials went digital. Digital became more interactive. Marketing teams became more selective about where, when and how they advertised.

Read more on B2B marketing trends.

4. Monitor your health … your marketing health that is

Going digital makes everything trackable. That’s not news. But it’s vital to embrace it like you will embrace your friends when lockdowns end.

Track data and use Google analytics to measure interest and key performance indicators. And then measure your success.

Having data at your fingertips will help you identify what’s working and what’s not, and adjust your plans accordingly. Most importantly, you can see when something is going right and lean into that success going forward.

Looking to take your marketing out of a creative lockdown? Ext. Marketing has the expertise you need. Contact us today at info@ext-marketing.com or 1.844.243.1830.

There are few times when we are as eager to set goals for ourselves as we are the start of a new year. Psychology Today suggests the key to sticking with your resolutions requires a shift in mindset. It’s not enough to set a goal; you also need to develop a thoughtful plan that considers how you might respond to potential pitfalls.

Resolutions that stretch your abilities are great, but they must be realistic. Having someone in your corner is vital. This support can help keep you motivated and offer fresh perspectives on how you can achieve your goal.

Here are five New Year’s marketing resolutions that’ll help you get better results:

1. Understand the why before diving in
When work is piling up, take a moment to reflect and wrap your head around the purpose and outcome you are hoping to achieve. It’s natural to develop new and exciting marketing ideas as you work through a project. As tempting as it may be to integrate those ideas into the work that’s already underway, consider saving those ideas for later. Not only will this help keep your current project on track and on budget, but it gives you an opportunity to build off the momentum of getting a successful project into market.

2. Adopt a storytelling mindset
Always keep in mind who your audience is and look for opportunities to incorporate storytelling into your marketing. It’s always better to “show” the value of your brand rather than “tell” people why it is so great. Marketing professor and bestselling author, Jonah Berger, puts it this way: “When people put their kids to sleep, nobody tells bedtime facts.”

3. Make white space your friend
You have so much thoughtful information to share with your audience that you feel compelled to put it all on the page. Resist this urge. Your audience will skip over copy-dense pages. Keep what’s most important. Lighter pages are easier to process, making it more likely they will retain your message.

4. The five-second rule
By some estimates, the average user spends no more than 5.59 seconds on a site’s written content and about 5.94 seconds on a site’s main image.¹ The key to developing great website content is to say more with less. Make sure your readers can skim the page to find what they want quickly and easily – whether they are on desktop or mobile.

5. Test and learn
No matter how confident you may be that you have created an engaging marketing campaign, the only way to know for sure is to track results. Continuous testing and refining of your messaging can drive more leads. In the case of online content, consider A/B testing by splitting your audience into two (or more) groups and serve a different version of your campaign to each group. Once you determine which version is performing best, you focus on that one and pull the others down.

Just as the key to enjoying life is moderation, successful marketing requires a thoughtful and measured approach. Following these five resolutions can help create a better marketing experience and deliver incredible results.

Cheers to a healthy and prosperous 2022!

Looking for support in getting your message out in 2022? Ext. has the expertise you need. Contact us today at 1.844.243.1830 or info@ext-marketing.com.

¹Laja, Peep, “10 useful findings about how people view websites,” CXL (Viewed on Dec. 30, 2021) https://cxl.com/blog/10-useful-findings-about-how-people-view-websites

What better gift can you give a young person than a contribution to their future education? It’s a simple message – but a powerful one. It was also one of the core themes of last month’s 529 Conference, attended by Ext.’s CEO, Jillian Bannister and Ira Berg, Ext.’s Managing Director, U.S.   

The annual conference focuses on the ever-evolving 529 education savings plan market. The conference was a rich source of updates on recent U.S. federal legislative developments, along with insights and ideas on how to support the successful marketing of 529 and ABLE accounts (tax advantaged savings accounts for individuals with disabilities).  

The discourse was of great interest to the Ext. team due to the marketing strategy and campaign work we help asset managers and advisors undertake with their 529s in the United States and RESPs in Canada. We came away with the following key insights.

Lingering misconceptions: an opportunity to educate

There are many misconceptions about 529 plans that marketers need to address. Many forget that 529s are not just for college – they’ve been adjusted to accommodate apprenticeship expenses and, since 2019 SECURE Act, was passed they can even be used to pay down student loans. The Tax Cuts for Jobs Act (TCJA) also paved the way for 529s to cover grades K through 12 tuition (in eligible states). Given the volume of change in recent years, we often advise our clients to consolidate a list of myths and dispel them. It’s an opportunity for investment professionals to showcase the flexibility of this education savings vehicle and how it can help meet diverse financial goals.

What’s new: 529s will no longer impact financial aid

In the past, one of the major concerns about 529 plans was the impact they had on whether a student could qualify for federal financial aid. But planned revisions to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) are about to change that. SavingForCollege.com reports that as of the 2024-25 school year, applicants will no longer be required to disclose cash support (which is currently counted as untaxed student income). This is great news for contributors and a key issue that can be included when educating investors. Grandparents and others can now feel confident knowing the additional support they’re providing won’t detract from a student’s need-based financial aid package. This is another great educational opportunity as clients may wish to revise their strategy based on this important development.

Expanding market: 529 plan and ABLE account assets continue to rise

The 529 and ABLE plan markets represent a huge opportunity for the industry in terms of tax, financial and estate planning. Stats shared at the conference, as part of its 3Q 2021 529 and ABLE Market Sizing Highlights report, confirmed the ever-growing amount of money being drawn out of these plans to help fund education. The report says: “Estimated 529 savings plan net outflows were $3.9 billion in 3Q 2021 compared to net outflows of $3.6 billion in 3Q 2020 and $3.9 billion in 3Q 2019.” It also points out that there is a missed opportunity when it comes to ABLE accounts. Only $937 million was invested in ABLE accounts in 3Q 2021, yet the Centers for Disease Control reports that 61 million adults in the U.S. live with a disability. Learn more about the value of ABLE accounts.

Growing your business: 529s can be just the beginning

It may not seem like much but offering to manage a 529 plan on behalf of a parent or grandparent can be a great first step towards providing them with more holistic wealth management, including estate planning. Helping a young couple save for their new baby can be an opportunity to grow relationships and achieve stickier assets.

With the holiday season upon us and the new year fast approaching, now is a perfect time to promote the advantages of both these plans. Plus, explaining their tax advantages may open the door to a wider discussion on investing and life goals.  

We can help you get an A+ on your 529 marketing

Looking for support in refining your 529 plan or RESP marketing? We have education savings strategies that can sustain your client conversations throughout the year. Contact us today at 1.844.243.1830 or info@ext-marketing.com.

The financial technology (“fintech”) industry has been growing at a breakneck pace. In such a competitive space, getting noticed as a start-up can be tricky. Here are three key ways to help you stand out from the crowd.

1. Define your value proposition

Think about it, write it down, revise it. Repeat. You understand what your company does and how it makes your clients’ lives easier, but can you distill all that down into a single, easy-to-understand sentence?

Putting the value proposition right into your tagline can help potential clients understand what you do immediately. For example, Wealthsimple uses, “Do money right: Powerful financial tools to help you grow and manage your money.” Shopify uses, “The platform commerce is built on.”

A strong pitch serves as the entrée for a longer, more detailed conversation about the benefits of your products and services. It ensures that when potential customers think of your company, they will have a clear idea of the often-complex nature of your work.

Another benefit? Your employees will better understand the vision and focus of the company, which will help them conduct business activities from sales to recruitment to investor relations.

2. Identify your key audiences

Fintech is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Customers will have different goals and present distinct challenges to achieving those goals. This can be a benefit to you as a marketer. It allows you to zero in on those individuals or companies with problems that your products are well positioned to solve.

Identifying your key audiences should be an ongoing process. You can take advantage of digital tools to find out who has been visiting your website, reading your LinkedIn posts and leaving comments.

Once those key audiences are identified, you need to determine the best ways to reach them, be it through owned media (your website, blog, social media posts), earned media (where you inspire others to share your posts) or bought media (purchased ad space or advertorial content). Each channel has unique benefits and costs, but all can be useful in getting your message out to the right people.

3. Leverage social media

Maintain a strong website and social media presence, and create blog posts to share your current thinking or research. Leverage your technology advantage. Industry-specific and tech-savvy mainstream media are hungry for stories about technology. By making them aware of what you’re doing, your offering may become a future headline.

With the growing importance of social media (such as LinkedIn) and community-specific forums (such as Reddit), the concept of engagement has evolved. While generating sales is still your goal, it’s also important to engage customers by building a community around your industry, your products and the people who use them.

Sharing great ideas or expertise via social media is a cost-effective way to introduce your company to new customers and maintain relationships with existing customers. Your posts will more likely be shared if they are thoughtful, timely and relevant to issues your potential clients are facing.

Also, the more you engage with prospects and customers, the more you will learn about them and the better you will be positioned to serve their fintech needs. Looking for marketing support in launching your fintech company?

Ext. has the expertise you need. Contact us today at 1.844.243.1830 or info@ext-marketing.com.

With thousands of ETFs to choose from, marketers need innovative strategies to stand out from the crowd.

The popularity of low-cost exchange-traded funds (ETFs) among both seasoned and novice investors continues to snowball.

BlackRock’s iShares, Vanguard ETFs and State Street’s SPDR (SPY) dominate the global ETF marketplace in terms of assets under management (AUM). iShares AUM was US$2,360.25 billion as of October 15, 2021.

Low fees have been one of the defining facets of ETFs, and it continues to be an important selling point. None of the top ETF fund providers shy away from promoting cost-effectiveness. And why should they? After all, investors love the low fees. Vanguard describes ETFs as “highly effective, affordable investments.” BlackRock says iShares are “easy and cost-effective.” State Street highlights “lower expense ratios.”

Even the newly launched bitcoin ETFs are trying to follow this model to carve out their own market share with lower and lower fee offerings, reports Bloomberg.

But in an increasingly competitive marketplace how can marketers help ETF entrants stand out from the crowd beyond their low fees? We looked to the “big three” for some clues.

Investment philosophy

For novice investors, making investment decisions can be daunting and complex. A recurring theme within the big three’s marketing materials is investor education. On its website, Vanguard presents the following four guiding principles to promote investment success:

• Think about goals
• Stay balanced
• Keep costs low
• Be disciplined

These four nuggets of advice reinforce the importance of crafting a crystal-clear message that invites investors to harness the power of the fund’s investment philosophy.

Resources

Sharing information based on feedback from investors is a great way to promote transparency. In a recent article Marketing ETFs in uncertain and volatile times, Alex Craddock, Global CMO of iShares, recommends posting informative content to reassure investors. Providing insight into a trending investment theme also helps engage your target audience and encourages them to follow you. iShares’ paper A sea change in global investing, for example, addresses investors’ concerns about climate risk and sustainable investing.

Font in focus

With mobile devices accounting for approximately half of digital traffic today, optimizing digital marketing for smartphones is vital. On its website, the iShares paper is posted with a large black font against a bright green background to evoke an energetic sense of confidence. The strong colour palette is instantly memorable.

The bold title fonts used on iShares’ website and in State Street’s ETF Education section are particularly effective for a smaller smartphone screen. Eye-catching statistics, like State Street launching the first U.S.-listed ETF in 1993, pop off the page.

Celebrity power

In a very different bid to get people to sit up and notice, State Street enlisted Hollywood actress Elizabeth Banks to create a video raising awareness about its ETF mid-cap assets. During an interview with Bloomberg, Matt Bartolini, Head of State Street’s SPDR Americas Research, said he wanted to get the message out to investors and clients in a “fun, digestible way.”

The right support

While all ETFs provide the promise of lower fees, offering the right support to help guide investors can be the most effective marketing tool. Marketers face the challenge of curating these resources into manageable bite-size pieces that can give scrolling investors pause for thought. In a hyper competitive marketplace, small tactics like ease of viewing on mobile, timely and transparent resources, and a clearly articulated investment philosophy can make a difference.

Looking for support in refining your ETF messaging? Ext. has the expertise you need. Contact us today at 1.844.243.1830 or info@ext-marketing.com.