Advisor

Touchpoints
Report
Best Practices for Building an Optimal
Advisor Communication Strategy
Research provided by Market Strategies International
ADVISOR
TOUCHPOINTS
REPORT
Digital technology is changing financial services and
wealth planning, opening a new, virtual world for
asset management marketers to influence and inform
financial advisors who are getting more and more
challenging to reach in-person. Yet, marketers still
need to build relationships and trust that face-to-face
meetings with financial advisors traditionally provide.

Introduction Successfully making the shift to

digital takes a careful balance of scale
This research examines the current state of and personalization. That means
communications with financial advisors and the optimal understanding advisor preferences for
mix of digital touchpoints that asset management communicating with product providers
marketers need to maximize their influence across all and their needs. Read on to learn the
stages of investment. most effective digital channels for advisor
engagement.
A key finding? Email marketing is growing less effective
and webinars are growing in importance. In fact, webinars
have the potential to increase advisor consideration by “
more than 40%. Webinars have the potential to
increase advisor consideration by
That’s why a growing number of asset management more than 40%.
marketers are using webinars to make an impact. Instead Market Strategies International
of holding in-person events, marketers are taking fund
updates and launches virtual, reaching hundreds of
advisors simultaneously. Asset management marketers
also use webinars as an efficient way to build ongoing
thought leadership and deliver internal subject matter
expertise at scale. Finally, asset management marketers
leverage webinars to gain insights about their financial
advisor audience and find their most interested prospects.

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Most Effective Advisor
Communication Method
According to advisors’ stated preferences, email
remains the most important touchpoint (51%);
however, the method’s effectiveness has
decreased significantly from 56% in 2016 and
2017. Meanwhile, provider websites, webinars
and social media are incrementally growing in
importance.
“Our main goal is to engage clients on
relevant topics on a regular basis. Our
clients are inundated with requests
for meetings, dinners, etc. from us and
our competitors. We’re finding it can
sometimes be easier to engage them with
a webinar in the middle of the day while
they’re sitting at their desks.”
Jessica Shrader, Vice President, Marketing, ITG

60%

40%

20%

0%

2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Emails Provider websites Internal sales calls

External wholesale visits Webinars Social media

Roadshows Mail Provider apps

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Advisor Preference for Digital Engagement is Increasing

It’s clear that advisors are seeking out digital experiences outside of their email inbox. Today’s clients prefer to
self-educate with on-demand and easily accessible resources online. This movement towards self-education
and research means fund managers need to equip clients and prospects with relevant, timely content when
and where they want it.

2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Emails 41% 50% 42% 56% 56% 51% ▼’17’16

External
37% 25% 29% 21% 23% 23%
Wholesaler Visits

Road shows 9% 5% 7% 5% 7% 6%

Provider
- 6% 6% 5% 4% 6% ▲’17
websites

Webinars 5% 1% 7% 4% 3% 4% ▲’17

Mail 3% 3% 3% 4% 3% 4%

Internal sales
5% 9% 6% 3% 3% 3%
calls

Social media <1% 1% <1% 2% 1% 2% ▲’17

Provider apps - <1% <1% <1% <1% <1%

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Average Number of Touches Across All Financial Services Providers Per Month

Half of the provider outreach is email-generated, with an average of 54 emails being reported each
month. A closer look at monthly industry norms among primary providers reveals that advisors receive
an average of six emails from their primary mutual fund provider and an average of four emails from their
primary ETF provider. This makes alternative forms of digital engagement through webinars, mobile
apps and websites more important to break through to advisors.

Total
2017-to-2018
2018 2017 2016 2015 Change

Emails 54.4 ▼’16 57.2 58.7 55.5 -2.8

Webinar invitations 11.9 ▼’16 12.8 14.4 13.3 -0.8

Internal sales phone

10.0 ▼’16 10.9 12.3 12.0 -0.9
calls

Print mailings 9.9 ▼’17 ▼’16 11.0 13.9 14.3 -1.2

External wholesaler
3.7 ▼’16 4.0 4.3 5.0 -0.2
visits

Social media outreach 3.2 2.9 3.5 3.5 +0.3

Road shows/
2.5 2.2 3.0 2.7 +0.3
conference invitations

Total (monthly) 95.7▼’16 100.9 110.1 106.3 -5.3

▲/▼ Significant change from stated year ▲/▼ Significant change observed in 2017 sustained in 2018

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Brand Consideration Lift After Exposure: Derived

Regardless of advisors’ stated communication preferences, providers must be cognizant of what types of
touches have the best potential of increasing brand consideration on a derived basis.

Digital touches including mobile apps, websites and webinars are extremely valuable, offering strong
potential to move the consideration needle upwards of over 40 percentage points. Road shows also play a role
in increasing advisor consideration, but are much more resource-intensive.

Overall consideration levels among: Lift

(percentage Category
Non-exposed Exposed points)

Internal wholesalers 11% 78% 67% Traditional

External wholesalers 10% 74% 63% Traditional

Mobile apps 17% 64% 47% Digital

Websites 13% 59% 46% Digital

Road shows/conferences 17% 61% 44% Traditional

Webinars 16% 59% 43% Digital

Print materials 14% 49% 35% Traditional

Social media 16% 49% 32% Digital

Emails 12% 38% 27% Digital

News 14% 37% 23% Media

Advertising 12% 30% 19% Media

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The more engaging and
interactive you can make your
content, the more connections
you can make to raise your AUM.
How Webinars Help Innovate Advisor Engagement
Webinars, and especially webinar platforms like ON24, are
powerful tools marketers can use to disseminate a range of
content in a personal manner. Depending on the platform,
you can gather actionable insights on your audience, so
your team can gather assets easier.
It’s one of the few technologies that can disseminate
compliant and personalized data quickly and on a digital
scale. Executed well, a webinar program can create
active environments for guided content consumption
that audiences can consume live, on-demand or both.
Additionally, webinars can simplify compliance with
centralized, gated messages and muted lines.
Now, simplifying content access is great, especially for
areas, like asset management, that depend on a lot of
information to capture clients. At ON24, however, we’ve
found that leading marketers at asset management
companies go beyond simply delivering content—
they engage their audience with interactive polls,
knowledgeable hosts and subject matter experts, live Q&A
forums and a whole lot more. We’ve even seen customers
use data from surveys, polls, and Q&As to improve product
offerings.
There’s a reason for this. The more engaging and
interactive you make your content, the more connections
you can make to raise your AUM. What’s more is the
fact that your organization can gain insights into high-
value and interested prospects as they consume your
content. You can also boost investor trust through
thought leadership events, or build a knowledge center
for financial advisors to earn CE credits. We’ve found that
companies like Fidelity, State Street and Morgan Stanley
are moving to webinars for these reasons and more.
The days of having sales doing the heavy lifting to win
business on its own, from awareness and education
to investment and purchase, are over. With webinars,
marketing can now play a sizable role in informing and
guiding the customer, prospect, investor and advisor’s
journey. And they can do this while gathering data on what
interests an audience.
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on24 customer story
With ON24,
Dynamic
Funds Crafts
a Financial
Education
Machine
About Dynamic Funds
Name: Dynamic Funds
Headquarters: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Founded: 1957
Employees: 500-1,000
Funding: Private
Industry: Investment Management
Founded in 1957, Dynamic Funds got its
start as a small investment club in Montreal,
Quebec. The group has since grown into one of
the most recognized asset management firms
in Canada and beyond. Dynamic Funds offers a
comprehensive range of products and services
spanning every primary sector, geographic
region, and investment discipline. Its financial
solutions include open and closed-end
investment funds, fee based, tax-advantaged
and customized high-net-worth programs.
Results
160K+ Continuing education
credits issued
900 On-demand views per
webinar
Average marketing-
15 qualified leads created
per webinar
Introduction
Dynamic Funds, one of Canada’s most recognized
investment asset firms, has a reputation to
uphold. To back up its motto, “Invest with
Advice,” the company must establish trust with
financial advisors. This means proving and
providing expertise, so the firm produces a range
of educational content, continuing education
certificates and thought leadership material for its
audience.
Traditionally, Dynamic Funds relied on in-person
events as a way to connect and educate financial
advisors on industry and portfolio updates. By
leading with education and positioning themselves
as the go-to industry resource, Dynamic Funds
assumed visiting financial advisors would, over
time, increase the amount of business done with
the firm’s portfolio managers. Its theory was well-
reasoned, but it’d require an extra digital element
to make its content connect with visitors from
across the continent.
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“ON24 has been key to taking our
educational webcast program
to the next level, helping us
scale up and ultimately impress
our clients.”
Yasminka Marcus
Sr. Manager, Editorial and
Educational Programs
The Challenge
Dynamic Funds’ in-person events were successful, but only
just so. For the company, the events struggled to scale its
message affordably and to demonstrate the firm’s value.
Venue costs and travel expenses added up. Financial
advisor attendance declined and quality face-to-face time
deteriorated. Dynamic Funds reassessed its strategy and
decided its physical events needed a digital addition.
The investment asset firm needed a solution capable of
scaling with its ambitions. The solution needed to educate
financial advisors at a moment’s notice. Additionally, any
solution needed to record what content a visiting financial
advisor has and hasn’t seen, what they’ve asked of the
firm before, and, finally, measure the visitor’s interest in
Dynamic Funds overall.
The ON24 Solution
Dynamic Funds turned to the ON24 Platform to drive
financial advisor interest in its digitized content. The
firm curated webinar content based on industry topics
ranging from planning foundations to privacy practices. It
also provided events on insider subjects—all topics their
financial advisors craved.
Dynamic Funds called its newly-founded content center
“The Education Zone.” The Education Zone provided
financial advisors with direct access to an extensive
curriculum in a single, easy-to-access location. Initially
worried its audience would resist change from in-person
events to digital events, Dynamic Funds saw financial
advisors quickly adapt to the new learning format—giving
it high marks for convenience.
With its educational content in place, Dynamic Funds
shifted its focus to positioning its portfolio managers as
industry thought leaders. This was great news for visiting
financial advisors thanks to Dynamic Funds’ easy-to-
access events. It also meant visitors had easy one-to-
one communication with the firm’s portfolio managers.
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Dynamic Funds’ expertise was suddenly available
to its audience on their time and accommodating
of their schedules.
Finally, Dynamic Funds, with ON24, set its platform
up to issue continuing education credits. Every
financial advisor needs a certain amount of credits
to keep their designation. It was easy for the firm
to offer CE credits during their webinars using
ON24’s automated testing and credit–issuing
functionalities.
Results
Since adopting the ON24 Platform, Dynamic Funds
has reinforced its position as an industry leader
for financial advisors, cemented a digital strategy
to supplement and build on their in-person events
and:
• Created consistent pipeline. The Education
Zone is the biggest lead generator for Dynamic
Funds and the second highest driver for website
traffic.
• Cemented itself as a continuing education
resource. Since launching The Education
Zone, Dynamic Funds has hosted more than
200 webinars and issued more than 160,000 CE
credits to financial advisors.
• Improved insights for sales outreach. Using
advanced analytics from ON24, Dynamic Funds
can easily address interests and concerns
visiting financial advisors have — generating
an average 10–20 “hot leads,” per event. Armed
with this information, Dynamic Funds’ sales
teams can grow portfolios, accounts, and
relationships.
• Made on-demand content must-have content.
Most financial advisors watch Dynamic Funds
content on demand, rather than live. This
means older, relevant content can enjoy longer
lifespans while still providing financial advisors
with richer experiences. In fact, Dynamic Funds
averages more than 900 on-demand views per
webinar.
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