We recently tuned into the “Advisors and Their Media Consumption,” Cogent Reports seminar which dove into newly released financial advisor media behavioral data. Super interesting findings for marketers! Here are some of our notes and thoughts, ICYMI.
Also: download the seminar and learn more here.
Leading financial advisor market experts Meredith Lloyd Rice and Dave Keen of Market Strategies International walked us through the data, which was derived from two trusted sources:
The 10th annual Advisor Brandscape Report which compiles data from over 1,500 registered advisors with a book of service over $5MM.The Media Consumption™ Advisor tool: The first of its kind, the Media Consumption Advisor tool monitors the preferences of financial advisors and the changes in their media consumption.
A top and critical trend is the importance of trust. Standing out more in the 2018 report than any other year, brand trust and consistent performance are this year’s key drivers; which is especially true for mutual funds. This makes perfect sense to us as we are seeing brand trust and transparency as increasingly vital tenants for successful social - particularly in finserv.
Reported advisor media usage trends :
While TV remains the top source of news for advisors (CNBC consistently wins out year after year), there was a dramatic jump in website usage for news sources - particularly by RIAs.No surprise, LinkedIn ranks #1 as the primary social media source across all advisor segments, with over 52% of survey participants choosing it as their go-to.After that, 19% chose Twitter and 15% chose Facebook*These numbers continue to rise in each report, and Dave stressed that these platforms continue their rapid overtaking of traditional financial news sources (TV and print).Advisors are, now more than ever, using their phones to access information which supports the need for content optimized for mobile viewing - something that many companies are (still!) missing out on.
*Interestingly, we’ve seen recent research and anecdotal data indicating the opposite: that advisors are using Facebook more than Twitter (but still behind LinkedIn) - and conducting increasingly more day-to-day business on Facebook.
This valuable new data confirms recommendations we make to our own finserv clients - it’s vital to consider how and where advisors are consuming messaging and to consider each channel’s approach accordingly. This may mean stark differences between the copy and visual for a single article or blog post’s email, website, Tweets, LinkedIn and Facebook posts.
PS: Reminder - you can download the full seminar replay here.