Focus on Customer Engagement
BY CHIP KISPERT
BEACON STRATEGIES, LLC
Hi! We are excited to rollout the latest version of The Beacon Flash.
What is new? Obviously, the big picture. Vaccines are being rolled out. The human race is turning the tide on this terrible pandemic. More specific to enterprise wealth, so much is new, especially as it relates to connecting and communicating with customers.
So, our focus this month is on customer engagement. For this edition, we are thinking about, and looking at, new marketing trends and contactless interaction with investor customers. We will be highlighting the changing expectations of both advisors and investors, and a couple of firms that hit really high left on our marketing Cool-Flash radar.
Each Beacon team member will socialize their particular perspectives on how marketing is changing, and the new race to relevance.
Please continue your journey through The Beacon Flash. If you have questions or observations, let us know either through our social media channels, or good ol’ email.
May you have fair skies and following seas. ♦
Talk soon!
Chip
Musing from the Beacon Team
BY BEACON STAFF
RON FISKE
COVID and Retirement
As a society, we continue to grapple with the after effects, hopefuy, of the ongoing COVID pandemic. One of the biggest impacts continues to be felt by the labor force in the US and how the economy has affected their retirement plans. A recent article in Investment News, https://www.investmentnews.com/how-covid-19-changed-retirement-planning-203429How Covid-19 changed retirement planning (investmentnews.com), highlighted several seemingly contradictory findings.
On the one hand, the article highlighted the high level of retirements experienced by Baby Boomers. “Between February and September of 2020, the number of retired boomers increased by 1.1 million, compared to only 250,000 who retired during the same period in 2019, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of labor force data.” (Source: Investment News).
A later article discussed the experience of younger people in the workforce, in which the article quoted a Fidelity study that said that 82 % of Americans said that COVID had negatively affected their retirement plans. On average, people in the survey felt that COVID had postponed their planned retirement by 2 years.
Advisors need to take the lead with their clients on these two seemingly divergent trends:
- The most important question many Baby Boomers will have will invariably focus on Social Security distribution options. While there are many excellent tools out there, BlackRock has perhaps one of the most robust sites focusing on this topic. Social Security | BlackRock
- Healthcare is another important topic for retiring Baby Boomers, especially those who have retired before 65. Helping clients understand various health insurance options will help your clients deal with a potential area of major concern for them as they retire.
- For many other clients, continuing to focus on financial planning and finding ways to get their retirement plans back on track will help clients ease their concerns. ♦
BY BEACON STAFF
JERRY WACKERHAGEN
Rebrand in Retirement
Millions of Baby Boomers (1946-1964) are retiring each year. In the third quarter of 2020, according to the Pew Research Center, about 28.6 million Baby Boomers reported that they were out of the labor force due to retirement. This is 3.2 million more than those who were retired in the same quarter of 2019 (https://www.pewresearch.org).
When it happens to you it is a personal challenge. Moving on from a financial services career can be a series of daunting tasks. I retired at the end of 2019 from a large Broker Dealer, RIA, and Insurance Agency. At first the transition was a freeing experience. Gone were the problem-solving meetings and calls at all hours. I filled my free time with projects that I felt had to get done NOW! Stress from deadlines and resolving conflicts as the hero was replaced with physical labor and little stress. My health was improving vastly but something was missing.
Smacked in the head by the realization I was not ready to “Retire”, I decided to determine what my “Encore Career” would be. That is a better description than “Retirement”. What was my purpose now that I had all the free time and adequate money to pursue my passion? Rebranding myself was my new challenge.
Ask yourself, “What is my passion?”. Or better yet, what gives me energy and fulfillment? I found that most people want to find a way to give back to the industry, their communities, their churches, and families while enjoying life. Find what you have always wanted to do and go rebrand yourself on what gives you that feeling of a job well done. ♦
Industry Leaders’ Perspectives
3 Virtual Attendee Stats to Help You Improve Audience Engagement
BY ALON ALROY
CO-FOUNDER AND CMO, BIZZABO
As we strategize our audience engagement strategies in 2021 and beyond, virtual events will continue to play a major role, both on their own and as part of a hybrid event approach.
Our User Research team at Bizzabo surveyed over 700 attendees and analyzed almost 1,000 virtual events to find out what virtual attendees really want from their online experiences.
Here are a few of the key takeaways:
- People are Attending More Virtual Events Than They Did In-Person
As many organizers have experienced first-hand, virtual events are breaking down the barriers of entry and making it easier than ever for audiences to access our content and attend our events. By removing obstacles like travel and time zones, we’ve seen a major shift in the number of events that people are able to attend online compared to live experiences.
- While Virtual Attendees Stay for Less Time, They Attend More Virtual Event Sessions Than In-Person
One of the most common ways to measure virtual audience engagement is to see, on average, how many sessions people attend and how long they are engaged in each of those sessions. According to our research, 29% of virtual attendees only view 20% of the average session, followed by 26% only watching 10% of the average session. We suggest crafting shorter and more targeted sessions to yield higher attendee engagement.
- Attendees are More Focused on Learning, Less on Networking at Virtual Events
While it’s easy to assume that attendees are looking for the same networking opportunities they had at in-person events, the data shows that online attendees are actually much more interested in learning at virtual events. In fact, almost three-fourths of virtual attendees said learning was their main goal, compared to less than 10% who specified networking as their top priority. Yet another signal that targeted content is key in the virtual space.
Final Thoughts
As we move past 2020 and towards the hybrid future, marketing leaders will continue to experience challenges around driving virtual audience engagement. For more attendee benchmarks and what they mean for your marketing strategy download the Virtual Attendee Experience Report. ♦
