Richard Dunkerley
Financial advisers must look to adapt their mobile communication strategies in order to maintain the valued adviser-client relationship as consumer behaviour continues to evolve.
This is the central finding of Connected Convenience, a white paper released yesterday by the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) with the support of Zurich, based on research conducted by the Beddoes Institute.
AFA CEO Brad Fox said that financial advisers who have not already considered a mobile approach are not just disadvantaged but are ignoring a change in client and consumer behaviour that will have substantial long-term repercussions.
“Mobile lumps two very different devices and sets of users together and it’s clear from the behaviour of financial advice clients that a ‘one size fits all’ mobile strategy will not succeed. Segmenting these users is an important part of increasing engagement of each of the two ‘mobile’ user groups – the smartphone users and the tablets users,” Mr Fox said.
“The biggest change over the coming year will be an increase in the number of clients accessing email and the internet via mobile devices, followed by the number accessing banking, apps, financial news and connecting with businesses,” Mr Fox said. “Gen Y Clients will increase their use of social media more than any other generation and Baby Boomers will access financial news more often via mobile devices.
According to the White Paper, with smartphones now ubiquitous among financial advice clients and 62% of Baby Boomers owning a tablet, it is clear that a universal mobile strategy cannot succeed. Segmenting smartphone and tablet users is fundamental to growing the engagement of both client groups.
Dr Rebecca Sheils from Beddoes Institute said, “Because the experience created by each device and how they are used is different, advisers creating content and delivering it with functionality that is specific to smartphones and tablets will maximise penetration and engagement with their clients and new groups of consumers.”
Co-author of Connected Convenience, Richard Dunkerley, Head of Marketing at Zurich said that the White Paper gives a very clear indication to financial advisers, licensees and other participants in the financial advice space, of where to target spending of their marketing dollars. “Clearly the days of building a website and thinking you have engaged with your clients are long past. The opportunity is to target marketing spend so as to integrate your services into the lifestyle of your client and how best to do that depends on their demographic.”
Connected Convenience reports on the communication technology preferences of 779 clients of financial advisers, sourced from research conducted in August 2014 to establish their use of mobile devices, services, content and application consumption, and the influences behind their choices.