How to get a portfolio manager's attention and other email tips from an investment marketing consultant

It's not easy getting portfolio managers to open your emails. That's why investment marketing consultant Jen Dunning sometimes writes her email subject lines completely in capital letters.

"INVESTMENT COMMENTARY - PLEASE APPROVE BY JUNE 30" grabs the reader's attention where a meeker "Please approve by June 30" would not. Note that she puts her key action verb, "approve," and its object, "investment commentary," in the subject line. That also boosts her emails' effectiveness.

But limit your use of all-capitals subject lines to rare instances of pressing need with people who work for your own organization. You risk irritating your recipient if you use all-caps too often. It flouts the rules of email etiquette and is considered "shouting."

Some additional email tips from Dunning:

• Save your pleasantries for the end of your email because busy readers want to get to the point right away
• Before you attach an Excel file, name it and insert page breaks and headers and footers, including page numbers and total number of pages
  

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Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

Writing Sample: "Don't Get Stuck Paying Extra Taxes"

The subject line "Don't Get Stuck Paying Extra Taxes" compelled me to open the e-mail.

That's the power of a subject line that tells the reader "what's in it for me."

I opened the latest e-newsletter from Westchester Mortgage even though I was pretty sure I'm not making any dumb tax mistakes with my house. I was right. The article warned readers to be careful when using money from a retirement account to buy a house. Luckily, I don't have to worry about that. I've been in my house more than 15 years.

Try to put yourself in your readers' shoes when you compose an e-mail subject line. Your effort could increase your readership.

_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.Wr

"Is Spelling Overrated?"

Direct marketing guru Bob Bly recently asked "Is Spelling Overrated?" on his blog.

I don't think so. Good spelling won't win over new clients. But sentences rife with misspellings may make the reader wonder if you're similarly sloppy with their money.

It's one thing to have typos in the quick emails you send to your employees, as Bly points out. Quite another to tolerate them in formal communications to clients and prospects.

People often write "it's" where "its" should be. "It's" is short for "it is." "Its" is the possessive form of "it." This trips up many people because of the exception to the rule that you form a possessive by adding an apostrophe followed by the letter "s."

English is a challenging language for spellers. Get someone else to proofread your most important written communications.

_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

Tips for writing case studies

Case studies can be powerful tools for the wealth management professionals who're allowed to use them.

A case study typically starts with a presentation of a client problem--something that's causing the client pain. The problem is followed by the solution, and then the client results. When prospective clients recognize themselves in the problem, you've grabbed their attention.

In "How to Write a Case Study" (available for download without registering) consultant Toby Younis lays out the steps for writing a case study. If you'd like to try doing it yourself, you may find his list of questions on page 12 particularly helpful.

However, don't write an investment management case study. That falls under the SEC's prohibition against testimonials.

_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

Why baby boomers will NOT offer a gold mine for financial services

If your business strategy depends heavily on Baby Boomer-driven rapid growth in the number of retirees, it’s time to re-think your approach.

That's according to "The Baby Boomer Retirement Fallacy and What It Means to You," which appears on a blog on the Harvard Business Publishing website.

Over the next 25 years, the number of retirees will grow at a rate of zero to 4% per annum, according to Kevin P. Coyne and Shawn T. Coyne, the management consultants who coauthored the blog post. The Coynes say the hype around Baby Boomer retirement fails to take into account the fact that people are staying in the work force later in life.

They're selling versions of their study, "Smaller than You Thought: Estimates of the Future Size and Growth Rate of the Retirement Market in the United States" for prices ranging from $950 to $2,850.


_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

Six tips for listening better to your clients

In my last post, "The Client Relationship Autopsy," I wrote about how to analyze client relationships turned sour. But if you'd listened better to your clients, perhaps they'd still be with you.

Consider applying the six tips for better listening described in "What?" a New York Times blog post by Marci Alboher.

Tip number six may be especially challenging: "Do not interrupt, even if you think you’re going to forget what you want to say." Instead, jot down a note, so you can circle back to your idea, if it's still appropriate later.

One of the tips suggests nodding to show you're listening. Nodding was essential when I lived in Japan for that very reason. If I kept completely still and silent, my conversation partner would have stopped talking because she or he would have assumed I wasn't listening. But in the U.S., you should be careful about nodding. Here, nodding suggests that you agree with the speaker.

_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

"The Client Relationship Autopsy"

You've probably lost at least one client. But rather than chalk it up as inevitable, try to learn why your client left you.

"The Client Relationship Autopsy" proposes a process consisting of:

1. Talking to your team
2. Talking to your client
3. Preparing a report

"The process will help you choose wisely when it comes to adding new clients, and it will help you glean insights for improving existing client relationships," says Leo Bottary, the ad agency account director who wrote the article. He goes into detail with suggestions for each step.

_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

Thank you, Boston Women in Finance!

Members of Boston Women in Finance made my experience enjoyable when I presented my one-hour workshop on "How to Write What People Will Read about Investments" yesterday.

Here's some of their feedback on my presentation:

• "Although brief, packed with very useful takeaways!"
• "Susan was able to fit in an hour what people spend days learning in conferences"
• "Susan reminded me to remember my audience and to listen to my ideas"
• I learned "a new thought process for brainstorming" and "ways to make my market piece more direct and to the point"
  

Use personal stories in your communications

"In a sea of competition, you’ve got to capitalize on what makes you unlike anyone else."

This advice from "Feel Great Naked: Confidence Boosters for Getting Personal" is aimed at bloggers. The author urges them to share personal stories. But also applies to financial advisors, especially solo practitioners or small firms, when you communicate with your clients and prospects.

Sharing your personality--and even a bit of your personal story--can help you connect with your clients.

For example, in a sales letter, one salesman shared his story of how his family had suffered needlessly because of an estate planning mistake. That mistake fueled his passion for bringing new clients to his firm. After sharing that story, the letter shifted to discussing the benefits his firm could offer his prospects. I'll bet that personal story prevented some prospects from dropping his letter into their wastebaskets.

Don't focus your communications exclusively on yourself. Ultimately, your client or prospect will care more about the WIIFM ("what's in it for me"). But a bit of sharing can create a connection that goes deeper than dollar and cents.

Any financial advisor can heed this advice in one-on-one meetings. It's more challenging when you work for a large firm and you get into written communications. There'll probably be a company-wide communications policy that sets an impersonal tone. This gives an opening for advisors with smaller firms to outmaneuver their colleagues at larger firms.

Have you tried taking a personal tack? I'd like to learn what your experience has been.

"Interruption vs. Self-Service Marketing"

I'm following up my post on how financial advisors are using LinkedIn. Raising your visibility by using LinkedIn is an example of "self-service marketing," which I read about recently in "Interruption vs. Self-Service Marketing" on marketer Bob Bly's blog.

He quotes an article from DM News: " 'Self-service marketing is all about putting content where people will find it,' writes Rapsas. 'It makes sense to go where the customers are.' " Bly contrasts this with traditional marketing which interrupts people when they're not looking for it.

Bly makes an interesting point down in his comments:

"My rule of thumb: self-service marketing works with products which consumers actively search for information (including pricing) on — for instance, installing solar panels on the roof of your home. Interruption marketing works with products people want when they hear about but weren’t thinking about beforehand — e.g., designer handbags, a home-study course on becoming a locksmith."

It seems to me that people actively search for financial or investment advice, so maybe self-service marketing has a future in this field. What do you think?


_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

Register for my May 14 presentation to Boston Women in Finance

You can register for “How to Write What People Will Read About Investments,” my May 14 lunch presentation to Boston Women in Finance to learn techniques that will make your audience more likely to read what you write.

Writing about topics that will interest your clients, and packaging them in a reader-friendly way, will boost your return on investment. This interactive program will use examples from investment commentary to help you to understand your reader’s perspective on your writing. It will also suggest techniques for brainstorming, formatting, and editing your writing.

Please note that this is a little different from the presentations I deliver for the CFA Institute because the audience is more diverse.

Morningstar praises Putnam's "plain English" and provides tips so you can write in "plain English," too

Writing in "plain English" is easier said than done. So I was intrigued when Morningstar singled out Putnam for "plain English" prospectuses in "Letter to SEC: Short Fund Prospectus Helps Shareholders."

For example, the author liked this description of Putnam Voyager's strategy: "We invest mainly in common stocks of U.S. companies, with a focus on growth stocks. Growth stocks are issued by companies that we believe are fast-growing and whose earnings we believe are likely to increase over time."

Here are some "plain English" writing tips I extracted from the Morningstar article:

1. Get specific about strategy. Instead of describing your investment objective using terms like "capital appreciation" that don't mean a lot to ordinary folk, get specific about "the types of securities the fund usually owns and the criteria a fund manager uses when buying and selling securities."
2. Use graphs.
   
3. Put returns in context by comparing them with the fund's benchmark. Don't make your readers struggle to understand returns without any basis for comparison.
   

_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

Morningstar gets the WIIFM

Before your readers dig into your written materials, they want to learn the WIIFM--"What's In It For Me?" If you can't convince them they'll get something out of it, they may not read it.

Morningstar's newsletters do a nice job of communicating the WIIFM. Consider, for example, this title of a Morningstar Fund Spy article: "Dissecting the Ultrashort Bond Fund Mess: What should you do if you own one of these funds?" If you're in a "mess," wouldn't you want to learn what your next step should be?

Here's another example: "Take the Greatest Advantage of the World-Stock Group: There are many good global funds, but you still need to choose carefully." The title promises not only that you can maximize your gains, but you can also avoid pitfalls.

Notice how both titles use the text after the colon very effectively. I often advise my clients to use subtitles and subheadings--rather than just titles and headings--to draw more readers into their investment commentary and other writing.

_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

How financial advisors use LinkedIn to boost their visibility

"Boosting my visibility" is the number one reason why financial advisors are participating in LinkedIn (LI). LI profiles and answers both deliver benefits. But tread carefully, or your compliance department—or even the SEC—could nail you.

LinkedIn profile makes you easier to find—and track

You’ll be easier to find in a Google search if you have an LI profile. "By adding connections, you increase the likelihood that people will see your profile first when they’re searching for someone to hire or do business with. In addition to appearing at the top of search results (which is a major plus if you’re one of the 52,000 product managers on LinkedIn), people would much rather work with people who their friends know and trust." as Guy Kawasaki said in "Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn." With more people looking online for services, that’s critical. At a minimum, your profile should include your name, title, and location, but you can beef it up with details, including a link to your website.

Rob Schmansky, a Detroit, Mich.-based wealth manager, likes that LI shares his profile updates with potential clients, friends, and family who are his LI connections. This may put his name in front of them when they can make a referral or need financial advice themselves. He makes it easy for his network to find his profile by providing a link in his email signature.

LinkedIn Answers let you display your expertise—and learn

LI Answers let you respond to questions posed by others and ask your own. The “personal finance” category will probably interest the greatest number of financial advisors. However, check out other categories , too.

Carlton Johnson, an independent advisor in the Charlotte, N.C. area, says “As I provide answers to questions, potential clients are always reading answers. ‘Best answers’ are great testimonies to technical prowess; however, even good and unrated answers can clue a potential client on how you are currently viewing finance world and particular situations relevant to them.”

Some financial advisors would submit answers even if there were no prospect of gaining clients. One advisor, who asked to remain anonymous, said he gives answers to help prevent individuals from making common mistakes.

Andrew Baechler of PWL Capital in the Ottawa, Canada area likes Answers “as a gauge to see what issues are currently top-of-mind with investors.” Johnson also sees Answers as an educational resource. “LI serves as a platform to exchange ideas and find solutions to questions that my clients and others may have about difficult financial situations.”

As an occasional writer for financial magazines, I see another benefit for advisors. You can connect with reporters. Journalists are increasingly using Answers to find sources to interview for stories. Being quoted in articles can enhance your credibility.

Watch out for compliance!

Pay attention to your organization’s compliance rules. One advisor told me that even something as basic as her LI profile had to be approved by the compliance department. Your firm may be more flexible. “My compliance department allows me to post on LinkedIn without their approval, so long as I don’t provide specific investment guidance,” says Baechler.

Some advisors may be crossing the line that forbids testimonials for registered investment advisors. Check with compliance before you accept a Recommendation through LI.

Are you an advisor who’s leveraging LinkedIn? Leave a comment about how it’s working for you.

_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

Your privacy policy can become a marketing document

ING Direct's e-mail about their privacy policy made me feel good about being their customer. Why? Because they made me feel they value communicating clearly with me.

Here's how the e-mail started:

"Below is some important information that we're required to send you each year. It seems like a lot of legal stuff, but we promise, it will only take a few minutes. Give it a look."

Also, their opt-in policy made me feel that they care about me more than they care about cross-selling.

"Did you know our Privacy Policy EXCEEDS government standards? In 1999, Congress passed a law requiring financial institutions to give Customers the ability to "Opt-out" of information sharing. At ING DIRECT we went the extra mile to provide you with an "Opt-in" Privacy Policy, which means we won't share your information with any other company or partner unless you ask us to."

Are you missing marketing opportunities by writing your legally required disclosures in legalese?
_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

You can highlight market turmoil's silver lining

Tired of giving bad news about the stock market to your clients? Follow the example of The Wall Street Journal to talk about "How Market Turmoil Creates Opening to Enrich Heirs" (March 15-16, p. B1).

In short, the market's decline enables your clients to give your heirs more shares of stocks or mutual funds and to get more mileage out of grantor-retained trusts.

By the way, if you read the article, notice the "The Market's Gift" box. Using a box--known as a "sidebar" in the lingo of layout professionals--to highlight your article's main takeaways can snare the attention of readers who skim. Try it some time.

Write your own newsletter or buy a canned newsletter?

You've decided to send a newsletter to your clients. Which route should you go? Write it yourself or send a canned newsletter provided by a third-party service?

Do it yourself, said most of the advisors who responded when I posted this question on LinkedIn.


The pluses of writing your own

"Writing your own newsletter is the most timely and cost-effective method," wrote Ike Devji of The Wealthy 100.

Assabet Advisors' Lisa Phelps likes having complete control over topics. She said, "I can pick topics for which I have a particular interest resulting in an article with a bit more depth or excitement than normally found in such newsletters." Plus, she can mix in insights from her own practice.

Brian Langenberg of Langenberg & Co. said that newsletters don't require a big investment of time--just a few hours per issue in his case. Moreover, "It is a great way to reach a broad audience, give them your thoughts, and stimulate awareness." I'm sure the investment of time varies by advisor. Some would find it much more time consuming.

Another plus of writing the newsletter yourself: It gives your readers a sense of who you are, especially if you're a good writer. It helps you to create a personal connection with them.


Why choose a canned newsletter

Russell Lowry of Sagemark Consulting prefers to talk directly with his clients, so a personally written newsletter would be overkill for them. He uses a canned newsletter to stay in touch with prospects.

Assabet Advisors' Phelps understands that some advisors prefer a canned newsletter because they "lack the time or skill to write a newsletter themselves."


A newsletter is a great marketing tool

Whatever route you take, a newsletter is a great way to keep your name in front of clients and prospects. Of course, a third option is to hire a writer or editor to help you produce a polished newsletter.

What route are YOU taking? Please leave your comments.





_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

One firm's approach to managing client fears

Wondering how to address your clients' fears during challenging markets?

Get ideas by looking at what others are doing.

For example, Forefield Inc., which provides educational content to advisors, recently sent an email suggesting advisors use their articles about:

• Handling market volatility
• Monitoring your portfolio
• Balancing your investment choices
• Understanding risk
• Evaluating volatility
• Dollar cost averaging
  

Have you discussed those topics recently with your clients? If not, maybe now is the time to do it.
________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

Speaking to high net worth audiences

I agree with PR expert Beth Chapman's advice in her recent newsletter that your preparation for speaking to high net worth clients should include:
1. Honing your speaking skills
2. Understanding that educational, non-self-serving content is required
3. Trusting that your current clients are the conduit you need to the audiences you seek.

I was intrigued by her suggestion that you

"Offer to speak to your clients' social groups, condo associations, or at a coffee in their homes for ten or more friends. I can hear you now -- this is so low brow, good grief. But, wait. Don't misjudge the importance of small groups of clients and who they know. Your existing clients have conduits to all the high net worth groups you wish to access. But you have never asked your clients to introduce you to these target groups as a speaker, have you?"

_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

Strong analogy for Federal Reserve policy

Clean writing will make your investment commentary writing easy to read. Strong analogies will make it memorable.

I like this analogy for Federal Reserve policy from "Larry, Curly, Moe and the Economy" in Ben Stein's Jan. 13 column for The New York Times (note: free registration may be required to access the article).

...punishing the United States economy because oil prices are high is attacking the wrong culprit. It’s sort of like a Three Stooges movie in which the wrong person keeps getting hit on the head.

The Three Stooges image will make Stein's point last longer in the minds of many readers.

_____________________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.