November 16 is the date of my first free public webinar, “You: The Secret of Great Blogs that Boost Your Readership.” You can sign up by clicking on the ATTEND button in the link below.

If you sign up to receive my “Events” emails, you’ll receive timely reminders about this and other upcoming events.

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

The NICSA General Membership Meeting on October 6 addressed challenges facing investment managers and their service providers. Compared to other industry conferences, it emphasizes the “back office” functions that support investment professionals. In this post I present some of what caught my attention at the conference–mostly information about regulation and marketing.

The short statements are tweets, grouped by speaker. I also link to my blog posts on the meeting. In case you’re wondering, #NICSAGMM is the hashtag used on Twitter to help people find tweets related to the conference.

My blog posts about #NICSAGMM

OppenheimerFunds on the separation of marketing and sales

Citi on financial services’ biggest potential social media mistake

Opposing financial services’ social media paralysis at #NICSAGMM

Robert Pozen, MFS Investment Management, on financial reform

The back office makes mutual industry go, says Bob Pozen, MFS #NICSAGMM

Bob Pozen: SRI = systematically risky institutions. Means lots of extra regs #NICSAGMM

Pozen: Cost of SRI bailouts borne by other SRIs, NOT taxpayers #NICSAGMM

Pozen: Proprietary trading will shift from US banks to least regulated countries and companies with Volcker Rule #NICSAGMM

Pozen: Good change with Dodd-Frank: clearing for derivatives #NICSAGMM

Pozen suggests investment advisors form their own SRO #NICSAGMM

Pozen: C shares will be required to convert to A shares eventually #NICSAGMM

Pozen: Fluctuating NAV for money market funds would be end of MMFs for retail investors #NICSAGMM

Pozen: Hope we don’t over-regulate MMFs. Only 2 broke the buck #NICSAGMM

Pozen: Public-private firms like T Rowe, Franklin, Legg Mason, Black Rock will be winners in asset mgt #NICSAGMM

Pozen: Public-private means some public stock, but strong internal mgt control #NICSAGMM

Pozen: Restricted shares shouldn’t vest just because you’re still alive. Tie to performance. #NICSAGMM

Pozen: “Mortgages are the big banana that has never been touched.” Barely touched by Dodd-Frank #NICSAGMM

Pozen: Qualified residential mortgages (QRMs) will be important. Downpayment requirement will be key. #NICSAGMM

Bob Pozen: Europe has solvency crisis, US doesn’t have one…yet #NICSAGMM

Pozen: Repeated budget crises -> instability. Need to bring back compromise. #NICSAGMM

Pozen: Another crisis is inevitable at end of 2012 when Bush tax cuts expire & budget is issue #NICSAGMM

Pozen: Customers want best products at best price. #NICSAGMM

Pozen: People don’t understand inverse relationship between interest rates and bond prices #NICSAGMM

Marty Willis, OppenheimerFunds

Marty Willis, Oppenheimer Funds: Mutual funds’ biggest challenge = lack of differentiation. #NICSAGMM

Willis: New tech will allow wholesalers to improve the value they offer. Like pharmaceutical reps. #NICSAGMM

M. Willis, Oppenheimer Funds: Marketers’ toolkit now more complete. #NICSAGMM

M. Willis: Fund marketing has become editor of content across web, print, social media. #NICSAGMM

OppenheimerFunds is using predictive modeling to help wholesalers decide who to call on. #NICSAGMM

Peter Thatch, Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management

Peter Thatch, Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management: “Clients’ risk appetite has fallen off the cliff.” #NICSAGMM

Thatch: Products that meet clients’ current needs are more complicated #NICSAGMM

P Thatch: You’ll see more global TAA with risk parameters. #NICSAGMM

Joseph D. Kringdon, Pioneer Funds Distributors/Pioneer Investments

J. Kringdon, Pioneer Funds Distributors: If you died tomorrow, what would your clients miss about you? That’s your value. #NICSAGMM

J. Kringdon, Pioneer Funds Distributors: Clients don’t care about benchmarks #NICSAGMM

Kringdon: Pioneer Investments tries to build its intellectual capital & deliver in multiple media #NICSAGMM

Visit multisectorbond.com to see creative site for advisors to back-test fund #NICSAGMM

Lee Kowarski, kasina

L Kowarski of @kasinaUS: Compensation is broken, but no one wants to lose wholesalers. #NICSAGMM

Penny Alexander, Franklin Templeton Investments

Penny Alexander, Franklin Templeton: Best biz growth opportunities for fund cos = non-US #NICSAGMM

P Alexander: Most developed countries aren’t breeding any more. #NICSAGMM

P Alexander: $10/month invested by world’s middle income earners−>$391 billion in annual gross sales. #NICSAGMM

P Alexander: Need scale to manage lots of small accounts #NICSAGMM

Cartoon: “If we take a late retirement and an early death, we’ll just squeak by.” #NICSAGMM

P Alexander: 3-legged stool for retirement isn’t enough #NICSAGMM

P Alexander: Retirement now needs a kaleidoscope with lots of little pieces. #NICSAGMM

P Alexander: Fund industry can affect mindset & behavior to meet retirement challenge. #NICSAGMM

Penny Alexander: Technology is key to reaching next generation of investors. #NICSAGMM

P Alexander: Muslim investors don’t get as much attention as they should. #NICSAGMM

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

Europe’s problems have dominated economic and market news recently.

They’ve also inspired this month’s poll because I see different ways of spelling and punctuating the combination of euro + zone.

First, let me point out that you should not capitalize the initial letter of “euro” unless it’s in a context where you’d also capitalize “dollar.” For example, in an article title or the first word of a sentence. Although many writers capitalize “euro,” it’s a currency, not a place.

Euro + zone as a noun

I commonly see the region spelled “euro zone” as two separate words, with no hyphen, in U.S. publications. However, I found “eurozone” in Wikipedia, The Financial Times, and Investopedia.

Euro + zone as an adjective

There are two schools of thought about whether to hyphenate compound adjectives, as I discussed in “Should you hyphenate ‘fixed income’?”

The Wall Street Journal hyphenates euro-zone when the paper’s reporters uses the term as an adjective. You see an example in the image below. Please note, in the image the term “euro-zone” appeared as the first word of a sentence. That’s the only reason it is capitalized.

Sources that used “eurozone” for the noun, also used it for the adjective. Perhaps eurozone is more popular in Europe because the term is more commonly used there. Words tend to lose their hyphens over time.

What’s the best practice?

I’m curious how you spell euro +zone.

Please answer the poll in the right-hand column of my blog. I’ll report on the results in my next newsletter.

Here are your choices for how to spell the term as a noun, as in “problems in the euro zone,” and as an adjective, as in “euro-zone steel consumption”:

• eurozone, as noun and adjective
• euro zone,as noun, and euro-zone as adjective
• euro-zone as noun and adjective
• I don’t know

Whatever you do, I hope you’re consistent. Consistency helps your readers understand you better.

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

“Just get it down on paper, and then we’ll see what to do with it.”

–Maxwell Perkins

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

If you receive 10 postcards from productivity expert Jason Womack, it means you’re on his “most wanted” list of prospective clients. This seems like a strategy that financial advisors could adopt.

For 10 consecutive weeks after meeting a hot prospect, Womack sends a postcard to the prospect, as I learned in a video clip from his April 2011 presentation to the American Society of Journalists and Authors. He told me more when we traded tweets.

Each postcard contains a practical tip, with a link to a web page with additional information on the topic.

After 10 weeks, the prospects surely recognize his name. If Womack has hit their hot buttons, they will want to learn more.

This strategy poses two challenges for financial advisors, which I address below.

1. Where to obtain the content?

If you’re a financial blogger, you have content. The best content for a long-term campaign is “evergreen,” meaning it never gets outdated. You can print a teaser line on the front of a postcard, and then provide a short URL to input for more details.

I can imagine some of advisor Roger Wohlner’s blog posts working as postcards.

“Six Investing Mistakes to Avoid” could go on the postcard’s front. On the back? Some teaser copy along with a link to the complete list of mistakes on his website.

If you’re not a blogger, you can license other people’s content and link to it on your website. Forefield‘s articles seem popular among advisors for this purpose.

2. How to create the postcard?

If you’re a low-volume postcard sender, you can start by designing and printing them in your office. I’ve used Vistaprint.com for my promotional postcards. I picked a template and input text. I’m not techno-geek, so you can rest assured that it’s pretty easy to do.

If you’ve successfully used postcards to market your services–or if you have ideas about how to tweak this approach to make it work better–I’d like to hear from you. Please comment below.

For another postcard-related tip, visit “How to connect with your workshop attendees.”

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

What can a songwriter teach you about financial communications? Plenty.

Here’s what singer-songwriter Josh Ritter says:

To edit yourself isn’t an admission of lack of talent; it’s sticking up for that talent by taking the time to make sure that everyone can understand what you’re trying to say.

I agree. Good editing will make your writing more reader-friendly.

Ritter shared his wisdom in “Seeing Red: To Write Is to Edit” in The Wall Street Journal.

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an important topic for bloggers. I turned to Steve Tannuzzo, the talented copywriter whom I’m glad to call my friend, for his insights into how you can use SEO effectively.

Even if you don’t care about SEO, I think you’ll enjoy Steve’s writing, which lives up to his statement that “My mission is to replace boring, hackneyed copy with words that zing and sell.”

Easy SEO: How to Really Get Found on the Internet

By Steve Tannuzzo

So you’re writing a blog but very few people are reading it. Now what?

Perhaps you’ve learned some tips and tricks that were “guaranteed” to elevate your search engine rankings. You may even have tried a few suggestions from website articles written by so-called search engine optimization experts, yet your blog is still starving for readers.

If you’ve taken the advice of these alleged pros, you’ve probably kept your keyword frequency between 3% and 7% of the article’s total word count. You’ve chosen accurate meta tags for the description of the blog post and your title tag is, in your humble opinion, a Google magnet.

You may even have avoided the pitfalls of sloppy SEO: You resisted overstuffing endless keywords into your coding. You didn’t list your town along with 40-50 surrounding towns in your site’s footer in a shameless attempt to build a local following. You didn’t intentionally misspell names and words in your meta tags to ride the coattails of your competition and capture the bad-speller demographic. You understand that Google is smart, and you didn’t run afoul of their rules.

So what gives?

Here’s the problem: Google and other search engines use complex algorithms to determine exactly how they decide their rankings. These formulas, rules and calculations are subject to change and no one is really sure exactly how or why they alter them. So for the immediate future, here is the best advice I can give you to get found on the Internet. That is, until the next time the search engines stir the algorithm stew.

Seven Ways for Your Blog to Get Found and Read

1. Choose Your Headlines Carefully. Make your title stand out from the crowd. Be specific to your article’s content. Imagine how someone might search for your article and use those words in your title.

2. Use Multiple Headlines. While Google may have lost its love for keywords, they really have a thing for those header tags. Use those h1 and h2 options rather than using a larger font and making it bold. Apart from your title, use sub-headers throughout your article.

3. Choose a Searchable URL. If you owned a dog-walking business, you’d get a lot more hits with www.walkmydogboston.com than you would with something like www.wmdenterprises.com.

4. Use Keywords Sparingly. Put away the calculator. 3-7% is just a guideline. If you’re overusing certain words and phrases, you’ll know it. Your post will sound like spam—and no one wants a blog that reads like that.

5. Build Your Reputation. Volunteer to be a guest blogger. Have websites with related content link back to your blog. Get your name and the name of your website mentioned on other sites. Pick one or several social media platforms to promote your latest articles. Inbound links from reputable sites like Twitter, Digg, LinkedIn and Facebook tell the Google-bots that your site deserves respect and attention.

6. Think Small. Let’s say you’re a foodie and you want to blog about bread. An article on baking bread will yield endless pages of search engine results. You’d be much better served writing about, say, sprouted grain bread. It’s a specific topic with a cultish following. It’s perfect for search and it’s a more interesting read. Think of it as narrowcasting as opposed to broadcasting and apply this rule when choosing bite-sized topics related to your business. You may be pleasantly surprised to find your blog getting more traffic when casting a smaller net. They’ll read the whole post and they may even comment on your blog. That’s when you’ll really see the start of a regular readership.

7. Write for People, Not Search Engines. This may be the most important lesson of all. You could be sitting atop the search engine rakings with cleverly strategized SEO, but once someone clicks on your site, you’ll need to deliver the goods. Choose a voice that doesn’t talk down to your readers. Be relevant. Teach something new. Engage and entertain. Make your posts worth their while. Balance how your readers find you with the outstanding content you give them with each new post.

And that’s it. You don’t need an advanced degree from MIT to unravel the mystery of Google’s evolving algorithms. You probably don’t have the time. But if you follow these reasonable rules, you’ll build a solid readership and a reputation for delivering compelling content.

Steve Tannuzzo is the owner of Tannuzzo Copywriting. He helps people grow their businesses by providing clear, goal-specific copy that gets them noticed and increases their profits. His specialties include advertising copy and social media marketing content. Visit his website at www.tannuzzo.com and follow him on Twitter @BostonProWriter.

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

“Lawyers never get in trouble for saying ‘no’ to marketing.” I learned this from one of my favorite corporate bosses.

So I hastily scribbled a tweet when Rajib Chanda of Ropes & Gray made the following statement on the “Social Media in the Workplace” panel at NICSA’s General Membership Meeting on October 6.

Chanda made the point that there’s plenty of guidance for social media compliance. FINRA has been more forthcoming than the SEC. However, firms that fall under the SEC can look to its regulation of communications via other media.

Like Chanda, panel moderator Paul Butcher, director of global corporate social media for Citi, urged financial services companies to act.

He said, social media is NOT like walking across Niagara Falls on a tightrope carrying a piano. In his opinion, companies should use social media within carefully defined constraints.

Citi’s approach includes the following:

• Global social media guidelines
• A registration process for those who will potentially use social media on behalf of the company
• Training on Citi’s best practices and guidelines
• Appropriate use of technology and branding

If you’re still worried about risks from social media, panelist Anthony “Sandy” Codding, Jr. of Marsh/FINPRO described the kinds of insurance you can buy for protection in areas including defamation, intellectual property, errors and omissions, privacy liability, disclosure of financial information, and employment.

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

My writing books

My post on “My five favorite reference books for writers” sparked many suggestions for additional useful resources for writers.

Suggestions arrived via my blog, social media, and email. I am grateful for every suggestion.

For example, Julie Fordyce said, “In your reference book section, I’d add the New York Times Style Guide, Fowler’s Modern English Usage (even if it is British) and Theodore Bernstein’s The Careful Writer.”

You’ll find a list of books, with links to their descriptions on Amazon.com, below.

Thank you, contributors! I wish I could acknowledge every contributor by name, but even compiling the list of titles was daunting.

Dictionaries

• A Dictionary of American Proverbs
• A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (Fowler’s)
• Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
• Shorter Oxford English Dictionary: Thumb Indexed
• The Synonym Finder

Copywriting and marketing

• The Adweek Copywriting Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Powerful Advertising and Marketing Copy from One of America’s Top Copywriters
• The Copywriter’s Handbook, Third Edition: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Copy That Sells
• First Hundred Million: How To Sky Rocket Your book Sales With Slam Dunk Titles

More titles

• The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style
• The Associated Press Guide to Punctuation
• The Careful Writer
• Chicago Manual of Style
• The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed
• The Gregg Reference Manual: A Manual of Style, Grammar, Usage, and Formatting Tribute Edition
• Hodges’ Harbrace Handbook
• Line by Line: How to Edit Your Own Writing
• The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage
• On Writing Well
• One Word, Two Words, Hyphenated?
• Practical English Usage
• Speaking with a Purpose
• The Wall Street Journal Guide to Business Style and Usage
• Write Right!: A Desktop Digest of Punctuation, Grammar, and Style
• A Writer’s Reference, Fifth Edition

I hope to work my way through the books you’ve suggested.

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

Differentiation is a big challenge for mutual funds companies. Part of how OppenheimerFunds tackles this is through the separation of marketing and sales, said Marty Willis, chief marketing officer. She spoke on a mutual fund distribution panel at NICSA’s General Membership Meeting in Boston on Oct. 6.

Creativity, not just sales support

When sales and marketing were together, marketing’s focus was too short-term and reactive, said Willis. In other words, it focused on sales support.

Even when the company tackled larger goals, such as raising brand awareness, it didn’t go far enough. Many consumers didn’t know what the brand stood for.

Today Willis is focusing on getting OppenheimerFunds’ brand to “permeate all touch-points,” even including customer service and philanthropy. It all feeds from one vision, like Apple’s “Think Different.”

Globalization and “snackable content”

GlobalizeYourThinking.com is one example of Willis’ vision. This micro-site features what Willis called “snackable content.” “It’s easy to digest and good for you,” she said. In a nod to social media, can be shared by advisors with their clients. It’s also available as a mobile app.

The site has attracted over half a million viewers and has 5000 unique visitors per week, said Willis. Visitors have averaged 7 minutes on the site. That’s twice as long as advisors spend on the firm’s other website, Willis said.

Global Tracker initiative

Willis touched briefly on her firm’s Global Tracker project, which it is developing with The Economist. The project has two facets. One is to allow users to call up all sorts of country, industry, and investment product information online. The other is a kind of game in which advisors compete.

Willis experienced the power of games when she skied in Vail, Colorado, where your ski pass allows you to track your vertical feet. She found herself taking extra runs so she could earn icons or other acknowledgments of hitting milestones.

OppenheimerFunds part of marketing trend

Oppenheimer’s elevation of marketing reflects a broader trend, said Lee Kowarski of kasina, who moderated the panel on which Willis spoke.

Marketing is becoming more peer to sales, instead of focusing on sales support, he said.

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.