Investment News is running a webcast on “What to Say to Clients Now” on September 23.
Check it out, if you’d like to hear how others are talking to their clients about the craziness on Wall Street.
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Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.
Copyright 2008 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved
Making a client smile can bring your meeting one step closer to a successful result.
So, consider licensing a cartoon about the economy or stock market. It’s easy to find them by searching CartoonBank.com, a collection from the New Yorker.
Could you use the cartoon described by the following caption?
“I got out of tulips after the market collapsed, but I’m slowly getting back in. Especially pink ones.”
Or, how about this one?
“Actually, ‘Monkey see, monkey do’ has served me quite well in this market.”
When you license cartoons for use in presentations, you keep yourself safe from charges of copyright infringement. Lawyers can’t come after you. That’s an added benefit.
Have you used cartoons successfully in your presentations?
You can’t be an effective financial advisor, if you can’t communicate effectively via e-mail.
Your e-mail subject line is key. If you write a weak subject line, your client or colleague may ignore or even delete your message. Write a strong one, and you’re more likely to get the response you need.
“Writing Effective E-Mail: Top 10 Tips” by Dennis Jerz does a nice job of critiquing subject lines as he explains how to “write a meaningful subject line.”
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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.
Financial advisors, here’s a cool new widget that may appeal to your video-oriented clients.
Click on the “Get Widget” box to get the code for adding this to your blog or website. I discovered this widget on the Investment Postcards from Capetown blog.
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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.
Copyright 2008 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved
Morningstar has introduced monthly bond market commentary.
The August 2008 issue of Morningstar Bond Market Commentary has many nice features. But it also illustrates an important “Don’t” of online publishing.
The commentary is almost impossible to read online. Why? Because it’s formatted in three columns instead of one.
The bottom line:If you want people to read your commentary online, format it in one column. Otherwise, you’ll lose many readers.
By the way, Morningstar says its bond commentary is designed to be printed out. A three-column layout works fine in hard copy.
Sometimes you have to say something unexpected to grab your reader’s attention.
Something like, “Tired of having too much money at the end of the month?” That’s a headline that snared me recently. Aren’t you usually concerned about the opposite problem, of having too little money at the end of the month?
In Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, authors Chip Heath and Dan Heath say, “The most basic way to get someone’s attention is this: Break a pattern. Humans adapt incredibly quickly to consistent patterns.”
“Surprise jolts us to attention,” as the Heaths say.
Can you use surprise in your next client communication? PIMCO’s Paul McCulley did it in “A Kind Word for Inflation.”
“Should you always label a white paper with the term ‘white paper’?”
Michael Stelzner asks this question on his Writing White Papers blog.
My answer: it depends.
When you say “white paper” to financial advisors, they probably know what you’re talking about. In fact, the term conjures up the image of a helpful tool.
Say “white paper” to an ordinary investor and you’re likely to get a blank look. In this case, it’s far better to call it a “special report” or even just an “article.”
What do you think?
“The Top Seven B2B Communications Mistakes” offers some useful advice for investment and wealth management marketers, whether you’re targeting businesses or individuals.
For example:
When I review investment and wealth management firms’ content, I often find it focused on them, not on their clients. It takes a mighty motivated buyer to plow through content that takes that approach.
As for informing instead of selling, I don’t think you can follow this rule 100% of the time. But many firms could benefit from taking this advice more frequently.
That’s the bottom line of “Why Jargon Feeds on Lazy Minds” by Scott Berkun.
Moreover, he warns, “Pay attention to who uses the most jargon: it’s never the brightest. It’s those who want to be perceived as the best and the brightest, something they know they are not.”
Berkun offers a list of management jargon that he’d like to ban.
Can you think of financial jargon that should join the list of forbidden terms? Let’s start with “mitigate.”
You’ll find more suggestions in “Words to avoid in your investment communications with regular folks.”
Plenty of investment and wealth management firms try to distinguish themselves as so-called “thought leaders.” Many will fail.
“Thought Leadership: Are You Making It or Faking It?” by Fiona Czerniawska says that clients seek:
1. Something relevant to challenges they face
2. Something new and different
3. Something that is supported by hard evidence – a single case study or recycling second-hand ideas is not enough
When you write white papers, make sure you show how your ideas can impact the things your clients care about. If you fail at this, your reader may not progress beyond your first paragraph.
If you can also say something different about a topic that’s in the news, that’s even better.
Don’t use your white paper to pitch your product or service. As Czerniawska advises her consulting firm clients:
In this context, a call-to-action – perhaps some benchmarking data for clients to compare themselves to or a tool for evaluating their performance – is more likely to result in consulting work in the long-term because it doesn’t try to sell too unsubtly in the short-term.