1. What would best describe your attitude toward attending a public gathering (restaurant, theater, sporting events, educational workshop) within the next three months?"
Since dinner seminars and workshops have been a mainstay for advisor leads for generations, this has been on the minds of advisories and marketers alike. Understandably people have concerns. Nearly 50% of the respondents would likely not attend or only attend with the highest level of caution, while only about 13% said this would not have any effect. The difference between big cities and small towns had only a marginal difference.
2. What would be your most preferred way of staying informed today?
The quarantine has challenged the world to reach people in new, mostly digital, forms of communication. While old-fashioned "reading articles" took the top spot with 40% of the respondents, one-third of respondents preferred watching on-demand videos or webinars. It did appear that those who preferred video format may have been skewed by markets where they had been served more videos in the past, making it a more familiar platform. This clearly indicates our ability as marketers to mold media consumption patterns, and it is why we are bullish on this form of engagement.
3. What type of financial advice is most important to you in times of uncertainty?"
There has been study after study that shows people look for comfort and leadership during challenging times, and this belief is supported. Overwhelmingly, "Trustworthiness" was voted most important with 63% of the votes, while the second most selected - “Brand trait” - only garnered less than 14%, with "Customer experience" at a close third place. "Industry knowledge" had less than 10% of the votes, which could be explained by the fact that it is such a commoditized industry.
4. What type of marketing message would you be most likely to respond to?
When it comes to the actual message itself, the leading answer by far was "Solution-based" with 65% of the vote. This would suggest that the intellectual message has to solve a problem first and foremost, as opposed to the "brand" itself. This supports the value of instilling a "trustworthy" brand to allow a more receptive audience to listen to how you will solve their problem.
5. What is your most preferred mediums to stay informed during the pandemic?"
The response here was fairly consistent with industry averages based on this demographic and qualitative subset. 33% of respondents say the number one way to stay informed is cable news, followed by online sources with 28% of the vote. Despite its use by a large number of financial advisories, radio only yielded about 10% of the respondent's first choices. Social media was slightly over 1%, which is encouraging as this is, by definition, a "social" network and not a news outlet.
