For the wealthy, that future is already here. The rich are twice more likely than the average individual to use the “smart” part of their smart phones. According to the Spectrem Group, not only are the wealthy checking their e-mail while on the go, but 46% of them are checking the stock market reports, and 56% of the ultra-high-net-worth are using their smart phones to conduct some form of financial research.

Web and e-mail design capabilities have exploded alongside the popularity of mobile devices, and the ability to adapt any message or design to whichever screen it happens to be viewed on is, by now, pretty standard stuff. Yet we see all the time that the marketers to the wealthy haven’t kept up with the trend; given how rapidly the wealthy adapt to the new technology, that’s a problem that’s only going to get worse. Force your clients to access your website designed for a PC on their smart phones, and you risk contaminating your brand with bad design and user interfaces that don’t work.

Of course, for anyone contemplating a mobile user experience, many questions go unanswered. Are they reading an article while in a doctors’ waiting room, while in line at Whole Foods, or walking on the treadmill? How much information is being processed? So web marketers aren’t only competing with a crowded inbox and overabundance of available sites, but with stop-lights, theater crowds or even the dog in front of them on the sidewalk. So the chance to captivate your audience is, literally, a matter of seconds.

Marketers need to start with better optimization of their material designed for the PC screen by using responsive web design, bold colors, more room for fingers on touch screens and an abbreviated number of words. We are giving mobile user interfaces a lot of thought here at HNW. Check back soon for more best practices on mobile marketing.

In the meantime, try to get a message through to a travelling executive who is simultaneously scheduling meetings on her iPad while navigating an airport and selecting which movie to download before her flight. Impossible to get her attention? There may be an app for that.

The bottom line is we’re all human. And new research tells us that, as humans, the emotional centers in our brains influence what we feel in response to an event well before we even experience a conscious thought. Helping your clients recognize the fact that they may be trading emotionally (and that it can cost them 20% of returns over 10 years) is just the first step in preventing this phenomenon.

According to Peter Zimmerman and Jennifer S. Lerner (“The emotional decision maker”, Harvard University, June 28, 2010, and forthcoming in Government Executive) two different types of emotions influence decision making. One of those, integral emotion, is rational. For instance, if you’re considering taking a risk, and you sense alarm, apprehension and fear, your gut likely has some sense of whether or not you’re making a good choice.

On the other hand, incidental emotion is less legit in terms of rationalizing a decision. Our minds are hardwired to assume that the past can reliably predict the future; the neural pathways associated with prediction actually mirror those associated with memory. Basically these emotions are based on past experiences that aren’t necessarily relevant to the situation at hand. An example of this would be a client whose father passed away with little or no life insurance, yet his family remained financially secure in his absence. You then find your client refusing any type of life insurance. This is likely tied to a past experience, but it’s an experience completely unrelated to rationality and the current situation.

There are three ways you as an advisor can play a role in reducing the influence of these incidental emotions on your clients’ decision-making processes.

1) Help them diagnose their emotions. If you see that your clients are over-checking their portfolios, or requesting to buy or sell more often than average, speak to them about what is prompting these decisions. Help them identify whether these emotions are rational and whether they are appropriate for the situation.

2) Offer different perspectives. Offer your view of the situation, and possibly even the view of someone else in your firm. Looking at problems through the eyes of others can improve your clients’ judgment.

3) Treat each situation as unique. Especially if you’re a long-time advisor who understands their trading history, help recognize past situations that the client has encountered that may be affecting their current decision making process. Help them understand why the risk in their current situation is not dependent upon, or related to, previous experiences they may have had.

Assisting your clients in their self-control—for example, by helping them create limits on the frequency they check their portfolio, or recommending they always check with you before buying or selling—can help them become 12% wealthier than those who don’t put themselves in check. Perhaps a reasonable response to “The rich are different from you and me,” should be “Yes, they have an emotionally intelligent financial advisor.”

My FA is not schmoozing with me, he’s schmoozing with the potential of “future me” … and the rest of my network. I’m not recommending that you start buying filet mignon for every young professional you meet; I’m recommending that you research these potential clients as you would any other investment. My FA understands that while I may just be a blog-writing, e-mail marketing expert now, I seem to have the ambition and intelligence to one day have 100 blog-writing, e-mail marketing experts working for me, and the paycheck that comes along with it. Further, as an active alumna and board member of one of the biggest alumni associations in the world, and an active participant in social media, my influence and network is evidently larger than average for someone of my age and position (insert tooting-own-horn sound here).

Right now, my FA is helpful with my renter’s and disability insurance, and making smart decisions with my 401(k) contributions versus paying down debt and saving for an emergency. But by doing so, he’s also building a trusting and lasting relationship. I genuinely appreciate the time and effort he puts into helping me become a fiscally responsible and confident person, and as a thank you, I’ve referred a friend who does have a bit more to invest, and will refer more. And when I do have money to invest … guess who I’ll call to help me invest it.

Assuming your clients didn’t deplete their life’s savings on a panic-induced Las Vegas adventure, they are still going to need your advice on how to manage their finances and make important decisions for the foreseeable future. So, all joking aside, how can you as a financial advisor take this opportunity to impart some valuable financial wisdom to your clients about planning for a real tragedy?

Most people have concerns about what might happen should an unexpected event occur in their lives, and how they would navigate a significant financial obstacle unscathed, but many might not be willing to address them until prompted. It’s never a bad time to discuss with your clients what their financial plans are around unexpected events or tragedies. This might include how to handle the loss of a job, a severe car accident, natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes, or chronic illness. Proper planning can prevent an enormous amount of additional financial and emotional strain should the unthinkable occur.

Conversation starters such as the recent headlines may lighten the mood as you take the opportunity to reach out and discuss issues like establishing an emergency fund for “stormy weather” or even more serious topics such as wills, estate planning or living trusts. Helping your clients to be prepared for the unexpected will not only ease their minds in the short term but decrease the possible burden that their families might incur in the long run as well, so the next topic you can discuss is saving for that summer home, or how to take a real Las Vegas vacation, without giving up the shirt off your back to do it.

“English” (not “finglish”) is in.

Sales terms like “solutions” are out (thank god) and are being replaced with more tangible terms like “strategy”.

These days, investors are trying to be gently optimistic, but mostly just realistic, about expectations for their investments. Don’t sell them a “dream retirement”, discuss ways and plans to invest their money so that they can enjoy a “comfortable” one, which is more than some investors can hope for at this point.

According to the Invesco study, it turns out clients aren’t employing advisors to hear about the big-picture predictions of the economy, either. 60% of investors are for more interested in hearing about what you or your firm can do for them.

Investors are demanding that advisors put themselves in their shoes, and in result, speak to them clearly about investments and strategy, realistically (yet optimistically) about the future and loudly about what benefits they’re offering.

Having recently completed an extensive study of digital marketing practices (close to 100 interviews with VP- to CMO-level marketers) with a specific focus on the unique issues of the wealth management segment, the study revealed that on a number of levels 2011 is the year digital marketing has come of age.

Spending on digital marketing is up over 20% year over year (compared with mid-single-digit increases in recent years), but more significant than the burgeoning budgets is the emerging consensus among marketers that digital is now at the strategic core of their mission. This belief is increasingly influencing practices from executive recruiting to shifting agency relationships as firms look to build internal centers of excellence and seek niche expertise from outside to fill knowledge gaps their AORs simply aren’t able to fill.

Some key insights from the study included:

• Marketers are intent on cracking the code on social media, but the consensus is that it’s better to develop a strategy first rather than take an invest-and-test approach.
• Advisors are demanding tools that are easy to use and help them do their jobs better.
• Most marketers feel they have not yet figured out how to create an effective “ecosystem” of content to support the advisor.
• An emerging organizational trend is toward centralizing the digital marketing function.

What’s most distinctive about this group of marketers is that they are challenged with communicating effectively with clients both directly and through the financial advisor intermediary—and whether it’s a new iPad app or compliance-approved use of social media channels, FAs are clamoring for more digital marketing tools and support. And with wirehouse signing bonuses for top FAs at record highs and independence an increasingly more viable and attractive option, chances are the big players in this space will want to go the extra mile in this area to keep their FAs happy.

Which leads to a signifcant challenge: As marketers have become more sophisticated in the digital space, they’ve recognized that you can’t simply take something that works in one channel and transplant it to another one. Features that work on your website do not necessarily work on a mobile app. Similarly, content that works in one channel will not work in others, so the message must suit the medium. That white paper or research report may contain some great insights, but if most clients are discovering it on a mobile device, it’s not going to get the readership it deserves.

The addition of mobile, social media and other digital channels to traditional communications channels exacerbates the content production challenge for marketers, who will need to optimize content across more and more platforms to align with the evolving information consumption behavior of their clients, prospects and centers of influence. One senior wealth management marketing executive interviewed for the study described their own role as essentially a running a “content creation engine.”

In order to continue to be effective, marketers will need to make smart decisions about how to build or buy expertise on generating quality content that engages their target audience and keeps pace with when, where and how that audience chooses to consume information.

RIA Model Appeals To Brokers
Some interesting but not ground-breaking information here – independent advisors like being independent. What caught my attention was that of the 92% of IBD (independent broker dealer) affiliated advisors considered themselves completely or somewhat independent, most of them thought their business would need to be different if they were to go the RIA route. According to the Schwab Advisor Services survey, 58% of IBD advisors would prefer joining an established practice rather than going out on their own.

How Social Media is Like Baseball
It’s baseball season – thus ending the longest and saddest period between the Superbowl and Opening Day. Even though written by a Phillies fan, this blog post gives the reader a nice framework to think about Social Media. Reading this got me to thinking beyond the post though – maybe it will for you as well.

Seven Things Advisors Need To Know About Social Media
I liked this post not so much for any ground-breaking observations but for the fact that this was originally posted in May of 2010 on http://riabiz.com and was picked up by Forbes and published on March 31, 2011.  If you want to know why social media is important and how it can lengthen the life of your content, this is a great example.

Checking In on Four Marketing Makeovers
What can a home interior home “staging” expert, an art gallery owner, an independent film maker and a CEO of a remodeling company teach us about marketing? Potentially a lot. All four started on a marketing makeover journey about 6 months ago and have met with some success, some failure and a whole lot of questions.  “As an entrepreneur,” says Tasha Oldham, “it’s good to have guidance and accountability and there are so many valuable, rich resources out there. You don’t have to go it alone.”

The Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes of All Time
Now that we are firmly into April and the threat of getting fooled is behind us, take a minute (no more, you do need to earn your salary) and peruse the top ways that the 1st of April has won out over reason and common sense.  In 1985 I fell “victim” to Sports Illustrated’s Sidd Finch, the rookie Met’s pitching sensation.