An Analytics Case Study
Getting Young Americans Excited About ETFs
Project Type: Research & Analytics
Timeline: April 2021 - Oct 2022
Project Type: Research & Analytics
Timeline: April 2021 - Oct 2022
Financial firms and big banks have long tailored their communications efforts to middle-to-high income Americans 30 and older, seen as more likely to be involved in day trading, buying and selling stock, and actively saving for retirement. However, recent financial developments including the rapid adoption of cryptocurrency, the advent of trading platforms like Robin Hood and Acorn, and fervor around meme stocks have spotlighted Gen Z and young Millennials as a fast-growing consumer segment in the investing space.
Our client was an established financial services firm whose chief offerings live in the exchange-traded fund (ETF) space. Given that ETFs are best known as a “set it and forget it” investment, offering a stable rate of return but little opportunity for significant upswings, grabbing the attention of the “to the moon crowd” proved a challenge. In addition to advising the client in building a social strategy that would appeal to the interests of younger investors, our team developed a comprehensive reporting approach to stay up-to-date on key topics within the industry and evaluate our strategy’s effectiveness.
Financial firms often are not viewed as having the flashiness and personality that can lend well to social media content, especially when it comes to newer, multimedia-heavy platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. This goes double for a brand whose primary products – ETFs – are often known for being “boring”; in fact, it’s their greatest strength.
Given that our client’s key audience of interest – younger Americans in college or having recently graduated – spend a great deal of time on these sites, our social strategy would need to be tailored to these platforms without coming across as inauthentic. Additionally, we would need to be able to monitor and assess our social content performance to make necessary adjustments as needed.
As part of this ongoing process, we collaborated closely with a team of communications experts who crafted and consulted on the client’s social media strategy. To keep regular tabs on our strategy’s execution and ensure our work was informed by data-driven insights, we engaged in social listening through TalkWalker to monitor ETF conversation on Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok. In addition to monitoring our client’s content performance, identifying strengths and areas for improvement, we also benchmarked against a group of key competitors in the financial services space and examined the overall ETF social landscape in search of any new whitespace opportunities.
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Our partnership with this client extended for approximately a year and a half. During this time, our monthly media audits identified several flashpoints that have helped the client successfully pivot their messaging, including increasing their market insights and advice output during periods of volatility and bearish concerns, leveraging collaborative efforts with players and teams to up the credibility of a unique sponsorship in athletics, and successfully building an audience on TikTok. Through our media tracking efforts, we’ve also assisted the client in evaluating the effectiveness of the aforementioned athletics partnership and in promoting a unique financial education game that our communications arm helped launch.