American Funds top choice for marketing materials

Financial advisers and branch managers chose American Funds as the firm which best meets their needs for marketing materials, according to a study released today by Financial Research Corp. The popular mutual fund manager, part of Capital Research and Management Co., was followed by Franklin Templeton Investments, Fidelity Investments and the iShares exchange-traded fund business of BlackRock Inc. What made those firms stand out? “We evaluated what advisers found to be the most important attributes of leading marketers and found that the most important elements to advisers were the quality and relevance of marketing materials (25%), followed by simplicity (20%) and frequency of contact (12%),” Christopher Yeomans, a research analyst at FRC and co-author of the study, said in a statement. Mr. Yeomans added that “advisers also expressed the idea of quality and relevance of information in a number of different ways, but most found it important to be able to present the same information to clients in a number of different ways, often starting with a fact sheet and then boiling down to the details in a prospectus." FRC also examined how advisers are receiving marketing materials and the effectiveness of the delivery method, including delivered in-person via wholesaler, mailed hard copy, e-mailed, posted on advisers' firm intranet and posted on asset managers' website. Comparing last years' responses with this years', FRC noted an increase in the amount of mailed materials advisers received, despite their preference to receive the materials via an in-person visit from the wholesaler. That finding played into a feeling among advisers that asset manager support has dwindled and that marketing materials are not adequately addressing their needs, according to the study. FRC polled 1,361 financial advisers and 130 branch managers in this year's survey.