Superannuation funds are looking at ways to embark as well as improve their mobile phone communication strategies in order to revive member engagement, an industry survey found.
Recent statistics from a survey conducted by mobile marketing Bantermob revealed that 91.55 per cent of participants would like to access their super fund member details or account on their mobile device.
In addition, 74.65 per cent would like access to superannuation calculators, 54.93 per cent would like to be able to search and locate lost super fund accounts and 50.6 per cent would like balance updates on their mobile phones.
Mobile marketing could be the right path to engage superannuation fund members, particularly as legislative changes such as MySuper and SuperStream push the need for more innovative approaches to marketing, Bantermob director Kelly Slessor said.
Slessor presented the research findings ahead of last week’s Talent Web Recruitment roundtable of industry executives.
Representatives from AMP, Russell Investments, Asset Super and Charles Schwabb all agreed that the marketing sector is an untapped opportunity but implementing a successful strategy is highly challenging.
“Arguably, the biggest problem with superannuation is that members are just not engaged,” Russell Investments marketing manager client services Alice Conibear said.
“There’s a lack of understanding out there [but] you do have a certain control over your own super account environment, whether you’re changing investments et cetera so perhaps engagement is not about building a brand but building an understanding about how you can actually physically engage with your super account even thought you can’t get it until you’re retired.”
AMP digital marketing manager Ivan Prpic said from a super perspective it was hard to justify some of the social media channels and initiatives, specifically on mobile phones, now that the industry is at a stage of leveraging customer needs with business needs.
“The genre on its own is about money [being deducted] from my account and going somewhere else, so what are the touch points?
“In super especially, that discovery piece [of] answering questions around what you actually want to do is definitely key and consistency is number one as well,” he said.
Websites that do not have a call to action or was not mobile-friendly achieved no consistency so for anyone entering the mobile space, it is imperative that existing digital assets are mobilised, he said.
The Bantermob results also found that in terms of mobile phone use, 35.29 per cent of participants have researched super funds, 20.59 per cent have logged into a superfund account and 20.59 per cent have searched for lost super accounts.
In contrast, zero per cent of participants have received a text message alert from their superfund.
“If it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind,” AMP SMSF marketing manager Christian Lombardi said.
“In terms of what is the priority, I think I speak for all super funds that it’s retention but more precisely, the re-engagement of our existing client base. Just because they have a fund with us, doesn’t mean that they’re a client; they’re a policy holder.”
Super funds are faced with the challenge of leveraging mobile technology to prompt members to actively choose a fund for their contributions, particularly the portion of consumers that are not high net worth individuals, Lombardi said.
“Is it a broad-based retail offer that gets them engaged with us to just at least have some level of engagement or relationship?”
The roundtable participants were all undecided about whether to target the younger generation about their superannuation.
“There’s no reward tangible enough but as you’re getting older and it becomes more imminent, the rewards are closer and they’re more important,” Charles Schwabb marketing communications Heather Romao said.
AMP’s position was also uncertain because “we’re playing in a space of: where’s the company gain and which is the customer segmentation group that you really want to engage with in the first place?” Prpic said.
