Update newsletter
This month’s topics
IFAP February 2008 Update e-newsletter
Welcome to the first edition of Update in 2008. The end of 2007 saw an important change with the introduction of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), affecting all IFAs advising clients outside the UK (within the European Union). In line with these changes, we have adjusted all our ‘Find an IFA’ searches, to allow consumers to easily distinguish between MiFID and non-MiFID authorised IFAs. Read on to find out how to make sure your ‘Find an IFA’ profile fully reflects your own MiFID status.
This edition of Update also looks at the different options we can offer to assist you in promoting and running your business more efficiently. Our Web Directory outlines numerous tips on how to set up a successful website and how to make sure that consumers looking for independent financial advice can find your details easily. IFAP can also help you with a variety of online tools and resources, such as guides, factsheets and podcasts on different financial topics, which you can use in your own webspace.
Please read the section on our Self Declaration Form to ensure that your details continue to be listed on our ‘Find an IFA’ searches going forward. If you have not already done so, you must return this form to us straight away.
As always we have included the latest news on our ever growing online presence and initiatives. In other news we are delighted to tell you that IFAP has recently won the Financial Services Forum Award for Most Effective E-Commerce Activity.
If there is anyone else in your organisation who you think would like to receive our Update e-newsletter, please direct them to www.unbiased.co.uk/email
IFA Promotion News
The new breed of MiFID authorised member IFAs on our ‘Find an IFA’ searches
On 1 November 2007, the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) came into effect and replaced the existing Investment Services Directive (ISD). For IFAP’s members (and financial advisers in general) this essentially means that you need to opt into MiFID to continue providing investment advice to clients in other European Economic Area (EEA) states.
In line with this latest MiFID change, we have updated our ‘Find an IFA’ services to reflect this new FSA authorisation. Member IFAs listing ‘Expatriate Services’ in one of their top nine business areas are now grouped in two categories:
- ‘IFAs for non-UK residents (EEA)’, this group consists exclusively of IFAs who have opted into MiFID (with ‘Expatriate Services listed in their ‘top nine’)
- ‘IFAs for non-UK residents (Rest of World)’, listing details of IFAs who have opted into MiFID and those who have not opted into MiFID (with ‘Expatriate Services’ listed in their ‘top nine’)
Our database is checked against the FSA’s records weekly to ensure our member IFAs’ details are as up to date as possible and that they reflect members’ ongoing MiFID status correctly. To date we list over 1,000 member IFA branch addresses who have opted into MiFID on our ‘Find an IFA’ search. Of those however, only a third have listed ‘Expatriate Services’ in their top nine business areas. This means there are over 600 IFAs who have opted into MiFID on our database who are not currently put forward to consumers seeking expatriate advice.
We would like to encourage all of our members that have opted into MiFID to review their top nine business areas listed on our ‘Find an IFA’ search to make sure they are not missing out on valuable business and are displayed when a consumer searches for expatriate advice within EEA countries.
The online world is fast evolving and it is essential for any business to have an effective web-presence. Consumers spend an average of 23 hours online, which equates to 21% of their overall media consumption (source: TGI Netwave8 – 2006). If your business is not on the ‘virtual’ high street when consumers’ initial online financial research takes place, then there is a risk consumers and businesses will remain oblivious to the services your business offer. Worse still, they may not find you at all.
IFAP already assists you with promoting your business online through Unbiased.co.uk and the 59 white label ‘Find an IFA’ searches we’ve placed on partner websites. Our strategy has been rewarded as over 93% of all consumer searches are now conducted online, showing consumers turn to the web first to find an IFA. In addition IFAP registers over 5,500 IFA and personal finance related words and phrases across online search engines. This ensures that our ‘Find an IFA’ search and therefore your details are at the top of the list when enquirers in your locality are researching financial matters relevant to independent financial advice online. IFAP’s website has also been optimised to ensure online search engines pick up IFA relevant terms on our site and display them as a link to enquirers searching online.
At IFAP we spend a lot of time making sure our online proposition remains as visible and user friendly as possible, and we would like to help you do the same for your business. IFAP’s web directory has been put together to help you make the most of the online opportunity.
Our web directory gives you a simple and easy to follow guide on how to set up and promote your own website. It gives you information on key tools to use on your site to make it user, and online search engine, friendly. It also outlines advice on website content, design and format, as well as tips on how to publish and maintain your site.
In addition, the IFAP web directory explains what IFAP’s sponsors are doing to help you interact with them more efficiently and to improve your online business submissions. The web directory lists sponsors’ e-commerce contact details and highlights the web services they can provide to help you develop your web offering and transact business online. The web directory clearly outlines features such as online quotation systems, policy tracking and document download functions offered by sponsors.
You can download your free copy of the new guide by going to:
www.unbiased.co.uk/ifa/resources/guides
However, why have a website if people can’t find it easily? That’s where IFAP’s Online Marketing Package (OMP) comes in. It ensures your listing stands out from the crowd when people are researching their financial advice options online (which these days seems to be the preferred tool for most people). The OMP offers an enhanced service which is applied to members’ entries on Unbiased.co.uk and the 59 online white label versions of the search. As part of the OMP, your entry will be given its own links and a range of extra features, such as a ‘Call me back’ facility.
For an annual outlay of £249 + VAT you can promote your company details on all IFAP-run searches. With the average IFAP case worth £900 (source: Oliver Wyman 2007), the value generated by one IFAP originated lead more than pays for a whole year’s subscription. Click here for full details or call the member Hotline on 0870 325 9020.
Dennis Hall of Yellowtail Financial Planning Limited explains his experience of IFAPs OMP service:
"In the (almost) 2 years since I started my firm I have been using Unbiased.co.uk as a source of new clients. On various IFA forums and in the trade press I have commented favourably about the value for money we have got from the service. Apart from our existing clients and contacts we have not done any other marketing (until this month) because we have been receiving a steady stream of quality clients through the Unbiased site.
As an indication of the activity we have witnessed, since I returned to the office on 3rd January I have met with 5 new prospective clients who match my new client criteria. Three of these have already signed up to our service and I am positive that at least one other will also become a client. As our minimum client take on fee is £2,500 + VAT this has more than covered our costs. One of the new clients is a top city lawyer who found us through Unbiased.co.uk. We expect to be able to bill £5,000 per annum from this one client alone, over and above our take on fee.
Of course, Unbiased.co.uk doesn’t turn an enquiry into a client, we have spent a lot of time, effort and money on having an attractive website which turns the browsing visitor into a face to face meeting, and also our proposition is compelling. However, without Unbiased we would have to find alternative ways to drive the merely inquisitive internet user into a real enquiry. On that basis Unbiased has got to be the most cost effective and time effective marketing tool we have used."
IFAP resources for you
IFAP aims to simplify the world of financial jargon and to explain the benefits of independent financial advice to consumers. We produce and publish a comprehensive collection of individual guides, factsheets and tools online to help consumers make sense of the financial world. But this material is not just for us to display on our website, it is there for all member IFAs to use. You can download any of the material provided on Unbiased.co.uk to use in your own web space free of charge – this includes microsites and podcasts on a range of financial products that IFAs advise on including pensions, mortgages, tax, savings and investments to detailed information on other areas of financial planning and up to date guides on the financial advice options available to consumers.
However, please note, if you use any of IFAP’s content on your own website, you will be responsible for keeping the information up to date and to ensure the copy has your company’s compliance sign-off.
And please don’t forget to display IFAP’s blue roundel logo on your website as a sign that you offer independent financial advice. The blue roundel is the badge of independence, and if it’s not displayed on your home page (but is displayed on that of one of your competitors) you may lose out. You only have seconds to register your proposition with consumers researching their options online and the blue roundel logo is a powerful visual stimulus. With the help of the blue roundel, consumers are left in no doubt that your business offers truly independent financial advice.
The most recent addition to the Merchandise Centre in the IFA section of Unbiased.co.uk is the new Tax poster, in both A1 and A2 sizes for you to display in your office window. You can now order these and all the other posters online free of charge.
IFAP’s joint poll with the Association of Investment Companies (AIC)
You will remember that in December 2007, we sent you our fifth annual New Year’s Prediction survey, which we run together with the AIC. The survey asks members, as representatives of the IFA market, for your predictions of how well different investment sectors will perform in 2008. At the same time, the AIC asks fund managers from their member organisations for their views on the same sectors.
This year, both sides were generally optimistic about the prospects for 2008, with fund managers being the more cautious group. The results reveal that 77% of IFAs expect markets in general to rise this year compared to 61% of fund managers. Blue chips were tipped as the sector most likely to outperform in 2008 by the largest proportion of fund managers. IFAs, in contrast opted for Resources and tipped Emerging Markets as the best performing region in 2008 while fund managers favoured the Asia Pacific region excluding Japan.
As always this survey was well received by the media, with coverage in online, print and broadcast such as Financial Times, Working Lunch, Reuters, Financial Adviser and the Scotsman.
This month’s topics
Ethical Investment Week 2008
The first ever National Ethical Investment Week (NEIW – pronounced ‘new’) will run from 18 – 24 May 2008. The campaign, encouraging all investors to consider green and ethical options, will tap into the increasing number of people who want to do their bit for the environment and society while still seeking good investment performance.
IFAP believes that National Ethical Investment Week is a great opportunity for the growing number of member IFAs advising on ethical investments to attract new clients and support their existing ones.
The NEIW site at www.neiw.org will be the first point of call for consumers wanting to find out more – including searching for events and offers available during the week from local IFAs. They will also be able to search for an IFA advising on ethical investments on a page created by IFAP especially for NEIW.
NEIW is organised by the UK Social Investment Forum (UKSIF - www.uksif.org) who are commissioning a high profile PR campaign to raise consumer awareness about the Week and drive traffic to the NEIW site.
There are lots of ways that IFAs can use NEIW to raise awareness that they advise on green and ethical investments – for example, you could include the NEIW logo on marketing materials, display a NEIW poster in your office, get an article or letter in your local paper or publicise a free introductory advice session during the week. Visit the NEIW website at www.neiw.org for details of the support available to help you get involved, or see the NEIW Guide for Investment Professionals at www.neiw.org/investment-professionals. For those wanting to brush up their ethical investment advice skills, UKSIF’s free Training Course for Financial Advisers is online at www.uksif.org/consumers-advisers/online_course.
In support of this initiative, IFAP has recently added a podcast on ethical investment to Unbiased.co.uk, which UKSIF will also be including on their campaign website.
Reminder to complete and return your annual Self Declaration Form to IFAP
You will have already received your annual Self Declaration form, by email or post, asking you confirm to IFAP the names of the Investment IFAs at your branch and their individual FSA numbers.
This is part of our annual initiative to ensure that only truly independent financial advisers are included in our ‘Find an IFA’ search. In order to ensure consumers fully understand the type of IFA they will be receiving details of, we also insist that all of our members offer whole of market advice and a fees payment option across all product areas.
As we’ve previously stated, failure to complete the Self Declaration form may result in your removal from the IFAP database, which would mean you no longer receive referrals from us. It would also mean that you are no longer authorised to use the IFAP blue roundel on any of your marketing material or take part in IFAP’s Media Services for journalists or regional Press Clubs.
If you have not already done so, please return your fully completed form without delay by fax to 0870 325 9018 or by post to IFAP, 17-19 Emery Road, Bristol BS4 5PF. You can also complete this form online by referring to your Update newsletter email and clicking on the right hand link entitled Self Declaration Form. Please call our members Hotline on 0807 325 9020 with any further questions or to request another SDF form.
IFAP wins coveted award for Most Effective E-Commerce Activity
In November 2007, IFAP’s ever evolving presence in the online arena received yet another award – the Financial Services Forum Most Effective E-Commerce Activity Award. The Financial Services Forum Awards for Marketing Effectiveness are dedicated to recognising and rewarding proven success in the presentation and promotion of financial services and products.
We were awarded this accolade in recognition of our high profile online campaign promoting the benefits of independent financial advice to the public. This strategy has helped us focus the core message of the value of truly independent advice into the key financial sections of websites, where our target market increasingly conducts their initial financial research – which includes choosing a local IFA.
IFAP continues to add further podcasts to its series
IFAP offers a range of different consumer financial guides and factsheets in a variety of different formats. In 2007, we also added a new podcast section to our guides page and to date we have six podcasts on different topics available, each one of them hosted by an IFAP Media Services member IFA.
In January we added podcasts on ‘Ethical Investments’ and ‘Savings’, with plans to record further podcasts on areas such as equity release, long term care and offshore investment. We will be adding new topics throughout the year to continue with our series. So if you are interested in taking part in a podcast recording or if you have any topic suggestions, then please contact IFAP media services on mediaservices@ifap.org.uk.
IFAP’s growing online presence
As you know, placing IFAP online content (‘Find an IFA’ searches, editorial, tools, microsites, guides, etc) in the personal finance channels of partner websites and portals is a key priority for us. This is all helping us to ensure that the profile of independence is being maintained where people are researching their financial advice options: online. Over the last three months we have added three new ‘Find an IFA’ searches to our existing white label versions, bringing the total number of searches we’re running on partner sites to 59. The new ‘Find an IFA’ searches can be found on the What Investment site (www.whatinvestment.co.uk), Forum of Private Business (www.fpb.org) and Interactive Investor (www.iii.co.uk).
We have also continued to build on the great relationships we’ve developed with a number of websites – including the BBC, Londonstockexchange.com, MSN, Thisismoney and Yahoo – providing new and up-to-date editorial content.
As always we will continuing to discuss partnership opportunities with key money and industry websites and will keep you posted on our continuing progress in the next edition of Update.
This month’s topics
Keeping independent financial advice in the news
IFAP TaxAction campaign
January has seen the next instalments of Unbiased.co.uk’s TaxAction campaign. TaxAction continues to concentrate on the UK’s major tax concerns, providing a range of practical tips on how to ensure the general public can make tax work best for them.
Since the beginning of 2008, we have issued a release on Charitable Giving, highlighting how much money people gift to the taxman, rather than to the charity of their choice, by failing to make the most of the tax advantage offered through Gift Aid.
Other stories in 2008 will focus on key personal finance issues in relation to tax credits and of course ISA season.
Please visit our campaign website at www.unbiased.co.uk/taketaxaction to find out more about our ongoing PR campaign and how you can get involved.
Our Get Saving! 2007 campaign concluded with a story on Britain’s financial rescuers – revealing that more women have financially helped out their children than men. Men in contrast are more likely to help their friends than their own kids!
December also saw the latest update of our quarterly Savings Brake trends, which looks at the ratio of how much we are borrowing, not including mortgage debt, contrasted with how much we are saving. The latest set of figures (Q3 2007) showed that consumers’ borrowings doubled in the last quarter and broke the £11billion barrier. Overall, the British public owed 35 pence for every pound they saved.
2008 will see the Get Saving! 2007 campaign round-up which will include the Q4 2007 figures of our Savings Brake trends.
Our campaign website Unbiased.co.uk/getsaving provides a series of savings and thrift tips (how much you could save a year by sacrificing your morning coffee etc), a budget calculator which shows realistically what you should have available each month for saving, and advice on the many ways in which people can start to save.
There’s plenty more Get Saving! news to watch out for – look out for the update of our Savings Brake research and our next release on New Year’s resolutions.
Visit www.unbiased.co.uk/getsaving to find out more about the campaign.
IFAP Press Clubs report
IFAP’s regional Press Clubs work with local media, forging strong relationships with regional newspapers to help promote independent advice and local IFAs.
IFAP members who have not read about or experienced the benefits of belonging to a local Press Club, should read our guide - “The essential guide to raising your IFA business profile with local media” – download a copy now.
This month’s topics
News from around the country
Cambridge, The Cambridge Evening News. This small Press Club plans to launch a new campaign early in 2008 and the host newspaper is keen to co operate with members. Any member in the circulation area of this paper who is interested in participating in the new campaign should contact IFAP’s Regional Press Officer before the end of February.
Leicester, The Leicester Mercury. This long standing Club has published a full page each month in the Mercury for just over 12 years and plans to continue throughout 2008. The Club published a Christmas special in December which appeared in the television and radio programming section which has a longer shelf life than a regular daily paper.
Surrey, The Surrey Advertiser. This Club continues to provide a monthly column in the paper and throughout 2007 the column was replicated in The Rush a free paper produced for the commuter. Members are now working closely with the editorial team and trying to increase the amount of Personal Finance editorial appearing in the paper.
Scotland, The Scottish Daily Mail. It is hoped to launch another 12 week campaign with this newspaper in early 2008. This campaign provides an opportunity for members throughout Scotland to be associated with a series of Personal Finance editorials written by professionals on a range of topics at a fraction of the normal cost charged for this type of advertising. Look out for the e-mail broadcast invitation, coming shortly.
Sheffield, The Star. Following discussions with this newspaper it is hoped that it might be possible to form a new Press Club in the area. Any member in the circulation area of this paper and interested in forming a new Club is asked to contact the IFAP Regional Press Officer before the end of February.
Bournemouth, The Daily Echo. Another long standing Club where members have produced either two small features or one larger one each month for several years. The Club enjoy an excellent relationship with the editorial department and opportunities exist for members to provide comment to the Business Editor.
Ipswich, The East Anglia Daily Times. Members continue to provide a monthly page of Personal Finance copy. Recent pages have been themed with topics being selected that provide an opportunity for three or four members to provide articles looking at different aspects of the main theme. In the early months of 2008 the Club intend to participate in an initiative the paper is running to support local businesses.
For information on any of the above activities please contact IFAP Regional Officer James Sharp at james@ifap.org.uk or telephone 01902 850053.
Forthcoming Press Club meetings.
- February 19th Portsmouth
- February 28th Edinburgh
- March 3rd Bournemouth
- March 12th Newcastle upon Tyne
- March 13th Leicester
- March 14th Liverpool and North Wales
- March 18th Tayside & Fife, Dundee
The bottom line
With the Retail Distribution Review in full swing, 2007 has seen a lot of activity in the financial advice arena. On top of that, MiFID has led to further implications affecting IFAs and product providers alike. The ongoing credit crunch and predicted base rate changes will no doubt lead to on-going movements in the financial markets in 2008.
2008 will be another busy year for IFAP and we will continue to participate in the ongoing Retail Distribution Review debate and any other issues affecting the IFA market. As always, we will continue to put the consumer first, ensuring that easy access to truly independent financial advice is maintained for all consumers.
We will of course keep you updated about our work – so look out for the next issue of Update! In the meantime, if you have any feedback on this Update or any other issue then do please let us know.
David Elms
Chief Executive @ IFA Promotion
(david@ifap.org.uk)
