Interview with Ted Stauderman

Ted Stauderman is the Director of Marketing Services and E-Commerce at Calvert Investments.

What is your role at Calvert?

I lead the development and execution of marketing communications, production and advertising, and e-commerce strategies in support of Calvert’s communication, sales and asset retention objectives. In addition, my team is responsible for the management of compliance related materials, Calvert’s 529 Plan and shareholder communications.  By integrating the Firm’s communications and brand efforts, my group works to enhance Calvert’s competitive positioning.

How important is the digital channel in the marketing mix for financial services firm?  What role does it play for Calvert?

The digital channel is becoming increasingly important in marketing mix for financial services firms, especially for those firms that distribute their products through third party intermediaries.   The proliferation of information on the Internet has changed the nature of the relationship between a financial advisor and their clients.  Clients are using the information they find online to begin or engage in conversations with their Advisors rather than turn to the Advisor as the only source of information.

At Calvert, it is more important than ever that we provide timely information to Financial Advisors so they can provide relevant, timely information to their clients.  That is a clear role that the digital channel plays for us.   But the digital channel plays an increasingly important role in everything we do, from compliance and sales management, to advertising and promotion.  The digital channel is really pervasive in everything we do today.

Do you plan to shift more money from conventional to digital in the future?  Why or why not?

Absolutely, more money will shift to digital.  The simple answer is accountability.  Digital channels give you greater accountability of your promotional spend and improved tracking.  In addition, more and more of our clients are turning to digital channels for information.  Even FINRA is embracing digital capabilities with its recent “Summary Prospectus” regulation, which requires the ability for the summary prospectuses to electronically link to other relevant information pertaining to a mutual fund.

What are some of the issues and problems you have faced in measuring the results of digital marketing at Calvert?

The biggest challenge we face is figuring out what to measure and connecting that back to sales.  Since the majority of our sales go through a third party, we rely on correlated data to try and suggest causation.

What is the mix of outsourcing and in-house at Calvert?  (How much of your digital marketing do you outsource; how much do you handle in-house?)  Do you foresee increasing or decreasing reliance on outsourcing in the future?

It isn’t really a question of mix; it really is more a question of roles.  We outsource much of our promotional activities and manage all web site management in-house.  As we increase our budget for digital we will probably also out-source development of our tracking infrastructure so that we can manage it in-house once it is built.

Digital marketing is changing rapidly.  How do you keep your staff’s skills current?

We use the media that we manage.  My staff has full range to attend webinars and other training that increases their skills or knowledge.  I’ve found that conferences are less effective in building those skills because of the strategic focus of most conferences.

Where does Social Media fit into your mix now?  Do you see it playing a bigger role in 2010 and beyond?

We are just making in roads into Social Media and are using it to supplement our search engine optimization.  At this point, it is more about link building than actually engaging in the social media conversations.

What are some of the challenges of Social Media engagement that are specific to financial services firms?

The major challenge is compliance related, but probably just as challenging is finding the resources to monitor and engage in the conversations in a timely and meaningful way.  That isn’t an issue specific to financial services firms, but is one that impedes our ability to truly embrace the social media phenomena.

What are some of your best marketing successes at Calvert?

Our initial foray into search engine marketing and PPC had tremendous results.  We saw a significant increase in traffic and downloads of our Alternative Energy White Paper.  It was the first time that Calvert had actively pursued a PPC campaign and its success drove additional dollars and emphasis on the digital channel.

The other huge success was the launching of our user focused web site.  We used user testing to hone our web site navigation and the results of that testing were proven out by the surprisingly few issues we had at launch and with user acceptance.

What excites you about marketing in today’s world?

Our ability to increasingly measure results and optimize off of our findings.  We are getting closer and closer to one2one mass marketing and that is exciting.