Employing a sweeping generality, retired investors are older than the ones in the work force. While it is possible for someone under 50 to retire from the workplace, it is more common for retirees to be in their 60s or 70s or even older.

Assuming retirees are older than working investors, they are also more likely to be less likely to have fully embraced electronic communication. They may text, but they may not be good at it. They may video-chat, but only with the grandchildren, and they are often out of frame.

Older people still like talking on the phone, and they still like to read information that is printed on paper. Even when they read articles on electronic devices like their computer or tablet, they like to see the information presented in a form they recognize.

Many advisors and providers compile and publish newsletters. Sometimes they issue them in hard copy and sometimes they issue them electronically. Either way, the clients who receive those newsletters read them, and many of them read articles in great detail. Many of those clients are retired investors, and advisors should consider retired investors as an audience that appreciates newsletters.

One of the more difficult aspects of the newsletter communication is determining what articles or content to provide each week, month or quarter. But since most advisors have a significant percentage of their clients living in retirement, topics that relate to the investment and economic needs of retired investors would be a good place to start.

According to Spectrem’s study Communicating with Advisors and Providers, 86 percent of retired investors receive an electronic newsletter from their advisor, and less than half that number receive a hard-copy newsletter. It’s indicative of the communication of modern times that advisors and providers are eschewing the hard copy publications, which are less timely due to delivery issues and more expensive to produce due to printing and mailing costs.     

Of the retired investors who receive an electronic newsletter, 27 percent read or view the articles extensively, and 66 percent read or view a portion of the newsletter. Only 6 percent of retired investors ignore their electronic newsletters completely. Those percentages are nearly identical to the percentages of working investors receiving electronic newsletters.

While the hard copy newsletters are received by fewer retired clients, 39 percent read those newsletter articles extensively, a higher percentage than those reading electronic articles for detail.  

The point here is that hard copy newsletters may seem like an old-school form of communication, but they are read by a high percentage of retired investors who receive them. This should make the creation of such newsletters easier to accomplish, since advisor and providers know that an active audience for the newsletters are retired investors. 

 

 

©2019 Spectrem Group

Keywords: retirees, communication, newsletters, investors, advisors, Spectrem