Note from the Publisher: We could have included this in our Op Ed today and in fact it's a few "days" old, but the topic is SPOT ON for advisors. This piece discusses using web analytics software such as SimilarWeb to analyze referral clients to a competitor's site. From there, you may be able to derive further info on what types of investments they hold by tracking their more granular activity on the competitor's site. Then what? Well that's up to the advisor to craft a competitive strategy to pull those corporate clients out by offering a unique or superior solution. That's where the entrepreneurism comes in.
"As the industry mulls over what to make of the DoL fiduciary ruling, one thing is certain: it’s going to get more complicated to acquire rollover clients. That’s because the new rules extend advisor responsibilities beyond just finding suitable investments for their clients. Under the new rules, if it doesn’t pay to rollover an existing plan 401(k), then the advisor just shouldn’t do it.....
Whatever happens, retirement plan admins can get more aggressive about their marketing to large corporations. SimilarWeb, a web analytics company, recently released a report that details how retirement plan adminstrators can use competitive intelligence to identify the clients of their competitors.
One way firms can do this is by analyzing referral traffic to an administrator’s website. Plan sponsors make it easy for their employees to check on their 401(k)s by supplying them links to their administrator. By analyzing traffic to a provider, a competitor can get a feel for that firm’s client base. Firms will need to use a premium tool like SimilarWeb to get access to this type of web traffic data."
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