As baby boomers head toward retirement, financial services companies are accelerating the number of retirement products they bring to market.
“There's a big trend in reaching financial intermediaries,” said Suzanne Siracuse, VP-publisher of Investment News, referring to the financial/investment advisers who make up the core readership of the weekly publication. (The typical reader, a 55-year-old male, has been in the business an average of 17 years.)
The trend has played a big part in boosting print advertising for Investment News, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Print ad revenue rose more than 28% last year to $22.4 million.
“Print isn't dead,” Siracuse said. “Not in our market.”
Financial services companies have been boosting their media spending to position themselves for the wave of baby boomers who will reach retirement age in the next few years.
Advertisers that have increased their media spending with Investment News include American International Group, MassMutual, Metropolitan Life Insurance and Nationwide Insurance. New advertisers in the fold include DWS Scudder, a division of Deutsche Asset Management Americas; Jackson National Life Insurance; and Old Mutual.
Siracuse said Investment News gives marketers the ability to carefully explain their financial products and services using ink on paper. “There are certain compliance issues that can go into the creative of an ad that I don't know if you can translate online,” she said.
The publication unveiled a major redesign last September, adding new columns on investment strategies, financial practices and retirement. Siracuse recently brought in a data editor to provide more graphics.
“It was getting to the point where the whole publication was news,” Siracuse said. “But as the publication grew we realized we had to expand our coverage into practice management and news analysis to provide a better breadth of stories,”
Front-page stories now jump to page 4 rather than the back of the book “so readers aren't going through the entire magazine to get to the rest of the story,” Siracuse said.
Crain Communications Inc., which publishes Investment News, also publishes BtoB. M
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