Best Investment Online Newsletter Campaign

The Challenge

State Street Global Advisors’ SPDR competes for mindshare among financial advisors in the increasingly competitive $3.4 trillion ETF industry. Thought leader commentary and market insights are key element of the SPDR Value Proposition that the business reinforces through consistent, ongoing publication and promotion of content.

The Solution

As the pace of change in the markets and the pace of thought leader content publication increased, SPDR needed a content promotion program that would:

- Highlight content from the SPDR Blog in a timely manner

- Broaden advisors’ understanding of SPDR resources and the range of thought leader content by including content from multiple sources

- Build a habit of content consumption among the target audience by delivering consistently

- Leverage and adapt to the shift to mobile email viewing and content consumption

- Highlight a key piece of visually engaging content—a “Chart of the Week”—to drive response

To address these needs in a bi-weekly email newsletter, the SPDR Insider. The newsletter was designed and coded responsively, with the layout adapting to the device size to maximize response. Each instance of the newsletter, always sent at 8:00 am Mondays, promoted the chart of the week, two or three recent blogs, and occasionally other content or promotion of thought leader appearances at events.

The Results

The newsletter succeeded in generating nearly 14,000 clicks in 2017 and produced an overall click rate of 2.4%. This CTR beat the benchmark—a previous bi-weekly email—by 97%. Over the course of 2017, the CTR steadily improved, with the average for Q4 exceeding the Q1 benchmark by 32%.

Contributors:

Chief Marketing Officer, State Street SPDR ETFs:	Seth Morrison
Senior Intermediary Programs Manager, State Street Global Advisors:	Jessica Farrell
Executive Vice President, EMI:	Anthony Nygren
Senior Account Manager, EMI:	Marc Bass
Account Manager, EMI:	Maura Dickey
Senior Copywriter, EMI:	Barry Lewis
Interactive Art Director, EMI:	Nathan Hepp

EMI STRATEGIC MARKETING

Location: USA

About the Agency:

EMI brings an elegant mix of disciplined strategic thinking and imaginative, brand-driven execution to deliver the one thing that matters--results. We design and deliver data-driven marketing that makes your digital and human sales channels smarter, faster, and more productive. With deep domain expertise in financial services and thinking that is both future-forward and pragmatic, EMI powers business, sales and marketing leaders who are seeking transformative success.