If we look at kids learning mathematics as an example – for most people, their understanding of pensions is about as good as a 4-year-old’s ability to understand multiplication! Teaching starts with the basics to build a solid foundation of number recognition and place value. Then it develops with addition, subtraction, multiplication, division… you get the drift. It’s the same for pensions – you can’t go hell for leather on basis points, costs and charges, value for money, net zero and projections without a member first understanding some key basics. Such as their pension is invested, they can’t access it until they reach a certain age, they can and should be getting tax relief on their contributions. So map out the content, start with the basics, build strong, repeatable foundation messages and expand on them.
Develop a communications framework that those messages can sit against. I think the standard marketing funnel (used to drive sales) can be applied… and adapted! We don’t need to sell them anything – they’ve already bought – but probably don’t know that! We need to take them on a journey to active engagement. Remember your members will all start at different stages of the journey, so your communications framework needs to have a dynamic overlay. You’ll need to get to know your audience, then segment them. You’ll also need to measure responses and actions to inform ongoing refinement.
Here’s my approach to the adapted sales funnel…