In mid-February 2014, Tim McNamara, who heads sales at Constant Contact, the world leader in online marketing, called Steve Gordonson, a partner in Advisor Products. Since then, we’ve worked intensely with the leadership team at Constant Contact, including Alec Stern, the sole co-founder of Constant Contact still working at the company. The partnership establishes a way for advisors to get email campaign open rates nearly 100% higher than the average financial advisor using Constant Contact. [caption id="attachment_1861" align="aligncenter" width="483"]Advisor Products turns professional education content from Advisors4Advisors into email newsletters, enabling optimal use of Constant Contact for list management and analytics.[/caption]
Tim had spent five years in business development and operations at Schwab and then 10 years as an advisor at UBS, Morgan Stanley and Wachovia. He's been an internet entrepreneur, having built the nation's first online divorce platform. A year ago, Tim became the head of business development for North America and Latin America at Constant Contact.
Tim had been a reader of my column in advisor trade publications since the mid-1990s. During our first phone call, Tim said he had been a “raving fan” of mine for years. Tim had stumbled into Advisor Products integration with Constant Contact and was impressed. When he tracked down its source, he was thrilled to learn it was me. You Can't Make This Stuff UpThe head of business development for the largest email marketing tools company on the planet understood what Advisor Products is doing to help financial professionals reach UHNWIs and he valued it. Tim showed it to Alec, who confirmed that Advisor Products' integration with Constant Contact was as seamless as he had ever seen, and he said that our content struck exactly the right tone and message for engaging UHNWIs. These guys got it!
Since that first phone call in February, Advisor Products and Constant Contact have worked intensively together. On July 1, we signed a multi-year strategic partnership that is a big win for us both and, more importantly, a win for advisors. Advisor Products has bundled Constant Contact into its advisor websites. Constant Contact comes with Financial Advisor Communications System. The integrated system gives you the strengths and unique abilities of both companies: Constant Contact’s ability engages you, to make you use your email newsletter. Advisor Products unique abilities in creating content for UHNWIs derived from thought leadership continuing professional education about wealth management. The result is measured by comparing your email key performance Indicators versus the average advisor using Constant Contact. Constant Contact coaches are calling Advisor Products clients to be sure you know about all of our exciting news and be sure you know how to use all the tools and analytics as well as the benefits of Advisor Products content marketing system for advisor websites. . The joint press release makes it all official, but we are well on the way toward providing financial advisors a best-in-class content marketing system that includes a client portal integrated with the best apps used by advisors.