CAPABILITIES
Qualitative Research
One-on-one in-depth interviews or focus group sessions for
purposes of developing preliminary insights into market
structure, product positioning, or product or advertising
conceptualization.
Consumer Motivation
Determination of the specific mix of characteristics that
would maximize consumer acceptance of new products or services.
These studies frequently incorporate segmentation techniques
which identify discrete groups of consumers, defined in
terms of differential needs regarding the product or service
category. “Investors’ Choice” is a study
of this genre, designed to define the market for socially
responsible mutual funds on the basis of investor motivations.
Competitive Structure
Definition of the market in terms of how competitive offerings
are perceived by their target audience on characteristics
that are relevant to the purchase decision. These studies
generally delve into aspects of consumer awareness and experience
with these offerings and frequently provide analyses in
terms of market segments, defined on the basis of differential
needs regarding the product or service category. “CORPUS”
(Corporate Responsibility Profiles in the US), a system
for the continuous measurement of company reputations among
investors is currently on our drawing board.
Concept Testing
Determination of the extent to which individual or alternative
product, positioning or communications concepts are compelling
to defined audience segments.
Tracking Studies
Periodic evaluation of the effectiveness of marketing activities,
including the introduction of new or re-staged products
and implementation of marketing communications programs.
CSR Report Monitor is a program by which various aspects of in-market effectiveness of corporate social responsibility reporting can be determined.
Satisfaction Studies
Periodic evaluation of the extent to which investors in
individual corporations, mutual
funds, and public and private
pension funds are satisfied with the performance of
these entities on financial and social responsibility criteria.
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SRI LANTERN
Fund Investor Satisfaction Monitor
There are currently more than $2 trillion in socially screened
investments under professional management in the US today. Growth
of this industry segment has been continuously evidenced for over
a decade. Consumer research strongly suggests that a large proportion
of people today factor the social and environmental performance
of corporations into their product purchase and investment decision
processes.
How satisfied are your investors with their experiences with
your mutual fund? Do they intend to expand their participation
in the fund or divest their holdings? To what extent are these
pre-dispositions related to the fund’s financial performance?
And, to what extent are they related to the corporate social responsibility
(CSR) profiles of companies in which the fund is invested?
Specific to socially responsible mutual funds might be such additional
issues as …
- Investor preference for full-service investment firms or those
which tend to specialize in socially responsible funds
- Preference for firms that try to use their ownership in companies
to influence the social and environmental practices of these companies
or those that tend to confine their activities to management of
the fund itself
- Preference for funds which apply hard and fast social criteria
when picking which companies to invest in or those that use a
softer approach, i.e., outright rejection of companies involved
in the manufacture of tobacco products vs. acceptance of companies
that make only a small percentage of their profits from tobacco
or are decreasing their dependence on it
- Preference for funds which reject outright companies in industries
that have long histories of damaging the environment or those
that accept “best in industry” companies that have
changed their policies and committed themselves to restoring the
environment and developing less damaging products and procedures
In addressing these issues, SRI Lantern’s, “Fund
Investor Satisfaction Monitor” (FISM) will first measure
the importance of a standardized battery of financial and CSR
criteria to your investors, then determine their satisfaction
with the fund’s performance in delivering on these very
dimensions.
The resulting data will enable us to evaluate your performance
in terms of your total base of investors, as well as discrete
segments of the same, defined on the basis of differential motivations
regarding the investment decision process.
FISM will allow you to not only track the effectiveness of your
investor relations initiatives and communications programs on
investor perceptions, but changes in the composition of your fund
holder base in terms of financial performance and CSR motivations.
The study sample would be drawn at random from your database
to ensure that the study population is representative of that
universe.
The results of this survey would be proprietary to your company,
with the exception that the data would be anonymously combined
with those derived from parallel surveys. This would be for purposes
of developing norms, against which the performance of individual
mutual funds might be compared.
You will have an opportunity to append a limited number of questions
to this survey, the results of which would be proprietary to you.
If you would like to discuss any aspect of this market segmentation
approach to the measurement of fund holder satisfaction, please
contact Doug Wheat or Mel Kram at 802-251-0500.
mkram@sriworld.com
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