Target market compliant guidance

Ideas šŸ’”
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Quick question for the freetrade team then a bit of rambling and thoughts for discussion.

Considering your main target market will be millennials and those new to investing (me being one of them) do you have plans to create compliant guidance/ marketing (not advice of course) to get people like me to understand: the process of investing, tax implications, risks involved, different charging structures, types of things that can be invested in?

Que the rambling!

As someone in a strategic role in the financial services industry (insurance but other parts of my company does investments) who should be able to understand investment concepts pretty easily the general information on the web is terrible and is a huge barrier to investing. God help the general public!

The freetrade teams writing style goes a long way in using simple language but it is still taking me a while to understand all the ins and outs and what I should be doing when I finally get a hold of the app.

With regards to tax the other thread in this getting started category was eventually very helpful, especially when @JamesGibson got involved and started asking the questions most relevant to me.

I guess what I am getting at is the forum is great but I am reading EVERYTHING as I donā€™t know what I donā€™t know and itā€™s all in different places.

In addition the long term future success of this app is reliant on non investors getting involved with low amounts (as you know the best way to get a piece of that huge wealth transfer in the not too distant future is to have us using your platform before it happens). Even in this early phase I think it will be hugely important to make sure the feedback is from not only people who are experienced in investing already (which I am seeing a lot of on the forums) but plenty from those with some pocket money (100ā€™s or low 1000ā€™s per year).

My tuppence (not that I know what a tuppence is as a millennial) is to get started on the big marketing challenge of explaining what will be for some a scary undertaking simply, accurately and compliantly.

Now that you have gotten FCA approval (and I have huge confidence in the apps ease of use) I think the biggest risk is public opinion and accusations of unethical encouragement of uneducated investors risking their money. Things that crowdcube has had to overcome in the past.

Some may think that the need for this is a little way away as it will just be a closed group for quite a while, but I think traction and publicity could come sooner and I wouldnā€™t want the freetrade team to be caught unaware.

Ramble over, interested to hear others thoughts and maybe some examples where people have seen investing explained practically and simply.

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I agree. We are very conscious of the absence of approachable, clear, actionable content. Filling that gap is part of how we think about marketing.

Our biggest competitor is the notion that investing is ā€˜too hardā€™ or ā€˜not for meā€™. So, itā€™s important to demystify it and present it as an easy-to-make lifestyle choice.

You may have seen posts e.g. Inflation: the price of doing nothing with your cash, Welcome to Asset Class, Whatā€™s an ETF, etc. We are looking at how we can explain the tax topic that is both compliant and super clear, too. But itā€™s not only about producing content, ā€˜community member to community memberā€™ education is also part of how we think about this effort.

I agree with you that the need for this effort is already here. Our first hire for our marketing team was @Freetrade_Team, our content strategist. Iā€™m sure heā€™ll have more to add!

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Whilst the articles are indeed awesome, the issue is that they are mixed with more general articles on the blog.

Maybe Freetrade could have an equivalent to Monzo University, but of its own?

To ease the resource requirements, you could potentially let the community share interesting creations of their own with you, and publish (with certain modifications and filtrations) what you believe is relevant and vital for new investors to know?

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@Vlad you hit the nail on the head for me, I have read some great articles and threads but there has been a lot that, if I wasnā€™t already in financial services, would have gone right over my head.

There is no way of telling which articles are appropriate for the novice/new investor, the articles on investment strategies are interesting but not relevant for the beginner and could scare people off (this company is for people that want to become warren buffet!).

In contrast the explanation on an ETF you point to has probably been one of the simplest and most useful articles I have read on investing.

Thanks @Viktor Iā€™ll be keen to hear from @Freetrade_Team, community based education is powerful but as with any community, if you happen to find one (which can be a challenge with so much bad info already out there) it can be intimidating to jump in to something with no/little knowledge, even a community as friendly as this :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:.

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Great points from all here.

What we noticed is that lots investing content is either super-dry, impenetrable analyst reports or slightly irresponsible get-rich-quick ā€œjournalismā€.

Our view is that investing isnā€™t rocket science, nor is it easy - itā€™s a life skill to be learned. Community definitely plays a role here (like the idea of community submissions @Vlad) but we also want a strong voice coming direct from Freetrade.

The challenges are:

  1. Providing meaningful guidance without stepping into financial advice
  2. Being simple and jargon-free while covering the outrageous complications and exceptions common to finance world

Re technical structure of the blog, we have some cool plans for switching up the blog onto a new platform (watch this space).

Weā€™ll make a decision on how to segment our future and existing stuff then, which is also helpfully as our audience extends more and more into first time investors.

Right now we didnā€™t want to segment our stuff too much as thereā€™s a lot there thatā€™s relevant to even practiced investors (you can be a veteran and believe some wrong supposed common sense).

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Thanks for the response, looking forward to seeing what comes next!

Great that your on board and the team are really valuing this problem early, @Viktors article on the importance of marketing and your call out of a strong central voice from freetrade as a brand puts you in a great position to support those new to investment, whilst making sure you are legally and morally on the right side of the grey advice line.

As someone yet to take the plunge and invest but very keen to start (Iā€™m hoping my first will be through crowdcube later today) I am more than happy to act as a test for new investor marketing/guidance when the time comes.

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