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Most engagement programmes are judged on activity: open rates, webinar registrations, platform logins. These are measurable, reportable, and largely beside the point. They tell you that something happened. They don’t tell you whether it helped.
Findings from a recent Mercer Master Trust member survey reveal a picture not of disengagement but of difference. Based on 712 responses gathered prior to a member webinar, the results point to a conclusion that may be obvious but is often overlooked in practice: members are not at the same stage, and an engagement programme that cannot see that cannot respond to it.
One audience, but very different starting points
Among the survey respondents, new and repeat webinar attendees were almost evenly split. If a scheme’s measure of success is attendance, both groups look identical. A first-timer who registers and a repeat attendee who has been returning consistently both count as one tick in the same column.
Look closer, and a clear pattern emerges. Members who had attended previous webinars were more confident about understanding their pension than those attending for the first time. They were more likely to log in to Mercer Money, the Mercer Master Trust member portal, regularly. Their topic priorities were broadly similar; investment options, tax and allowances, and modelling future income featured strongly for both groups, but first-time attendees showed notably more interest in combining past pensions, suggesting they are still working through earlier priorities. In confidence, platform behaviour and where they are in their pension journey, the two groups are at different points.
The survey cannot tell us that attending webinars caused those differences. But it does show that consistent engagement and higher confidence tend to travel together. If an attendance metric is the only measure in use, none of that is visible.
“Attendance figures and email metrics still have their uses, but they only reveal part of the picture,” says Tom Higham, Head of Engagement, Mercer Master Trust. “A stronger test is whether a communication is helping members build understanding, take action and make better decisions over time.”
Designing for action not attention
The industry often frames engagement as a need to simplify pensions or make them more interesting. The survey data suggests something more specific is needed. The topics members chose point to strong interest in information connected to practical pension decisions, how their pension is invested, what their likely outcomes look like, and what their options are. Communications need to be designed to meet that.
“As an industry, we can sometimes focus too much on getting messages in front of people and not enough on what helps them move forward,” says Higham. “Pension schemes need to move beyond frequency and focus on timely, actionable information that supports members through their retirement planning journeys. The value comes from giving people a clear understanding and the confidence to take the next step.”
A harder standard, but a more meaningful one
If the industry is serious about improving retirement outcomes, the standard needs to shift. Not from low engagement to high engagement, but from counting activity to understanding progression. That means treating engagement not as a campaign to be won, but as a journey to be designed, one that is built around where members actually are, and focused on moving them forward.
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