Email timing alone is ineffective for boosting pension engagement and broader touchpoints and strategies need be explored, according to a recent Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) study.
In its Occasional Paper titled Is timing of the essence? Testing when to engage UK pension customers, which included online experiments and a large-scale field trial, the FCA addressed challenges such as present bias and information overload that often limit pension engagement.
It tested various behaviourally informed emails and subject lines, finding that messages like “future you” and “few more steps” increased open rates but overly graphic designs were off-putting.
A field trial involving over 82,000 pension customers showed low engagement, with click rates ranging from 1 per cent to 7 per cent. Timing communications around key life events had limited success but following up with already engaged customers proved more effective.
The study found that while behavioural messaging can help, timing alone isn’t a solution. The research suggests that future strategies should focus on a wider range of touchpoints, alternative approaches, and leveraging insights like the “fresh start effect,” where people are more likely to act on goals at the beginning of new periods.
The report states: “Our research shows that it is challenging to drive initial engagement with pensions through emails and that adjusting the timing of emails to notable times may have limited scope to substantively move the dial on engagement. Moreover, the backfire effects captured in our online experiments show the value of pre-testing communications against their desired impact.”