New Gorilla Web Site for Preretirees and Retirees
Posted on August 29, 2008
Filed Under Ethics, Retirement, Social Media, Web Sites |
Have you seen Axa Equitable’s new MyRetirementShop.com web site? It’s a content-driven site designed to provide lifestyle-related information and services to retirees and preretirees. I recently checked it out and was struck by a few things.
The breadth of the site is amazing. It ranges from home and family issues, financial matters, and health and fitness to volunteering, travel, and entertainment. This is truly a “kitchen sink” site for consumers looking to enhance their retirement lifestyle.
The site not only connects consumers with helpful information, it also provides concierge services that may save people a lot of time.
The content focus isn’t just financial, although finance is a strength, as you’d imagine coming from Axa. But it also aims to add value across a reader’s entire life . . . an ambitious goal, to say the least.
The site wants to entertain people, as well as provide information. That’s different—and laudable—coming from a financial services company. To this end, the site provides access to movie and book reviews, links to a service where you can buy event tickets, and even provides games and brainteasers.
There is a genuine attempt to help people improve themselves through education, with hooks to ITunes U and another service called Classes USA.
The financial section is really robust, with lots of articles from Kiplinger and homegrown Axa brochures and calculators.
But everything isn’t sweetness and light. Because its aspirations are so lofty and content providers so extensive, site navigation can be tricky. Part of the problem is there’s navigational inconsistency across the various content silos. Plus sometimes the site teases you with the promise of help (example: the Caring for Elderly Loved Ones page), but then doesn’t deliver.
I also think the site’s horizontal content strategy—lots of content sweep, but not a lot of depth—is a problem. If I were looking for information on, say, caregiving, I’d just head to AARP or some other specialized site.
Also, to gain full access to the site, Axa requires you to complete a detailed registration form, not just provide an e-mail address and password. If you do comply, you get to specify how you want both the site and Axa to contact you in the future or you can specify no contact. But I suspect this requirement might scare off a lot of people, particularly those who don’t want to be hounded by an Axa gorilla . . . er, agent.
Finally, I may be dense here, but I don’t get the name of the site. Since the focus isn’t shopping, why call it “MyRetirementShop.com”?
Having said this, I really appreciate Axa’s innovation and willingness to build a content-rich site. I even registered and plan to return to explore ways to improve my life. But where to begin?
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