Orbis Marketing provides media planning/buying services, including email, web, and print advertising as well as marketing/advertising research. These two products and services are meant to be self reinforcing; good marketing and advertising research enhances our media planning and buying services.

The research effort seeks to provide answers to questions not currently available regarding the marketing of mutual funds. We are currently conducting research in the following areas:

• Average holding period,
• Average lifetime account value,
• Client acquisition costs,
• Lead generation costs,
• Conversion rates,
• Brand recognition and effects on flows,
• Relationship between various factors (brand, advertising, marketing, performance ratings and rankings etc.) and AUM and flows, and
• Acquisition cost and value of assets and accounts through various channels.

Media planning services include:

• Advising on mix of direct response and brand building (based on research and client circumstances),
• Recommending specific media/publications (based on proprietary client results and research),
• Placement and negotiation of rates (generally at discounted rates) in electronic (both email and web) and print, and
• Tracking of results for advertising.

The combination of these two services forms a virtuous cycle illustrated below: