Our thanks to the 972 readers who filled in our Reader Survey. This is a great response rate and the feedback provides valuable guidance for the future of Cuffelinks.
Cuffelinks is a community of investors sharing ideas, and in the spirit of openness, we are taking the unprecedented step of attaching all 447 answers to the final question – 20 pages of comments, warts and all. We have edited out only names and email addresses in the interests of privacy and confidentiality, and we have not touched the spelling or grammar.
The bar charts on responses to every question are linked here.
The verbatim comments are linked here.
In brief, some of the findings are:
- 38% of our readers identify themselves as ‘SMSF trustees’ while 32% are investors without an SMSF. Most of the rest are industry professionals, many of which would also manage an SMSF.
- 73% say the length of our articles is about right, while 15% say it depends on the subject. Overall, we think we are writing appropriately for our audience.
- 82% like to receive the newsletter once a week, with little support for more frequent.
- a large majority consider our articles easy to understand, credible and professional, so we hope we are pitching our content at the right level.
- there is not much support for more political commentary or lifestyle stories, and only a little more for stock picking. Long term forecasting is more popular.
- while almost 60% report using Cuffelinks to investigate particular subjects and to reference useful articles, over 40% do not use the search function or use Cuffelinks as a general information source.
- 82% have already recommended Cuffelinks to a friend or colleague and a further 5% want to do so. Thank you very much, the word-of-mouth support is crucial for our growth.
There were also hundreds of responses attached to specific questions which we take on board.
The 447 responses to the last question are a treasure trove of useful insights. Most value our independence and variety of expert opinions, and want us to avoid overt product promotions or advertising. There is recognition of our focus on quality of analysis, sharing expert opinions and information rather than grabbing the headlines. While some say we are too technical, others say we should write more in depth, so hopefully each edition has something for everyone.
We know you all have many priorities in your life and we appreciate the time you took to complete the survey.
From the team at Cuffelinks
Chris, Graham, David, Ashley and Leisa
July 2014