Overcoming retirement anxiety with a five-step path forward

The challenge

Planning for retirement involves some of the most consequential financial decisions most people will ever make. Yet many superannuation members don't know where to begin.

Research commissioned by Russell Investments found that members often lacked the knowledge and confidence to make retirement decisions themselves. Many didn't know whether they were on track, how long their money might last or what they should do next.

The volume of available information could actually make the problem worse. Retirement guidance, calculators, member tools, product information and advice could all provide different (and sometimes conflicting) information. Members needed a clear route through them.

Russell Investments developed the concept of a five-step Retirement Pathway. Antelope Media was engaged to turn that concept and the supporting research into a complete digital content experience.

Designing a journey through retirement complexity

The Retirement Pathway was not intended to be yet another collection of articles or a large guide that members had to work through alone.

It was conceived as a member-led digital journey that could begin when someone turned 50 and continue until they entered retirement. Members could understand the complete journey, see their current position and take the next appropriate action without having to absorb everything at once.

Antelope Media developed the content around several principles drawn from the behavioural research:

• show members the complete journey without overwhelming them
• break retirement planning into a small number of manageable steps
• make the first action particularly easy to complete
• introduce information when it became relevant
• use clear choices and practical actions wherever possible
• show members the progress they had already made
• connect each stage with the appropriate tools and support, and
• reassure members that a real person was available when they needed help.

This approach reduced the cognitive load involved in retirement planning while giving members a stronger sense of control over what could otherwise feel like an intimidating process.

Building the five-step Retirement Pathway

Antelope Media developed the content for a principal landing page and five connected stages.

Step 1: Get started

The first step introduced the Pathway, explained what members could expect and made beginning feel achievable. Simply understanding the process gave members an initial action they could complete.

Step 2: Set a goal and see how you are tracking

Members were directed to Russell Investments’ GoalTracker tools to set a retirement-income goal and see whether their current superannuation strategy was likely to achieve it.

Step 3: Make a pre-retirement plan

The third stage connected members with information, checklists, simulators and support to help them close any gap between their current position and their retirement goal.

Step 4: Consider the available retirement options

When members reached preservation age, the Pathway introduced their available options and helped them consider how they might begin accessing and managing their superannuation.

Step 5: Put the plan into action

The final stage helped members act on their decisions, choose the appropriate retirement-income approach and obtain further guidance or financial advice where required.

Connecting content, tools and human support

Each stage had to perform a practical function. It needed to answer the member’s immediate questions, establish the next action and direct them to the right part of Russell Investments’ broader member experience.

The Pathway connected public website content with the secure member portal, GoalTracker, simulators, planning checklists, retirement products and financial advice services.

It also had to work for members in markedly different circumstances. The audience included people who had only begun thinking about retirement, members who had reached preservation age, people within 12 months of retiring and those unexpectedly forced to leave work.

Some members had already set a retirement goal or registered for online access. Others had done neither. The content therefore had to accommodate different starting points without making the Pathway feel fragmented or impersonal.

Working with the digital design

Antelope Media worked alongside Russell Investments and its external design agency as the Pathway took shape.

Our role extended beyond supplying words for predetermined boxes. We also considered how the information should work visually and recommended ways to make individual stages easier to understand, including checklists, boxouts, infographics and visual explanations.

We worked with the emerging layouts, reviewed material in the design environment and continually adjusted the content as the messaging, interfaces and technical requirements developed.

The pages passed through extensive collaborative and stakeholder review. Technical information had to remain accurate and compliant while the overall journey remained concise, reassuring and easy to follow.

Creating different ways into the Pathway

Antelope Media also developed the launch communications used to introduce members to the Pathway.

Rather than sending every member the same generic announcement, the communications reflected what Russell Investments already knew about each audience.

We wrote different versions for:

• all existing members aged 50 and over
• members who had reached preservation age
• members with email addresses who had not registered for online access
• new members aged 50 and over who had recently joined, and
• members who could not be reached by email.

Each version included alternative subject lines, preheader copy, body content and calls to action. The reason for beginning changed according to the recipient’s circumstances, as did the first action they were asked to take.

The wider communication model allowed members to receive gentle prompts when it was time to update something or move to the next stage. The Pathway could therefore support an ongoing relationship rather than a single visit to a website.

A broader retirement-content partnership

The Retirement Pathway formed part of a broader series of projects Antelope Media completed for Russell Investments.

Our earlier work had included developing taglines and campaign concepts for GoalTracker, messaging for the Cornerstone retirement solution, investor and adviser brochures, retirement-philosophy content and explanations of complex investment concepts.

We also worked with designers to develop visual explanations of investment buckets, glidepaths and market signals, and adapted retirement messaging for Russell Investments’ partner Invest Blue.

In one of these projects, we recast a technical section to make it more succinct, active and focused on how Invest Blue helped its clients.

“This is exactly what I wanted. Thank you Ralph.”

Elan Rosenthal, Russell Investments

What we delivered

• interpretation of Russell Investments’ behavioural member research
• content design for the Retirement Pathway
• a connected journey for members aged over 50
• content for the principal Pathway landing page
• content for each of the five Pathway stages
• page-level messaging and calls to action
• integration with member tools, calculators, products and advice services
• recommendations for visual content and supporting components
• segmented launch communications
• alternative email subject lines and preheaders
• audience-specific body copy and calls to action
• content refinement within the emerging digital designs
• stakeholder and subject-matter expert engagement, and
• editorial support throughout technical, design and compliance review.

The result

Russell Investments received a complete content experience capable of guiding members from their first thoughts about retirement through to acting on a retirement plan.

The Pathway brought together information, digital tools, member services, retirement products and financial advice within one coherent journey.

Instead of expecting members to navigate a large and potentially overwhelming body of retirement information, it showed them where they were, what mattered at that point and what they could do next.

Different member circumstances were accommodated without losing the simplicity of the central five-step structure. Segmented communications provided relevant entry points and established a framework for continuing prompts as members progressed towards retirement.

The work demonstrated the value of content design in financial services. Complex information was not simply rewritten in plainer language. It was structured, sequenced and connected around the decisions people needed to make.