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Friday, August 27, 2010

Member Benefits - Content Marketing You Don't Have to Create

We all understand the complexity of content marketing. In today's world, it is one of the most important marketing strategies for your business. The dilemma facing most professionals today is having the time and expertise to come up with relevant and valuable marketing content that your clients want to see. Here at SCSA, we understand this challenge and want to help our CSAs succeed in this area. We've created a whole suite of content marketing pieces for them to use at their discretion. This can include customizing the pieces with their own contact information, passing them along to older clients, sharing them with their professional network, posting them on their own blogs and more. Our goal is to focus on how we can help our members succeed in these tough economic times by helping them deliver content they may be struggling to find the time or expertise to put together.

Here are just a few of the content marketing pieces we've made available, specifically for CSAs:

Expert Articles you can forward to clients and fellow professionals
The award-winning CSA Journal is the leading academic publication in the senior market. It gives you the latest insights into the senior market with its high-quality research and important information. The articles are already conveniently in electronic format so they're easy to forward, whether you want to forward just one article or the whole journal.


Educational e-brochures you can share with your professional network

> Nine to Thrive: 9 ways you never thought of for success
- this 6 page, full color guide gives you an overview of common myths and methods of marketing to seniors, including how to make communications clearer, using age-appropriate approaches and the value of volunteering. Share this brochure with fellow professionals who work in the senior market to help their businesses work more effectively and position yourself as an invaluable resource.


> 16 Great Things You Can Do for Seniors
- this 13 page, full color guide covers creative ideas for how those who interact with seniors can find more opportunities to make a difference in the lives of their senior clients - thereby making them not just someone they purchase products or services from, but a friend, ally and advocate. Pass this guide along to help fellow professionals achieve this and establish yourself as an invaluable resource.


Senior-focused Handouts & Guides you can customize with your information

Free handouts & guides our members can customize with their business information and give out to their senior clients. Some examples are How to Avoid Becoming a Victim of Identity Theft, Steps to Buying a MediGap Policy, Alzheimer's Disease: What you should know and many more. All handouts are conveniently in electronic format so customization is quick and easy.

Blog posting by Society of Certified Senior Advisors
www.csa.us


Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Senior Financial Abuse

Senior financial abuse is a growing problem. One recent survey estimates that one in five persons over age 65 has been victimized by financial abuse. (1) Another study estimates that reported financial fraud costs seniors more than $2.6 billion a year (2) - and four out of five cases are not reported. (3) According to the survey of newspaper articles used in the MetLife Mature Market study, 79% of the perpetrators were known to the senior. Families, friends, neighbors, and caregivers were involved more than half of the time. Financial professionals of varying types were involved 18% of the time. The remaining instances involved legal or other professionals and Medicare/Medicaid fraud. In almost all cases the perpetrator gained the trust of the senior. (4)

According to the National Adult Protective Services Association (NAPSA), senior financial abuse does not discriminate by race, gender, or financial circumstances. However, the "typical" victim of elder financial abuse is a frail, white female between the ages of 70 and 89.

The Investment Protection Trust has provided a pocket guide for practitioners as well as a patient brochure containing helpful checklists and resources. These attached publications are intended for wide distribution and me reproduced without written permission. I hope you will make use of them and do your part to prevent what some experts have called "the crime of the century."

For more information on senior financial abuse, go to www.csa.us/freeresources to download the Elder Investment Fraud and Financial Exploitation Patient Brochure and Pocket Guide.

Blog post by Frank Vidin, CFP(R), CSA
Faculty, Society of Certified Senior Advisors
frankv@csa.us
www.csa.us



1. Investor Protection Trust Elder Investment Fraud Survey, released June 15, 2010.
2. "Broken Trust," MetLife Mature Market Institute, March 2009.
3. Kemp, B.J., & Mosqueda, L.A. (2005). Elder financial abuse: and evaluation framework and supporting evidence. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 53(7), 1123-1127.
4. "Broken Trust," MetLife Mature Market Institute, March 2009.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Introduction from Founder and President, Ed Pittock

Welcome to the new CSA Blog!

We are so excited to expand our current efforts and provide this new way to share the latest information with our fellow CSAs, members of the public and the SCSA Staff.

Created for our members, the CSA Blog was designed to act as a platform for (1) bringing the latest information relating to the senior market and (2) networking between our CSAs and members of the public. This isn't just your normal commentary blog - our blog will have weekly postings from experts in the senior market from across all industries to bring you the most up-to-date information. Plus you can read blog postings from your fellow CSAs and learn from their expertise.

We encourage everyone to get involved by subscribing to our weekly postings, becoming a follower, introducing yourself to other CSA followers and...to just have FUN with it! We look forward to hearing from you!

- The Society of Certified Senior Advisors

P.S. Your feedback is extremely important to us. If you have ideas on topics and would like to share them with us, please contact us today at society@csa.us.