A recent initiative by MassMutual Retirement Services to convey the importance of saving for retirement has been very well received by plan participants.
The 2011 RetireSmart(SM) campaign was split up into three sections to simplify and clarify retirement planning. The campaign was designed to help participants save, consolidate and allocate their retirement plan savings to meet their specific retirement goals.
The "Save" initiative tried to get plan participants who were under 50 years old to increase their retirement deferral to more than12 percent, while educating older participants about the best savings tactics for their stage of life.
Recommended For You
MassMutual sent postcards and e-mails to 310,000 participants, resulting in a 4.38 percent response rate with those participants and increasing their deferrals, on average, by 4.34 percent.
"By getting these participants to focus on a single action and increase their saving rate, we were able to help them take a step towards becoming better prepared for retirement," said Kris Gates, assistant vice president of participant and interactive marketing for MassMutual Retirement Services.
Participants over 50 years of age increased their savings rate by an average of 4.43 percent, while those under 50 increased their savings by an average of 3.07 percent.
The company also targeted gender in its campaign.
"We understand the simple fact that men and women have different approaches to investing, and developed our campaign to specifically speak to the behaviors and needs of each gender," Gates said in a statement. During the campaign, average deferrals for targeted male and female participants grew more than 3.5 percent to 8.26 percent and 7.99 percent, respectively.
The next two steps in the RetireSmart(SM) plan are to educate plan participants about consolidation and allocation.
"We could not be more pleased with the results of the save campaign, and look forward to seeing the positive action the consolidate and allocate portions of the campaign will prompt as well," said Elaine Sarsynski, executive vice president of MassMutual's Retirement Serivces Division and CEO of MassMutual International LLC.
MassMutual's Retirement Services Division has been serving retirement plans for 65 years. It offers a full range of products and services for corporate, union, nonprofit and governmental employers' defined benefit, defined contribution and nonqualified deferred compensation plans. It serves approximately 1.3 million participants.
MassMutual is a mutual life insurance company that is run for the benefit of its members and participating policyholders.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
