The Heidi Klum Plan for Market Outlooks

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Heidi Klum started planning her 2023 Halloween costume on November 1^st of 2022.

While we all wait in anticipation to find out what the Queen of Halloween has planned this year, it’s the perfect time to take a little tour around the internet for another kind of inspiration: to see what people are doing with market outlooks. It’s not too early – in fact it’s right on time or maybe even a little late – to be planning for those popular publications. (Yes, we talked about Austrian Arnold last month and it’s German Heidi this month. Where will we go in October??)

Year-end market outlooks are prime material for financial marketers, as we all know. They get major circulation and press attention. They’re exactly the kind of format that brings together what your audience and the media want (outlooks!) with what your people have (viewpoints!).

But you have to package these precious assets in a way that maximizes their value. Information design is an art and a science. What you say is probably only 40% of the value of your market outlook. How you say it is probably 60% – you have to get that right.

5 examples of exceptional market outlooks to find inspiration

Take a look at these five examples of midyear outlooks. In all five cases, the firms chose to make simple landing pages showing some headlines of the info but directed the audience to full PDF reports, which I have linked below.

LPL Financial’s 2023 Midyear Outlook: This reminded me of the Bloomberg print magazine, with its edgy graphics and listicle feel – really sharp. It surprised me with its design polish! I also loved how the landing page uses overview buttons at the bottom to click through different topic areas.

BlackRock’s 2023 Midyear Outlook. BlackRock is known for its bold design, so it’s no shock to see they made a sharp outlook. I especially love the Chart Takeaways they do in this format, and I also loved the journalistic look of the text layout.

J.P. Morgan Private Bank’s Mid-Year Outlook | 2023 – Unsurprisingly, JPM’s private bank put out a fully polished report, but what struck me was their really intentional use of “you” focused language – “you probably stay too close to home with your investments,” etc. That made it a much more personal-feeling piece even though it was also more formal in its design aesthetic.

Capital Group’s 2023 Midyear Investment Outlook: This struck me as a more traditional layout yet decidedly updated, with a journalistic take on the header formatting that is quite readable and easy to take in. They also take some creative direction with the graphics, though they leave others in more classic forms.

Wells Fargo Investment Institute 2023 Midyear Outlook is a more conventional take on an outlook, but I do commend them for one design choice: they put summaries of each section in what is essentially the Table of Contents. They also use simple graphics and you can play a fun game called “spot the mixed metaphors!” in the headers.

Be strategic about your information design

Each of these examples can help you collect ideas for ways to update and improve your own market outlook this year, boosting its impact and your return on investment.

Be sure to get your Art Director on your side for this one, since the art and science of information design is such a huge component of a successful market outlook. I’m willing to wager that your Art Director cares a lot about Halloween. She/he may even be watching carefully for Ms. Klum’s costume decisions as well. Maybe a point you could be connecting on Monday morning as you thoughtfully deliver her or him a pumpkin spice latte.

Need help with financial content this fall? Reach out to find out how I work with marketing teams on strategy and freelance financial writing.