Your website can be a powerful tool for attracting and retaining clients. But get it wrong and they could end up running for the hills, explains president of PR consultancy i-Impact Group Claudio Pannunzio.
Despite all the information that you find these days on websites, financial advisers continue to make a lot of mistakes:
1. Website speed
One of the most important things is to make sure that you have the technology behind the website that allows it to load up very fast.
This is something that is very important where people have a very short attention span. Wait more than four of five seconds and – I have witnessed myself – people just drop it because it takes too long to load up. There are studies that show that a one second delay equals over 10% less people staying on the page.
2. Mobile access
It’s very important that your website has the ability to also be viewed on a smartphone. Studies show that website visitors are 51% more likely to do business with an entity that has a mobile site that they can view on the go.
It’s very often misunderstood. It’s not a very expensive proposition, but it’s something that really keeps a sense of immediacy. And with a sense of immediacy today there is also a little bit of building trust for your viewers. It’s something that really enthuses people and promotes them to speak highly about their advisers.
3. Homepage
The rules of the game have changed. The homepage as we know it is what I call a ‘glorified tombstone’: look at how good I was when I was 25 years’ old.
People don’t have time to read. They don’t want advisers to talk at the visitor, but to talk to them. So the homepage has to exactly pinpoint what are, generally speaking, the key problems or issues that your average visitor has – and underscore immediately what the solutions are that a financial adviser can bring. That gives a sense of immediacy.
4. Video
On the homepage I also highly recommend putting a 60-90-second video. The video really enables advisers to connect with their clients, for the simple reason that you can have beautiful prose but human beings think in images.
A video is much more powerful than words, especially when you do a welcome, when you underscore in three or four bullets what you can do for them, and say ‘proceed to the next page or two and you will find the information’.
5. Create trust
It’s all about the homepage: a brief bio with a clear picture of the adviser. The picture connects with the audience. The bio has to be very brief and to the point. And have a page where you have your strategies – your product.
The business of a financial adviser is the business of connecting at a higher or deeper level with your clients. How do you do that? You do that by creating a sense of trust that doesn’t come only from the expertise that you exude through your website, but also to the fact that you are also involved through your community. You do a lot of charity work, for example. That creates that type of bond.
You also have to have a ‘contact us’ page where you can contact the adviser for information.
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6. Don’t create a pile-up
Many advisers also have an additional page which is a disaster. It’s what I call a ‘pile-up on Highway 5’, where you have calculator, access to financial publications, etc.
Most of the time these days where you have such a granular access to the internet we don’t need someone to give us access through links. Use five or six pages max, using very straight to the point soundbites and a video with very crisp clear language.
7. Know your audience
A lot of the time advisers don’t know their audience – they don’t do their preparation. I developed a product for my agency that I call the ‘message map’.
In a nutshell it’s an exercise where I go and sit down with the stakeholders from the firm and probe them for six hours until we create an unquestionable positioning for the firm: key differentiators, identifying key audiences and creating talking points.
It’s very similar to the exercise that every president of the United States goes through before going to a press conference. You want to create a bulletproof [layer] around your message. You have to have your messages clear, and know your audience. Knowing your audience includes crafting your video and soundbites for them, and having good copy.
8. Images
If you are a financial adviser who specialises in education plans or you specialise in concentrated stock options for your clients, don’t do what many advisers do. They pick these beautiful pictures of senior citizens who are riding the infamous Italian scooter – the Vespa – on a coastline in California. And they have their legs and arms up in the air.
I say to them ‘that’s a great commercial for Viagra’. It’s not for you! So the choice of image is very important. It’s as important as words.
9. Be consistent
The other thing is the message. Very often messages are inconsistent: advisers are trying more to underscore their expertise, and less what they can do for their clients.
10. Positioning
Often visitors get overwhelmed with the positioning – sentences and messages and images – and don’t follow the archetypal behaviour that human beings have when they look at a website.
They start looking from the left top and they move diagonally to the bottom right. So that’s very important. If you facilitate that visual pattern, people choose to stay on the website.
You want to have the image right on top – either towards the left or right, or right in the middle – and have a video that most likely opens immediately. Make sure with your web developer that it’s not blasting out, but it’s clear and not more than 60-90 seconds.
Then start positioning your messages to the centre of the page where naturally the eye is going to be dropping. Place your images to the left and to the right, so that your message is sandwiched in the middle and your eye is forced to go there.
