It’s not that Geoff Renouf and Scott Stewart didn’t appreciate the website that ScotiaMcLeod Inc. had supplied for them. The website just didn’t do anything to differentiate Renouf and Stewart from other financial advisors.
The website for the two advisors in Winnipeg was virtually identical to the websites of every other advisor in the office and, because Renouf and Stewart considered their offering to be anything but cookie-cutter, they decided – with the firm’s permission – to customize their website.
“We had this generic [web] page,” Renouf says, “nothing that would separate us from the crowd and make a prospect think, ‘These are guys I would want to work with.’
“A lot of people use [a Google search] as their first resource for finding a connection with a professional,” Renouf continues. “If you don’t have some kind of web presence that’s unique, you’re going to find yourself at a disadvantage.”
With a little help from web marketing specialists, Renouf and Stewart learned a few key points about building a more effective advisor website.
First, Renouf and Stewart hired a writer to pen their biographies, which now include much more than just the investment courses they have taken.
Their bios include notations about coaching hockey, their favourite places to travel, their charity work and even their pets. These are the characteristics that make advisors seem like real human beings.
“Those are things that sometimes click with clients and prospects,” Renouf says. The way to appeal to your website’s visitors, he adds, “is by having a story that prospects and clients can relate to.”
Renouf and Stewart also hired Iconic Group, a Toronto-based web marketing firm specializing in websites for wealth advisors, to guide the pair’s online efforts. Alexis Rudnick, Iconic’s director of communications, confirms the importance of advisors personalizing their bios.
The most important thing to know about your website, Rudnick says, is that visitors really are looking at only three web pages: your home page, your “our team” page and your services page. Your team page probably is the most significant of the top three pages because it tells the stories of your various team members.
“What becomes a differentiating factor,” Rudnick says, “is their personal information. The more advisors can step out of that cookie cutter and personify themselves, the better they can connect with prospects.”
The photos on that web page are important, too. “Take pictures that have personality,” Rudnick says.
Derrick Coupland, principal with Blacksheep Strategy Inc., an advertising agency in Winnipeg, agrees that personal information is a key part of an advisor’s website. Because financial advice is very personal and extremely difficult to quantify, Coupland says, many decisions regarding advisors are made based upon the prospective client’s perceived ability to work with the advisor.
“If a client can relate to a certain aspect of an advisor’s bio,” Coupland says, “the [client is] more likely to feel connected to that individual.”
Six years ago, studies found that an affluent prospect aged 40 to 75 spent three minutes and 45 seconds on a typical investment website. This year, that time has fallen to less than two minutes.
“I always tell advisors to think of their website as a two-minute commercial for their business,” Rudnick says. “We want that million-dollar prospect to have a kind of emotional connection to the site.”
Coupland says the Internet is still a cost-effective medium for advisors to use to get their story out. “It’s an environment in which you can put up more content that’s hard to distribute in another way,” he says. “If you write it and send it out [by mail], there’s a low likelihood that it will be read.”
And although visits to individual websites may be shorter, many people spend more time online today than they do watching television.
“Your prospects are much more comfortable visiting websites now,” Rudnick says. “[People] won’t make a decision to invest $1 million based on a website; they’ll want to come in and shake your hand first. But your website [makes that] first impression.”
Rudnick says his firm’s analytics enable advisors to see which web pages people are visiting, what kind of device those visitors are using and how long they’re staying before moving on to another website.
Your website should conform to the device your visitor is using to access it. So, whether your prospect is using a smartphone, a tablet or a computer, your website should be formatted to fit that screen.
“You have one first impression to give,” Rudnick says. “We want to make sure that … no matter what device [your website is viewed] on, it’s going to look great.”
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