6.5 ways to maximize -...

6.5 WAYS TO MAXIMIZEYOUR FINANCIAL

ADVISOR WEBSITE

#1 DEFINE & RANKDefine and Rank the Role(s) of Your WebsiteKnowing the role you want your website to play in your financial practice is critical to understanding what kind of website to build and to achieving a high level of success. We've learned from years of experience in building brands and websites for financial professionals that setting expectations is critical and needs to be at the forefront of any decision to build a new website. It is only when expectations aren't clear that people can evaluate the investment in their site.

Making a faulty assessment without first establishing the desired results and success metrics will negatively influence future investments in branding and marketing. This negative influence will ignite the search for "magic marketing bullets" and short-term thinking. The following are some of the major roles and strategies a website can play in a financial practice. Take a moment to rank them from 1 to 10 (least important to most). That will help you as you read the rest of this white paper.

6.5 WAYS TO MAXIMIZEYOUR FINANCIAL ADVISOR WEBSITE

BUILDING YOUR PROSPECT LIST

ASSISTING IN THE SALES CYCLE

INITIATING YOUR DRIP MARKETING SEQUENCE

INTRODUCING AND/OR DEEPENING YOUR BRAND

INTRODUCING BRAND TO REFERRALS OR CAPTURING REFERRALS

SELLING OR PROMOTING BOOK/PAPER

BUILDING PROFESSIONAL CREDIBILITY

FURTHERING CLIENT COMMUNICATIONMEETINGS INSTRUCTIONS, NEWSLETTER SIGN UP, EVENT REGISTRATION, FORMS

IMPROVING SOCIAL MEDIA INTEGRATION

PROFILING STRATEGIC PARTNERS TO INCREASE COI REFERRALS

WEBSITE ROLE RANK IMPORTANCE: 1 - 10 (LEAST TO MOST & USE EACH RANKING ONLY ONCE)

026.5 WAYS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR FINANCIAL ADVISOR WEBSITE ©TOP ADVISOR MARKETING. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

#2 - GET TEAM BUY-INWhen defining the role of your website, make sure to include key people on your team in the process. Inclusion at this level will go a long way to engaging them in your strategy and setting everyone up for success. The entire team should be able to say they were heard and had input. You’re likely to get some good ideas you might not have thought about. You may also hear staff talk about other issues that you’ll want to address. The thinking that goes into building a great website helps companies take a good look at themselves in the mirror. Why not use the process to better your business? A new website is a great opportunity to open up discussion about core values and purpose.

#3 - PRIORITIZE GOALSPrioritize Goals and Tactics for Your WebsiteOnce you know what role your website should play in your business, set some simple and realistic goals. One of the most common perceptions I’ve seen working with financial professionals is that whether they admit it or not, many think that building a website will inevitably lead to unsolicited leads from the web. There is only one way to gain leads from a financial advisory website�intentionally implement a strategy to attract and convert leads. It’s not a matter of build it and they will come. Generating leads from the web sounds simple, but it’s an incredibly competitive landscape and you’ll need to put significant thinking and resources into it to achieve success. It’s doable, but not without focused and intentional effort.

Sample Tactics/Goals:GOAL: Improve “Initial Meeting” efficiency from 60% to 90%.

TACTIC: Improve “Initial Meeting” success by making it easier for clients to review and complete initial meeting requirements.

GOAL: Increase monthly web visits from 50 visits to 500 visits.

TACTIC: Simplify prospect experience by splitting site into Succession Planning for Business Owners and Wealth Preservation for Affluent Families so they see relevant content only and stay on site longer.

Your goals may need to be more subjective because you might not have the resources to have this kind of data available. If that’s the case, don’t get bogged down in the numbers, just put reasonable goals in place that provide direction and something to measure against.


#4 - ARTICULATE YOUR CORE MESSAGEIn order to convince prospects and centers of influence to work with you, your website MUST have a professional and compelling message that resonates with your ideal audience. You should always take advantage of every opportunity to nurture your brand - even if you decide you only need a website to communicate with clients. Here is what is meant by "compelling": In a commoditized industry, it’s always a good idea, perhaps even imperative, to differentiate and substantiate why someone should work with you. Of the 100+ financial professionals we’ve worked with, well over 95% have claimed their unique value proposition is one of integrity, honesty, discipline, service, comprehensiveness and peace of mind. Hmm...does this sound familiar? Clearly, you need to look for other unique points of differentiation, which aren’t always obvious. I highly recommend a quiet meeting with a mentor, wholesaler, center of influence or a branding professional to help you uncover what is unique and compelling about working with you. This uniqueness can then be positioned in a way that has attraction and loyalty value to your target audience.

Once you’ve established a solid message, have a professional writer work on telling your story in a concise manner. It is often useful to list your credibility assets; items such as a sample written financial plan, case studies (if allowed), testimonials (if allowed), articles, professional credentials with explanations, community achievements, client meeting process and so on. These tangible assets go a long way toward confirming your credibility, and few advisors package and leverage these resources effectively. These resources also help you tell your story.

Note: Be sure to compliance test your message before presenting to your compliance department.

#5 - SOCIAL MEDIA INTEGRATIONGoogle “social media expert” and you will get over 250 million results. We can help with the seemingly daunting task of putting social media into perspective as it relates to growing your practice. Social media is a powerful tool that is here to stay. Social media opportunities will undoubtedly evolve. Here are some of the relevant basics as they stand today.

Social media is… well, you know, using media to socialize. It breaks down many of the barriers to real networking and socializing, but social etiquette still applies. Let’s talk about five social media platforms that are worthy considerations for financial professionals.


BLOGS Word of advice: Don’t say “blog” to your compliance department, say “article archive.” After all, that’s all it really is, an article archiving system on steroids – oops, another poor word choice. Using a blog can be as simple as sharing your thoughts, or sharing someone else’s thoughts. As long as you provide a clear and simple disclaimer that others’ advice, is just that, someone else’s advice, your compliance department should be okay complying with your use of a blog as an article archive. Blogs are a great way to tell your story in deeper terms. What’s your investment philosophy and how does it apply to the current economic environment? Why are you the estate planning choice in Albany, NY? Why is giving back to the community so important to you? How are you giving back?

LINKEDIN LinkedIn is well worth considering. It’s trusted, less often abused by spammers, and it’s deep where it counts: showcasing you and your story. LinkedIn easily integrates with your blog, your email contact list, your website, Slideshare presentations and more. On your website, always provide a link to your LinkedIn profile, and use the LinkedIn icon so people know what it is. Make the link to your LinkedIn profile very visible, perhaps even in the footer of every page, not just alongside of your profile under About Us.

TWITTER Twitter is an incredible tool. But the business value to independent financial professionals remains to be seen, aside maybe from being a great plugin for your website when listing recent news and updates. Making updates via Twitter beats the heck out of logging in to your website to make changes to news and updates.

SLIDESHARE PRESENTATIONS You can upload your PowerPoint presentation to Slideshare, and then link that inside your website. This allows visitors to view it, download it or share it without taxing your server’s bandwidth (not normally an issue for an advisor site, but good nonetheless). And viewing using Slideshare makes it easy to tweet, like or comment quickly via their social media tools.

FACEBOOK You’re likely most familiar with this social media app – Facebook. If you’re using the same FB profile for work and pleasure, be careful about who you friend. It doesn’t mean you can’t be yourself, just do it with respect for your audience. Facebook will allow you to reach out to many people very quickly and with a personal touch – all great attributes for building a prospect base that knows what you’re up to. Use FB to profile your expertise, your personality and your community profile, if that matters to you – and it should. Just like LI, make sure you add your FB icon and link to it from your site. Imbedding FB status updates on your site does not seem relevant; however, it should be easy for people to visit your FB profile.

#5 - SOCIAL MEDIA INTEGRATION CONT...


There are some attractive, rich and resourceful websites that are completely overwhelming. Navigation is about finding the right balance between too little or too much information and how important each item is. You should keep it simple. Consider breaking your site into FIVE components (sections):

BANNER Consider a banner with your logo, contact us link or phone number, then a link to your client’s online account access.

MAIN NAVIGATION MENU Don’t just limit yourself to Our Approach, Our Services, Our Process and About Us. These are okay and simple but they don’t help you differentiate. Try to be a little more interesting if you can, but not at the expense of being clear and keeping it simple.

Featured Items These are your credibility assets. It’s really important to build your brand on tangible skills or resources that reflect your uniqueness and value as a financial professional. If you are adamant about written financial plans, share a sample with your audience. If you have a thorough meeting process, share your process and checklists online. It’s these assets that are great as featured items on your site. They go below the main message of your site, but they reinforce the message with tangible resources and tools.

CMS With the latest Content Management Systems, such as WordPress and Joomla, you can build powerful footers that appear at the bottom of every page. Highlight your advisory team with links to each individual’s social media profiles, your physical office address and a link to a map, and finally a list of recent articles. Build the footer that best suits your firm and your site's objectives.

DISCLOSURE & COPYRIGHT Don’t forget your broker-dealer disclosure and copyright notice just below the footer.

#6 - KEEP NAVIGATION AND CONTENT SIMPLE

●

●

●

●

●


#6.5 – WEBSITE HOUSEKEEPING CHECKLIST (a little technical but still important)

KEEP IT FRESH The greatest enhancement of web 2.0 is your ability to update and engage people. If you can’t commit to this, stay away from content and tools that need to be updated.

PROOFREAD Typos make an impression. Not having typos makes a better imperssion (see what we mean?).

VERIFY ALL LINKS ARE WORKING Broken links are bad news. There are tools you can use to verify broken links – do a quick search online.

SPREAD THE WORD Make sure a URL (website address/domain name) is on everything.

RESERVE YOUR DOMAIN Name Don’t forget your domain registrar login or to keep your registration up to date.

WEBSITE HOSTING Make sure you’re working with the right IT people to make a smooth transition from one server to another and without interrupting your email service. In general, a DNS Record tags your domain name to a server. You can adjust the MX Record if you want your email to send and retrieve emails from a different server.

An MX (Mail Exchange) Record identifies an email server available to the domain. Most domains have multiple MX records, arranged in order of priority. When someone sends an email message to the domain, the first available server in the priority list handles the message.

●

●

●

●

●

●


6.5 ways to maximize -...

Documents