What Do The Best Financial Advisor Websites Have In Common?
Step one is to come up with a definition for the word “best” that we can all agree on. Does best describe the way financial advisor websites look? Or, the sites that deliver the best information? Or, the websites that generate the most leads? Or, how about the highest quality leads? How about all of the above.
Financial advisor websites have to meet the expectations of the firms that own them. Some firms are satisfied if their websites are attractive and they deliver the right content and messaging. Other financial advisors will judge the performance of their websites based on low bounce rates and the amount of time visitors spend on their websites. But, conversion rates are the metric that really matters.
Put yourself in the shoes of investors and ask yourself three questions.
First, what information are you looking for on financial advisor websites?
Second, did you find information that convinces you to give up your anonymity and initiate contact with the firms that are represented by the websites?
Third, do you feel safe submitting your contact information to a firm you just found on the Internet?
The Unique Role of Websites
Websites have a unique role in the sales funnels of financial advisors. They deliver information about firms and professionals, but their real role is to convert visitors into qualified leads and contacts. This is the main metric that monetizes the traffic on financial advisor websites.
The higher the conversion rates the greater the number of visitors that will be converted into leads and contacts.
Leads & Contacts
The goal for just about every financial advisor website is the production of qualified leads. But, websites do not produce one positive outcome, they produce two outcomes that are impacted by timing and other considerations.
Leads are investors who initiate contact because they have immediate needs for the financial advice and services that are provided by advisors. Their immediacy means they want to schedule introductory interviews to learn more about the firms and the professionals who work there. At this point, investors may not even know who is responding on behalf of the firms.
A contact is an investor who is seeking information which could be about the firm, a professional who works at the firm or more than likely a financial topic. By definition, they are not ready to begin interviewing financial advisors.
Since the information that investors are seeking is a relative unknown, the best financial websites are designed to provide easy access to a variety of information: Blog articles, eBooks, whitepapers, videos, podcasts, etc. This content will expand over time as new information is added to the website each month.
The majority of contacts have a timing issue. They are gathering information now to help them make better financial decisions later. For example, they are retiring in six months, will be rolling a substantial amount of money from a 401k to an IRA, and will be selecting their first financial advisor. For this reason, contacts will end up on financial advisor drip lists. Ideally, advisors will keep their names in front of contacts by sending them “relevant” emails on a monthly or bi-monthly basis.
Connections
For purposes of this article let’s assume all financial advisors are relatively the same. They provide similar services for similar amounts of fees. Compliance regulations also tend to level the playing field between financial advisor firms on the Internet.
Consequently, the quality of services is difficult to differentiate on financial advisor websites.
Firm Versus Professional
Investors use the Internet in two ways. One is to “find” financial advisors in their communities or virtual advisors where location does not matter. The other, more dominant application, is to use the Internet to “research” financial advisors (professional staff, services, pricing, credentials, types of clients, etc.).
At this point, it makes sense that financial advisor websites are marketing the firm versus professionals. The quality of professionals does not matter if investors are not satisfied with the quality of their firms. Sure, every website has an Our Team or an Our Founder page, but 98% of the content on their websites is about their firms and not the professionals who work there.
A solution, for higher quality financial advisor websites, is to add videos to the website that give visitors an opportunity to get to know the professionals who work at the firm. The extra expense is worth it because video can help create positive connections between investors and the professionals who work there.
Great Leads
When financial advisor websites deliver the right information, including differentiating characteristics, there is a good chance investors will feel comfortable enough to initiate contact.
It stands to reason, these will be the highest quality leads that are experienced by financial advisors for three important reasons.
First, these leads are actively seeking financial advisors on the Internet. There is no reason to initiate contact if they did not want to interview financial advisors.
Second, investors spend time on financial advisor websites before they make the decision to contact financial advisors. This means they spent time learning more about the firm before they made the decision to initiate contact by providing their information on a landing page.
Third, investors made the decision to initiate contact with financial advisors. Since they are protective of their contact information it makes sense that they must have liked what they saw on the websites.
Competitive Advantage
Regardless of how investors found financial advisors and regardless of whether they are leads or contacts, digital marketing creates a competitive advantage.
How do we know this is true? The answer lies in the process that leads and contacts use to find financial advisors, learn more about them, and get comfortable enough to initiate contact. This is a huge advantage compared to financial advisors who try to initiate contact with investors.
The same is true for contacts when they are ready to start interviewing financial advisors. The advisors, who become a valued source of financial information, have a major competitive advantage when contacts are ready to start their interview processes. These advisors have had numerous opportunities to build credibility and trust by being a valued source of information.
Level The Playing Field
How does a one professional RIA compete with a Wall Street behemoth? The Internet is a great way to level the playing field for independent RIAs. That’s because investors are more inclined to select professionals versus firms as long as the independent RIA can convince them they can deliver equal to or better than financial advice. There is a reason independent RIAs are the fastest-growing segment of the financial service industry.
Smaller firms that market their services on the Internet may not have brand name awareness, but they have something even better. They can design their websites to appeal to their target markets. This is close to impossible for big firms that have numerous business interests and layers of management.
Conversion Rates
At the end of the day what really characterizes the best financial advisor websites is their conversion rates. There are actually three, but the website is only responsible for one.
The first is converting website visitors into qualified leads for the advisor's services. We have already used “qualified” in this article. A qualified lead may be determined by the investors’ available assets. There is a disconnect if the investors have $100,000 of assets available for investment and the financial advisor has a $1,000,000 minimum asset requirement for new clients.
The second is converting leads into active prospects. The difference? Financial advisors have a leads’ contact information, but that is not a prospect. A prospect designation means the investors have contacted the lead and there is mutual interest by both parties.
Third, this conversion is impacted by the website but is not controlled by the website. That is the communication that converts prospects into revenue-producing clients. This may be more impacted by the advisors’ sales skills, but there is no doubt the outcomes are impacted by relationships that were developed by first impressions, website content, free offers, and other information on financial advisor websites.