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February 13, 2012 at 11:00 PM
One of my clients who works with high net-worth (HNW) individuals had become successful enough to take on a partner and kick his process into high gear. This entailed taking a hard look at his website and ripping it out—more than once. This process took years. “In 2000, it was a good website,” he told me. “By 2006, it was old.”
Unfortunately, a year-long redesign ended in what my client called a “dismal” failure. Then he brought in a partner who happened to know something about marketing, only to find out that the new design was too programmatic and too complicated. Now that he has redesigned his website again, my client reports that 30 percent to 40 percent of the $12 million in new assets that have come through his firm have done so through his website.
Keep it simple. What he learned from the process is not to let the design get in the way of sales. “On my new site, it’s easy to find stuff,” he explained. “It’s easy for a client to make an appointment for an introductory meeting or financial review. It’s easy for them to start a relationship.”
Advisors tend to think in complicated terms. While that’s fine when you’re crunching market numbers, it can be lethal when you’re explaining your value proposition to a prospect, who may be very successful but who may not know much about the industry.
You don’t have to dazzle prospects with jargon and statistics. And with the wealth of bells and whistles available online, the challenge is to make sure you cover the essentials without leaving your prospective clients more dazed than dazzled.
Now, my client finds high net-worth investors flocking to his site via Google searches or NAPFA’s advisor recommendation tool (a great lead generator for members, by the way).
