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November 08, 2013 at 08:27 AM
High-end wealth management firm Aspiriant got a facelift this week with the launch of a new website that stands apart from the density and verbosity more typical of the advisory website genre.
Most striking, perhaps, is not what is present on the site but rather what is missing.
“We weren’t trying to provide too much information,” Aspiriant’s director of business development Cammie Doder told ThinkAdvisor in a phone interview from her San Francisco office. “We love overdelivering to clients, and we had to pull back.”
Doder, who oversaw the site’s rollout — a process that started more than a year ago with what she calls a “brand audit” — says that restraint meant dispensing with the overly analytical approach that is a staple of financial advisor websites.
“What really gives our clients comfort is tying the analytics with the emotional side of wealth management,” she says.
The seven-city elite firm, whose average client has $8 million under management, sought to communicate that with a generous sprinkling of illustrations — such as the tender embrace of a woman and her dog that is meant to convey a client experience whose thoughtfulness and meticulousness stems from an overarching quality of caring.
The splash of color those illustrations offer are all the more noticeable because they appear against a backdrop that is mostly white.
“Seeing a lot of white space is intentional,” Doder says. “Our industry usually offers overwhelming amounts of information. It’s really hard to digest so much information if [you’re a prospect] new to this industry or space.”
In a bid to sync a prospect’s day-to-day reality with the world of wealth management, Aspiriant’s site employs simple, conversational English and yet delivers a message that evinces financial sophistication.
For example, on a page titled “why we’re unusual,” the site lists five key points using muscular verb and noun phrasing that is light on slippery adjectives; (two bullet points: “Aspiriant is built to: eliminate conflicts of interest; maximize transparency, intimacy and continuity”).
Then, rather than drone on, the text concludes with an invitation to prospective clients:
“There’s a lot more to say about this unconventional vision. Some of it we’ll address on this site. But most of it is stuff we should talk about in person, if the basic idea of what we’re doing sounds like what you’re looking for.”
