In this day and age, it is common for many clients to go through an advisor’s website before doing business with him. So, a website is an essential part of your business.
Decide what purpose you want the website to serve: In its most basic form, your website could be an online brochure telling your prospects about your services, your philosophy as well as write–ups on different financial planning topics. You could have a more evolved and dynamic website that could have interactive tools and content for your clients; one that could offer online investing; help you communicate with your clients and help your clients view their portfolios etc.
While there is a whole lot of features, functionality and content you could offer, it is best to decide what the website should offer, based on your objectives. Otherwise, you may be saddled with an expensive website that offers features that are not relevant to you or one that is devoid of features relevant to you.
Be open to new technologies: Before building a website, spend some time understanding the new technologies available in the market. The online market is dynamic and every day new technologies are launched. Be open to new online possibilities. You must consider certain facilities like video conferencing. This saves the client’s time and also connects him from anywhere in the world.
“I have introduced video conferencing in our website recently and we feel that the software has broken all my wrong notions. We always thought that a client needs the personal presence of the advisor to be able to share his financial issues. But it is not true. We have connected to clients through this software. After having this software we feel that there is no geographical boundary to expand my clientele,” Suresh Mohta, IFA from Kolkata.
Keep the navigation and language simple: Information should be available to the clients in as few clicks as possible. Explain your approach and pricing, important investor awareness concepts, and try to instigate some thought process in the client about financial planning through some short provocative questions. This will draw the client toward your services.
Keep the language of the website also as simple as you can. Using complicated English does not impress any client.
Go mobile: Most of the clients now use smart phones to view any site. So, it is necessary for your site to have applications that allow clients to view the site through smart phones.
Give your clients reasons to come back to your website again and again. If you create a static website, your clients will have no reason to keep coming back to your website. So as far as possible, build a solid and dynamic knowledge section, allow online viewing of portfolios and online investing. This way, the website can be your virtual office!
