AdviserTech LIVE – Practical tips for building your brand online

Obviously this was music to my ears and highlights how branding has become THE hot topic post pandemic for financial advisers, wealth managers and product suppliers. With so much competition and client acquisition tougher than ever, how you present yourself is of utmost importance if you want to grow your firm – this includes attracting good staff as well as clients! 

At PLOTT we work with a range of finance clients to help them ‘stand out’ and create a brand story that is authentic, relevant and human. From helping with client avatars, end-to-end audits of the client journey, to helping build visually engaging creative and content, it’s the thing we love doing.

For this AdviserTech LIVE I wanted to cover a topic that many of clients initially come to us about. THEIR WEBSITE. All advisers know this is the first place a potential client will gather information about their firm, especially post-pandemic. We know firms struggle with their online presence because it’s HARD. You don’t have a beautiful, instagramable product to showcase unless, you count your people! Instead, many firms are lazy and rely on the same stock images (they guy on the yacht, the handshake) as most of their competitors alongside bland, generic, jargon-filled words that mean nothing to clients, or themselves often. 

Getting your website, and primarily your brand, right is a journey! Similar to your financial journey it requires setting aside time for deep thinking and reflection of what you stand for, why you exist, the value you add etc. This is hard to do without some external, professional help in our opinion. I use the analogy here of us doing our own finances…

We could’ve gone online and used a robo adviser and tried to invest ourselves – I’m sure it would’ve been ok. Similarly you could use a platform like Wix or Squarespace – the outcome would be ok. I’m sure some of you have tried. But for us planning and investing our money was a big step and for my own peace of mind, I wanted a ‘real’ human I could talk to and build a relationship with, someone I am able to pick up the phone to who knew me and my concerns.

For something as important as your brand and website, we find our clients value the same ‘human’ experience. Having a trusted professional who will make sure their brand and website stays on track with the knowledge and experience to suggest ways to continually improve and adapt to meet your clients everchanging needs. To manage this yourself, as well as your clients and compliance, is a step too far in our opinion. That is if you value any free time outside of work 🙂

Worth noting, Standard Life research found those who received impartial financial advise had nearly double the savings or investments compared with those who hadn’t.

I can imagine there’d be a similar statistic around how many enquiries you’d receive from your website using a professional web design agency compared with a DIY job!

Before I jump into our webinar I’d like to give a big shout-out to all the other guest speakers who are supporting clients to develop their branding and implement the right technologies to meet the demands of the 21st century adviser.

These included industry stalwarts:

Abbie Knight  – Marketing in the age of disruption

moneyinfo  – Portal personalisation is paramount

SECCL  – Taking control of the platform experience

AdvisorStream  – Brand & Deliver: How to drive growth with scroll-stopping marketing

Minerva DFM Services  – How own branded funds can support your investment proposition

Practical tips for building your brand online

Marketing has been shifting more and more digital from traditional physical media for a more than a decade.

I would argue that we’re probably five years further on than we would have been in terms of how we interact and how we market to clients since covid.

Your website and online presence – your digital brand – has never been more important.

First contact between you and potential clients happens online now, largely. Even when a client is referred to you it’s a safe-bet the first thing they’ll do is Google you.

And you’ll have about 3 seconds to engage them before they move on….

Potential clients are overwhelmed with options and have zero tolerance for websites that are poorly laid out, slow and confusing.

So whether you’re starting from scratch or looking to make some quick wins, here are our top tips!

Anna Plotnek and the PLOTT team

For over ten years we have partnered with clients to help them craft brands and websites that drive ambitious businesses forward. As an innovative and creative agency, I believe our success is built on the relationship we have with our clients, our passion to simplify the complicated and a love of intelligent design. From boutique firms to multi-branch businesses, we can help financial planners, wealth managers and product providers bring their brands to life and future-proof their firms for the next generation.