Today’s article in Ignites – Strong Websites Drive Sales: Study – highlights a recent survey of 536 financial advisors by kasina; these advisors spanned all channels. The results indicate that the quality of an investment manager’s website affects product decisions by advisors – particularly among higher-end advisors. If I were an investment manager, I would take these results to heart.
The survey, entitled “What Advisors Do Online 2010” had a number of interesting conclusions:
1- Advisors in the top 10% of assets spent the most time online each week; in particular, the majority of these advisors visited the sites for news and commentary.
2- For all advisors, the main information sought was pricing, performance and product-specific information, followed by news and commentary.
3- 68% of respondents said that they shared this information with clients (investors).
4- 77.5% of these advisors use social media in some way in their businesses.
So lesson number one from this article for investment managers is that advisors do find value in their websites. But the article goes further to point out that it is important that all of the components of a manager’s marketing efforts work together to be most effective. For example, wholesalers should encourage advisors to look at the website for information rather than view the website as internal competition that might make the advisor more reluctant to spend time with him or her.
Finally, the article mentions the important of the design and ease of use of the website – because reality says that if an advisor goes to a manager’s website and it is hard to navigate or it takes a long time to get the information that they want, they will 1) go to a competitors website; and 2) they will never come back! One good rule of thumb that is pointed out is the two click rule – it should never take more than two clicks to get information of interest.
To summarize, this article has some interesting implications for investment managers. Advisors are willing to use websites for information, integrating marketing efforts are effective and not to be overlooked is the functionality of the website – ease of use is key!
