Content marketing – the art of creating and sharing valuable, engaging and informative content – has gone from strength to strength, fuelled by the unrelenting march of social media. The average company now allocates 26% of its marketing budget to content marketing yet, in many ways, content is simply the beginning. Even the most exciting content can be ignored if it doesn’t look good or work well or shout ‘read me’ from the top of its voice. To achieve that you need a great website so here are some tips to achieve great financial services websites.
Strive for constant improvement
At Kurtosys we’ve re-styled a number of websites for global asset management firms, many of these organisations realised that constant improvement is key to staying in front in the digital age.
As financial brands get to grips with social channels it can be easy to neglect the website itself, yet, ultimately, it is the most important link in the chain. Yes, social media is great for raising awareness and engaging with customers but it’s the website that can convert those leads into clients, turning interest into action.
These asset management firms had the content they needed to inform, educate and engage. They had the functionality required to let private investors apply for products or intermediaries to attend fund performance webinars. What they needed was a joined up way to get the most from their content, and that was achieved using these web tools.
Create some movement
Words can easily become flat and lifeless. Especially when you’re talking about financial products – which typically take quite a few words of explaining!
Adding in lots of white space can help make things easy on the eye, but adding some movement or video is even better. Slideshows are a great way to introduce colour and movement, whilst signposting the most important new messages at the heart of the website.
Make it easy to navigate
Before it can be read, content has to be found. So much great information gets needlessly buried behind link after link of confusing web design. We introduced mega menus to put everything in the navigation.
Make it personal
Customers want to feel special. They want to feel like you’re talking to them. Personalising a website is a great way to get that little bit closer to customers. For private investors this might mean being able to log into your personal portfolio or track your performance via a personalised fund watchlist whilst for advisers it might mean being able to register for events in your area.
Include a clear call to action
It’s easy to be shy about asking for business but without a clear call to action customers will leave without making the final commitment. Whether you want new customers to apply for an ISA or IFAs to sign up for a webinar you have to ask them, and then make the process as simple as possible.
And through it all… keep mobile in mind
There’s one seam running through everything we’ve said above and that’s making your websites with mobile devices in mind. The Kasina study of websites for financial intermediaries found that 41% of advisers are accessing the adviser sites of asset managers on their mobile devices – considering that 2010 the figure was just 9.4%, that’s quite a staggering jump.
