Move Your Business 4WARD on the Web
by Joe Fox, President, 4WARD Marketing Products

The competition is fierce and the economy is making your customers more demanding than ever. It’s no longer enough to simply differentiate yourself from your competition through marketing. Today, connecting your customers to information is critical and no tool is more valuable to do so than a professional, informative web site.

At one time, just having a web site placed you on the cutting edge and all that was required to have a professional presence on the Internet was the conversion of traditional marketing materials, like a brochure, into hypertext markup language (HTML) and you were good to go. Those days are gone.

The competitive landscape in the financial services industry has changed dramatically and forever. Today, investors heavily rely on the web for information. Think of how many times your clients have asked you to respond or react to the national headlines? How often do you think your clients are vetting your advice against the counsel of the numerous Internet based “experts” only minutes after they have hung up the phone with you? The bottom line is, it has become crucial for financial professionals to aggressively, strategically engage clients and prospects online. A professional web site that integrates information on your services along with market data, advice, and of course, e-mail are no longer “nice to have,” they are essential if you plan to win in today’s market. As the President of 4WARD Marketing Products, a company that specializes in helping financial professionals enhance and manage their on-line presence, I run into a wide range of needs andrequests from financial professionals matching their specific needs to their technical expertise and budget.

The goal of any web site should be to increase business, plain and simple. Sounds easy, but unless you are a computer engineer, it’s not. Fortunately, there are some guiding principles you should consider to ensure your site stays on track and on mission.

Whether you’re building your first web site or redesigning an existing site, it pays to pause and ask yourself some critical questions. At 4WARD, we start every project gathering information and profiling our customers’ clients. We investigate the level of “comfort” the financial professional and the clients have with technology. For example –– we want to know what percentage of an advisor/client interaction comes via e-mail vs. the phone. Does instant messaging play a role in communications or are e-mail and phone enough to ensure that all customers have timely, effective access to you as their advisor? We take an inventory of the visual and data resources you already have on hand, collect images, review brochures, and evaluate how you share data that sets yourself apart from your competitors. Before we even think about writing code to create a web site, we ensure that your business is organized and focused enough to have an effective presence on the Internet and you should do the same. What it boils down to is that customization is perhaps your most strategic advantage. Your web site needs to reflect you, your personality, the way you do business, your values, and your vision. A successful web site brings your brand to life! It should look and feel different than other financial professionals. Most importantly, the web site should clearly define why a prospective client should do business with you.

As I said earlier, more and more people are using the web to gather and vet financial and investment information and you need to make yourself a resource that these customers and potential customers turn to. A strong web site must foster greater credibility for your counsel. To be effective, you must use the web to promote your seminars and upcoming events, even going so far as to have video clips of recent events posted on your site so that customers who would not attend, can still benefit from the event. Your web site should be like an employee –– who, with just a few clicks allows customers to find seminar and event details. Dates, times and locations for instance, provide a link for pre-event questions, and even take and manage online reservations.
 
 
Today, connecting your customers to information is critical and no tool is more valuable to do so than a professional, informative web site.

Then, there is compliance to consider. Your website must meet stringent compliance requirements at all times and there are no short cuts around that process. At 4WARD we work closely with the Compliance Departments to ensure that our customers are on top of the constantly changing implications for compliance on the web.

Finally, being on the web is one thing, being FOUND on the web is another. Search Engine Optimization, also known as SEO is a critical process of improving the amount of traffic and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines using algorithmic search results for keywords. Your web site needs to take full advantage of the power of the Internet and bring potential clients to you.

Being on the web in the right way, in the right place with the right information takes some thought and time, but it pays incredible dividends if you do it right. Be a front-runner.

Joe Fox is the President of 4WARD Marketing Products, a Marketing Company that provides products, programs, and tools to help financial professionals promote their business. 4WARD web sites is a web design and implementation firm that specializes in creating compelling web sites for professionals in the Financial Services industry. 4WARD has partnered with NEXT Financial Group to offer 0% or very low financing rates through commission deductions. Details to follow.

For more information, check us out at www.4WARDMarketingProducts.com, or email JoeFox@4WARDMarketingProducts.com, or call 888-831-0736.