By Jim Middlemiss
Investment Executive
Building your Business
February 2005 Issue
Forward-thinking advisors realize that having a Web presence is a great way to find and serve clients.
Adrian Mastracci, investment counsel at Vancouver’s ‘fee-only’ KCM Wealth Management, says, "I rely on the graphic designer who built the site to update it with the content I provide.”
If you want to see murray Child’s slice, you don’t have to go to a golf course. Simply call up his Web site, www.mdkchild.com.
The financial advisor’s site features an animated graphic of Child launching a golf ball onto a green. With each swing, different words appear on the screen reflecting the key attributes a client can expect when using Child’s services — consistency, hustle, warmth, knowledge and a high degree of contact.
Child sees his four-year-old site as a key component of his marketing and service initiatives. The independent advisor in Waterloo, Ont. — he recently left Assante Corp. to strike out on his own — decided to develop a site because, he says, “Technology is becoming pervasive in our lives. I recognized that more and more of the populace is using the Web to gain access to information and look for new services. We felt we had to be there.”
So, apparently, do a majority of advisors. In a recent survey, 76% of respondents feel that a Web site is important for marketing and communications.
But the survey, conducted by Investment Executive in partnership with www.advisortechsolutions.com, uncovered a disconcerting dichotomy: 60% of advisors don’t have sites, and 63% of those don’t have plans to build a site any time soon.
That’s a big mistake, warns Edey. He believes a Web presence is an important element in any advisor’s practice. “It is your calling card of the 21st century,” he says, noting the Internet is becoming a primary communications vehicle. “It’s a lot cheaper than having your picture and phone number in the Yellow Pages.”
Research indicates that Canadians are increasingly using the Internet for shopping, research and conducting financial transactions. Affluent individuals, in particular, spend hours on the Net every week tracking their investments and checking account balances. Forward-thinking advisors realize cyberspace is becoming the place to find and serve clients.
But the quality and sophistication of existing financial advisor sites are all over the map. Some are simply brochure sites that entice clients to visit once, but don’t go much further. Others try to incorporate more “sticky” items, such as current editorial content or investment calculators, in order to keep people returning.
Child’s site is a blend of brochure-type information and personal finance information. On the site, he describes his business philosophy and his approach to investing. Clients can learn about customized solutions that are geared toward business owners, key executives and professionals; access current information about the stock markets and get price quotes; read client testimonials; and access links to relevant Web sites for matters such as taxes. The site also has calculators available.
“It has certainly brought us business,” he says. “We’ve had a number of new clients come to us after first being exposed to us through our Web site.” That includes a recent lottery winner.
According to Mike Long, president and CEO of a Web directory and search engine that helps Canadians find investment advisors across the country, Child’s site may well be an exception. Most advisor Web sites “stink,” he says. Long now has 2,500 advisors listed in his firm’s search engine — including many from bank-owned firms — but, he says, only about 1% of the sites are effective.
“The Web presents an opportunity, but there’s a flip side to it. It can also bite you in the rear end,” he says. “For the independents, it equalizes the playing field.”
Advisors who work for bank-owned brokerages or large financial services firms, for example, may find themselves at a disadvantage. Their employers have them on a tight leash; they usually have to use a pre-designed template for their Web sites.
The downside: the advisor is often restricted when it comes to individualizing the site. One reason for this is to help firms ensure the sites are compliant with regulations.
The upside: the sites are easy to modify and update, and are backed by a large technology department.
“We can’t do a whole lot for advisors who have internal sites,” says Long. “Most big companies have a mandate that their advisors cannot maintain any information on an external server. All information has to be maintained on a corporate server, mainly for compliance reasons. It becomes a big, hairy bugaboo.”
Advisors don’t always have control over the internal coding on their Web sites. The coding is used by search engines to find information, and that can affect the ability of a Web surfer to find those advisors.
Leonie Tyler, vice president and managing director of e-business says her firm is looking at improving its Web search rankings. She says one of her department’s goals is to give investment advisors the ability to customize their sites and make it easy for them to create and update them. The template includes a “wizard,” an online tool that walks advisors through the process of building a site. The IT department is also available for further help.
The situation is different for independent advisors. They have the freedom to do what they want with their sites; however, they must foot the bill for the technology required to build and host the sites. And they seldom have the IT expertise at their beck and call as advisors at large firms do.
Independent advisors who want to build their own sites may take a do-it-yourself approach and purchase software programs, such as Dreamweaver from San Francisco-based Macromedia Inc. or Frontpage from Microsoft Corp., for a few hundred dollars each that are designed to lead users through the construction process. But there is a considerable learning curve.
“It’s not easy to become a Web developer overnight,” says Harv Craven, of Harv Craven Design in Maple Ridge, B.C. Or as Craven suggests, advisors can hire a professional Web designer. “A professional is going to give you more advantages,” he says.
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