20th March, 2024 - Webinar replay

The 23 indispensable elements of adviser/planner websites – how many can you tick off?

Phil Bray  00:00

Good morning, everybody, I hope you are well. Welcome to today’s webinar, you might have noticed things are a little bit different today; I am coming to you from the new famous  Premier Inn Studios in London. I’m in London for a couple of days, so I’m holed up in a Premier Inn today, hence the Zoom background. But you’re very welcome, thank you for joining us for today’s webinar: The 23 indispensable elements of an adviser/planner website, how many can you take off? Today is very much giving you information about website, which then hopefully, you can tick off, and if you find there are things that you’ve not got, there are boxes unchecked, then absolutely, we can help you check them, or you can do that yourself. Our usual people here with us today, Dan and Abi. Dan, do you want to do the normal housekeeping if that’s okay? I can see we’ve already had something in through the chat.

Dan Campbell  01:02

Yeah, I suppose we best do some housekeeping before your hotel housekeeping comes in and shuts us down.

Phil Bray  01:10

Very good!

Dan Campbell  01:11

Yeah, look at that, topical. So I’m Dan, the Head of Branding and Design here at The Yardstick Agency. So what do we need to know? Number one, this is a safe space. We’re all here to learn, so there’s no such thing as a daft question. If you’re thinking it, somebody else is too, no doubt. I mean, you might get a daft answer if the question is really daft, but we’ll do what we can. Number two, get involved, whether that’s a question, a query, an anecdote, or just a general comment. These sessions are much more valuable for us all if you get stuck in. So how do you do that? Well, that leads me to number three which is, use the Q&A box or the chat function. I’ll be monitoring both, and I’ll read them out at regular intervals. Depending on how quickly Phil can run us through the 23 things that you should have on your website, I’m sure we can sweep any final ones up at the end. If anybody missed Amira’s question in the chat, yes, we will be recording the session today and a follow-up email with that video plus any notes or resources we might mention will be sent out later today. As usual, we have at Yardstick’s very own Abi Robinson to thank for that. So Abi will be answering a couple of the more technical text-based questions along the way, and any of the big questions, I’ll be reading out for Phil to answer. So Phil, let’s hope you’ve stretched and limbered up, ready to start running. What are those 23 indispensable elements of adviser and planner websites?

Phil Bray  02:43

(Inaudible) Dan, let’s dive straight in, shall we? So let’s start with understanding why this is important. If anybody has read They Ask You Answer by Marcus Godin, you’ll know. For those of you who haven’t, there’s a quote here on the screen, “On average 70% of the buying decision is made before the prospect talks to the company.” So in this case, 70% of a prospect’s buying decision is made before they talk to an adviser, planner, mortgage broker, on your team, or indeed, yourself. You’ve got to think about what that means for your marketing, and it means your marketing has got to be bloody good! And it means that that digital journey to your door has to be incredibly impressive. As we’ve said, plenty of times before, people, prospects first meet you on a Google search results page, they start to get to know you on your website. Your website isn’t just a tick box. Yardstick is not the cheapest when it comes to websites, we’re not the most expensive, we’re not the cheapest, we’re somewhere in the middle and I’ve heard people say “I can get a website for half the price.” “I can get a website for less money.” My response, tongue in cheek is, it’s not going to be a Yardstick website. Well, what I mean by that is yes, you can get a website for a lot less money, you can get a website without investing huge amounts of time and effort into it, but is it really going to be effective? Maybe what we need to be thinking about here, is rather than “I can get a website”, is “How do we get an effective website?” To get an effective website, we need to invest time and money, we need to really acknowledge its role in that digital journey to your door. So as we’ve said numerous times before, between someone becoming aware of you and taking action is Google, and it’s a mistake to think that potential clients are only thinking about contacting you. They might have a shortlist of two or three different advice firms that they’ve been recommended to, that they’ve seen online, that they’ve driven past the offices of and when they’ve got those two or three firms on the shortlist, they’re going to Google them. As we’ve said before numerous times, between awareness and action is Google and there’s that digital journey that we need to be aware of. Then when they hit your website, we need to give visitors and prospects the information they need. So the first thing is about mindset. Your website is not just a tick-box exercise, it needs to be effective, it needs to be good and that means we need to invest time and money, we need to acknowledge its role in that digital journey, and we need to give the information that visitors are looking for. That of course, takes us on to the 23 things you should have on your website, so let’s dive into them. The first is your clients. Now, I might not find myself very popular when I say this, but there are no USPs, I’ll caveat it, in my experience, there are no USPs in financial advice, financial planning, or mortgage broking. I can pretty much get over here, what I can get over here. Yes, there are variations, but there are no USPs in my experience, in financial advice or financial planning. So how do we differentiate a finance advice business to a financial planning business, and a mortgage business from another similar business? There are two ways of doing it. The first, is to showcase your clients. Your clients are half of what makes your business unique. I’m sure you can guess what the other half is, and we might talk about that in a second. Your clients are half of what makes your business unique, they are your heroes of this story. Read Donna Miller’s book. Abi perhaps we could put a link to that book in the chat, and who knows? We might have a bit of a giveaway of books a little bit later. But they’re your heroes of this story, and therefore we need to tell their stories throughout your website, ideally using video. I was on a video shoot last week with a firm down in Hatfield, and I sat with four couples, interviewing them about why they were so pleased with the work they’re doing with their financial planner. Videos are without doubt, the best way of showcasing your heroes, your clients. If you can’t get videos, because potentially money is a barrier, then use case studies supported by client supplied images. But ideally we want videos on the website of your clients explaining the value of working with you, explaining about their journey with you. I’m really keen to hear from anybody who is maybe a bit nervous about doing videos, has some anxieties about videos, I really, really want to talk to people about that and try and dispel some of the myths that occur with client videos. So number one, client videos are incredibly important. Number two, the other 50%, your team. Your team make up the other 50% of what makes your business unique, and therefore we need to showcase them to the website with a really comprehensive team page. We believe everybody in your business should be on that team page, from the most senior person on the board to the latest apprentice through the door. Only putting managers on, or senior people, or advisers or planners, it creates all sorts of issues. It looks elitist and you could make people in the team feel that they’re less important, and quite often, clients will form a relationship with admin staff, paraplanners, so it’s really important that we showcase the whole team on the website through fantastic photography, and individual team pages, for each member of the team. That leads us on to number three, and I can see some questions coming in, so we’ll come back to those after I’ve done this. So if we accept that the team are the second half of the things that makes your business unique, we want to give suspects – remember, suspects are people who’ve landed on your website, you don’t know them yet, you don’t have their name or contact details or anything like that. So you don’t know them, which means they’re at the suspect stage – they’re on your website, looking around at different pages, and they’re trying to get a feel for whether you are the right for them, whether you’re the right adviser or planner for them. They’re going to form deep relationships with people in your team, so they want to start getting to know who they’re going to work with. That’s why we believe everybody in your team should be on the team page, and have their own individual sub page. So each adviser, each planner, each administrator, each paraplanner, each member the admin staff, etc. has their own page on the website, with a really good image, an explaination of what they do Monday to Friday in the business, and then give a bit of personal information away. What do they do on the weekend? Let’s ask a few spotlight questions so we can start understanding a bit more about these people, what are their values? What are their motivations? So really important for me that we showcase those two groups of people on the website, because they’re the people that make your business different. And those groups of people are clients and team members. Dan, what we got in terms of questions?

Dan Campbell  12:04

Right, so we’ve got three questions in from Anne. They’re all around the same subject of client videos, so let me ask them all and you can give the answers to them. Anne says “Client videos, are these not everywhere now and not a USP so much anymore? Plus, I’ve seen some, and the clients are not so aspirational, who is going to watch them when they are 10 minutes long. What stats have you got?”

Phil Bray  12:31

Okay, no, they’re not everywhere, right now. It might feel as though they’re everywhere because the sites that we promote, for example, do generally have client videos on there. Our stats show – I think it was a New Model Adviser, top 100 firms where we did this – I think only about three out of ten have videos on there. So that’s the first thing I’ll say, I don’t think they are everywhere. But if they were everywhere, by not having them, it’s going to look a little bit (bad) if you don’t have them. In terms of being 10 minutes long, I agree with you, I don’t think a 10 minute long video is the right way to go. We would typically recommend client videos that are between two and three minutes long, with a really punchy edit. Short, sharp sections of the video to keep and maintain people’s interest. Then in terms of aspirational, I think that is dictated by the types of clients that advisers ask. In my experience, advisers ask the wrong type of clients. They ask people who have been a client for the longest period of time, because they’re the ones they’re closest to and therefore they’re the ones who they think are more likely to say yes. Now, the videos that we filmed in Hatfield last week, each of the clients had only been working with that planner for the last four or five years, in fact, one and only started working with their planner at Christmas, but they were so impressed, they were happy to do the video. So in sum, no, I don’t think they’re everywhere, I think they still help you stand out.  I think they help you show prospects that you are experienced in working with people like them. I would do the edit of two and a half to three minutes and make it punchy, and ask clients where you’ve had the biggest impact on them and where they’ve gone through big life events relatively recently. A long-winded answer to three short questions.

Dan Campbell  14:50

That’s great. Right, so we’ve got another question. This is around the slide that’s currently on the screen team member pages. We’ve got two questions one from Michael, and one from an anonymous attendee, which I always love when that happens, it sounds really mysterious. I promise you, it’s not me asking these questions. So Michaels question is “When you’re early stages and are still small, how do you showcase the team without making it look like a weakness?” The anonymous question is very much the same, so I’ll ask ask that as well. “A lot of this is clearly targeted at larger firms with a big existing client base and a bigger staffing contingent. What are ways to handle these points one and two for smaller leaner firms, eg. with lots of outsourcing or start-up firms.”

Phil Bray  15:34

Okay, so number one, client videos. Assuming you have clients, and you’re not a complete start-up with no clients whatsoever, which would make client videos rather challenging, in my experience, well the firm we were in Hatfield with have around 40 clients, and they got four couples very easily to do the videos. It’s a fair challenge with regards to team member pages for smaller firms. My view on smaller firms is they should never hide the fact that they are a small firm. I was on a marketing strategy discovery meeting with a client yesterday, who have an adviser and an administrator, definition of a small firm, but when I go on the firm’s website, I can’t find any people whatsoever. There are no clients and there’s no picture of the adviser or the administrator, there are no bios or anything like that. It’s a very formal, arm’s length, soulless experience on their website. And for me, if you are a sole practitioner, even if you’re on your own, you have to make a virtue of the fact that you are very small business, because at some point, that client is going to realize you are a small business. So A) let’s not hide it. B) I think it’s a mistake to assume that prospects want, and clients want to work with larger firms. I think a lot of clients want to work with smaller firms. If you are a small firm, I think you showcase yourself on the homepage, you might have an administrator or support staff that you showcase on the homepage. I can think of a website that we’ve done recently, that is drawing to the end of its development, and will hopefully be launched later on this week or next week, where the planner uses three or four outsources for paraplanning admin, etc. and what he did, was gather those in one place at the same time, for photography. So they’re all on the website, and they’re all outsourced but because we got them in the same place at the same time for the photography, the website looks incredibly coherent. We’ve done it for another website, the website that won Best Adviser Website at the Professional Adviser Awards last year for Lloyd French at Delauney. So, if you go and have a look at that website, you’ll see that Lloyd’s admin staff are on there with really good photography. Hopefully you can pick the bones out of that, and really help to add to any supplementaries on that but for me, the headline is don’t hide away from the fact you’re a small business.

Dan Campbell  18:32

Brilliant, thanks for that, Phil. Let’s do one more question on team member pages, and then we’ll move on because this question that Debbie has just asked is really good. Debbie asks, “We used to have the whole team on the website, but stripped this back to reduce the amount of personal info available to minimise the risk of impersonation of our team by fraudsters. Any thoughts on this?”

Phil Bray  18:54

Yeah, it’s interesting. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about this in theory, and I get the theory, but I’ve never seen it happen in practice, that doesn’t mean it can’t, but I’ve never seen it happen in practice. I do understand the nervousness about it, and I think it’s a case of finding the balance and if you’re worried about it, then you give less personal information, if you’re not worried about it, then potentially be happy to give that personal information. I also think about how you train your clients, as well. It’s part of a wider conversation about how you train your clients to avoid fraud. Are there any others Dan or shall we move on?

Dan Campbell  19:45

I think we should move on. We’ve got 20 more points to go through.

Phil Bray  19:50

Okay, number four, empathy. This is so important. suspects, people who visit your website, because something has triggered them to do it, they have a financial problem that they think you might be able to solve for them, they have an aspiration that they think you might help them achieve. So we need to show them that they’re in the right place. We need to show them that you understand their issues and you are an expert in working with people like them, and that’s why videos are so important. Because they help to demonstrate to a prospect who is on your website, whether or not you’re an expert in working with people like that. What people need to see, is a video that proves you can solve their issue, that you’re an experienced hand at solving their issue and one way of doing that is through empathy in the words you use on the website. Too often, adviser/planner websites come on, too hard, too strong. For example, I’ve seen adviser websites, that have above-the-fold homepages “We’ll help you live your best life”, I’ve only come on the website because I’ve got a box of pensions I’m not really sure what to do with. They’re coming on a bit too hard, too strong in talking about financial planning too soon. Empathize with the visitor, show them you can help solve their problem, and then start showing them what’s possible, but don’t come on too strong too soon, empathize with their issue, their challenge, their aspiration, first of all. Number five, imagery. It’s well known that we see images before we read text, so images on websites are incredibly important. I’m on a bit of a mission, and we’re on a bit of a mission at Yardstick to minimise the use of stock photography on websites. Have we done websites with stock photography on before? Absolutely we have, do we sometimes find it difficult to get clients, financial advisers/ financial planners to invest in photoshoots? Absolutely, that is often a problem. But websites that minimise the amount of stock imagery on there and maximise the images that are specifically related to the firm, sing so much more, they are just so much more effective than putting stock photography on there. In terms of image options, what have you got? Well, your team. Individual shots of your team members, groups of people of your team. Top tip, if you’ve got anybody you’re not sure about whether they’re staying in your business, either because you think they’re going to leave or you want to elbow them out, put them on the end of the group shot, they’ll be easier to photoshop out at a later date. Anyway, individual shots, group shots of people, office scenes, people working in the office. Get your photographer, once they’ve done the more formal shots, to just spend a bit of time wandering around the office, taking pictures of people working potential internal meetings or client meetings, if your clients are happy to, get snaps of those, and then points of interest around your office. It might be awards on the wall, it might be certificates, it might be the chartered logo if you’re a chartered business. Then get pictures at the office itself, both internally and externally. Those firm specific images work really, really well. Graphically specific images can work well too, especially if you want to work with clients who are local to you. Often advisers, planners want to work with clients who are within a relatively small radius of their office, and we all know that consumers do feel more comfortable working with an adviser who is local to them, even if the majority of meetings these days take place on Zoom or Microsoft Teams. If you are in say, Nottingham, put lots of shots of Nottingham throughout the website to make people feel at home, and to demonstrate the fact you’re used to working with clients who are local to them. Then there are some left-field options, we’ve done stuff where we’ve done the website discovery meeting in client’s offices, and there’s been some beautiful artwork on the wall – go and have a look at the website of Robertson Baxter – we did the discovery meeting in their office that had some beautiful artwork, so we spoke to the artist, and we’ve used some of the the artist’s work on the website as well. That creates a connection between the website and the client visiting the adviser or planner’s office. We’ve used illustrations as well. Most of you will be aware of Carl Richards, and we’ve used Carl Richards’ illustrations on websites on several occasions, there’s even one website where we’ve animated Carl Richards’ sketches. Providing you give Carl the credit, and you pay the fee for the illustrations, Carl is very happy, as far as I understand it, for you use those. So as I say, try and minimise the amount of stock imagery you use on websites. Because it is almost ubiquitous, the lighthouse, the compass, a couple of walking down the beach, and focus on firm-specific images.  Next, don’t talk about financial products on your website, if you can do. This is a good example of websites that are not all equal. So you go and buy a website out of the box, or frankly, you and use a generalist agency who doesn’t understand financial services and doesn’t have other clients like you and you will get a website that says you do pensions, savings, investments, mortgages protection; it’s just dull. Instead, and this comes back to the empathy point, talk about the type of people you work with. We want specialists in our lives, if I’m on your website, I want to know that you are an expert in working with people like me. So show me that you’re used to working with people like me, by adding a page for each of the types of clients that you want to work with. Explain the problems and challenges, the objectives and aspirations you help clients to solve and achieve. Explain, tell them how you do it, then move from telling mode into selling mode, and show visitors how you help. Because showing is so much more powerful than telling. So don’t talk about products, talk about the types of people, the problems, challenges, and aspirations you help them with, tell them how you help them, and show them how you help them, it’s so much more powerful. Dan, anything else come in?

Dan Campbell  27:30

No nothing at the moment.

Phil Bray  27:34

Right, still on showing mode. Social proof is the best way of showing people the value that you add. I like using reviews, and I always recommend VouchedFor and Google, as we’ll see in a minute, I’m happy to explain why for anybody who has not been on a Yardstick webinar before and would like to. Online reviews are a great way of showing the value of working with you, so we need to showcase your online reviews your VouchedFor reviews, in this case, on the popular pages of your website. Do not put the reviews on one page and expect people to visit that page, they won’t visit the page, generally speaking, and it’s why testimonial pages are largely pointless. Is anybody prepared to own up on this webinar to having a testimonial page on their website? It’s a safe space, you’re amongst friends. Anybody who has a testimonial page on your website, now is the time to own up. The issue, simply put, is people don’t visit them. Our research shows, only between 1% and 2% of all website visitors ever go to a testimonials page. So what we need to do is scatter that social proof throughout the website. It punctuates their visit, it’s like little adverts throughout their visit. The third thing we should be doing is making sure that, if you use VouchedFor, you’re displaying your reviews on the popular pages of the site, including your individual team member pages that don’t link out directly to VouchedFor, instead, use the rating and review widget which will trigger the pop-up when someone clicks it. Still on ratings and reviews, this time Google. Review on the key pages of the website. If you go and look at the Henwood Court website, which is one Yardstick designed, scroll down the homepage, and you’ll see the VouchedFor reviews nicely embedded into the site. So embed them in, don’t link out to your Google Business Listing, because the way Google does it now means it also suggests other firms. So embed Google and VouchedFor reviews into your website. Next type of social proof we often recommend firms develop is running a client survey. There are all sorts of reasons why running a client survey is a good idea and we can go into those if anybody wants to. But again, showcase the results throughout your site, assuming they’re positive, they don’t have to be perfect, authenticity is really important, so they don’t have to be perfect. Scatter those clients survey results throughout the site, potentially using graphics, infographics, or animations. We’ve done that on a few websites, there’s a really good infographic on the Wetherall’s website that we did, there is with animation that we’re just updating at the moment with their latest survey results on the Berry & Oak website. Finally, when it comes to social proof, client videos, again, we talked about this at length earlier on in the webinar, we need to showcase your heroes, we need to show prospects you work with people like them. When a prospect hits your website, you want them to feel at home, you want them to feel that your firm works with people like them. They’re a great way of demonstrating genuine expertise and empathy. Again, scatter them throughout the site, but also, have a dedicated section, a library of your client videos, an individual page for each video, and include a transcript as well. If you tick those boxes, ratings and reviews, client survey results, and videos, your website will be lifted above the average, it will really stand out, with demonstrate empathy, and you will be showing people the value of working with you, not telling them. Dan, have we got some questions on social proof?

Dan Campbell  32:18

Yeah, a few bits and bobs. Right. So first of all, Wazeem has mentioned that they’re having problems with sound, now I know that because you’re in a hotel, your normal audio quality, isn’t there. Can everybody hear Phil okay? if you could just pop a note in the chat, that’d be brilliant. I can hear you okay Phil. Yeah, okay, most people are saying yes, that’s absolutely fine. So thanks  for that guys. Wazeem, have a listen to the recording when it comes through later today. If you miss any of the key points, if everybody else can hear it, the recording should show it quite well. Now, Anne has asked a really good question in regards to testimonial pages. “If social proof is important, why don’t people visit?”

Phil Bray  33:10

That’s a good point. I think the problem is that social proof is important, but we’ve got to put it under people’s noses. So let’s take Facebook, for example. Adverts on Facebook are incredibly important to Facebook because it generates billions in revenue for them, however, if you just had a page or section of Facebook, where they put adverts, people would not go and visit it. So they need to punctuate your newsfeed on Facebook with adverts, and that’s what we need to do with the website. That’s absolutely what we need to do the website, we need to punctuate their visit with these adverts. There are loads of stats that show the importance of online reviews, for example, there are stats that show over 80% of people will look at a business’s Google reviews before choosing to use them, VouchedFor have got a stat that says one in three people will go and look at an adviser’s VouchedFor reviews before engaging with them. We had a firm down in Oxfordshire come back to us a couple of weeks ago and said “Google reviews really work. Someone came to us recently, and said we were further away geographically, but because we had really good Google reviews, they came to us.” So this is a really good question. This is important but we need to insert it into people’s journeys, both on that digital journey to your door and on your website. I hope that answers the question, I’m happy to deal with any supplementries and follow-ups.

Dan Campbell  35:02

Brilliant, thanks Phil. Another anonymous attendee question, mysterious. “Can you remind us the company that you mentioned that you can see the VouchedFor review page as the example.”

Phil Bray  35:18

I’m not sure I actually gave one, thinking about it. Henwood Court was the Google reviews, but if you want to see a VouchedFor review widget in action, go and have a look at the Smith and Wardle website, scroll down the homepage, you’ll see it there, and you’ll see the individual widgets on their individual adviser pages. Also go and have a look at Insight Wealth, that’s a really nice website for a firm in Northamptonshire, where they’ve got a lot of the VouchedFor stuff, their VouchedFor Top Rated stuff, there’s an animation on there. So two websites where you will see the VouchedFor stuff at play.

Dan Campbell  35:57

Brilliant that was really helpful. Also Naomi asked around about the animated survey results and Abi has already put a link to the Berry & Oak website for that, so everybody can give that a watch. One more question. This one’s from Michael, who asks, “What kind of surveys would be helpful for clients to fill out to show your value?”

Phil Bray  36:18

What kinds of surveys? I’ve never really thought about it that way, we just call it a client survey. We typically recommend the client surveys are done at fixed points in time, every year or every two years. But in terms of types of survey, maybe you could just explain a little bit more about what you mean there in terms of type of survey so I can answer the question more specifically.

Dan Campbell  36:43

Brilliant. Thanks, Phill. Well, that’s it for now, so if you want to carry on, I’ll shout up if we have any more questions come in.

Phil Bray  36:48

We are on track. Number 11, firm contact details. There’s some of these that are now a little more punchy. Firm contact details. There are so many firms out there, that hide their contact details away on the website. We engaged a new client at Yardstick a couple of weeks ago, for the contract, I needed to find the firm’s address, I had their name, I needed to find their address. So where do I go? their website. I scrolled down to the footer, and the address wasn’t there, then to the contact page, their address wasn’t there, I went to their privacy policy, the address wasn’t there. The address was not on their website. So, make it easy for people to find your contact details, either because they want the contact details or because it provides some reassurance. If you didn’t put contact details on your website, it looks like you’re hiding something. Have your telephone number, preferably a landline. Mobile numbers might make people feel nervous, even if they’ve never used a landline, the fact it’s there gives your business more solidity. Have a generic email address, and keep it friendly, we’ve got hi@theyardstickagency.co.uk and have your postal address. As I gave that example a few minutes ago of a firm with no postal address on their website, and in a business or in an industry, a profession – I shouldn’t use the word industry – where trust is an issue, this is just basic stuff that needs doing. But it’s not just the firm contact details either, I would be inclined on your individual adviser pages to also be adding individual adviser/planner contact details as well. A telephone number, it might be a landline, might be a mobile, that’s up to you but a telephone number, an email address so someone can email their adviser or their potential adviser if they’re a suspect or prospect and potentially social links out to their LinkedIn profiles, etc. But people, consumers, clients, do visit their adviser/planner pages just to get their contact details and if they’re not there, it’s just putting a bit of friction in the way, making it a little bit harder for the prospect or the client to speak to the person they want to speak to. So big fan of adding contact details to adviser or planner pages. Calls to action. You want the right people on your website to make contact with you, to get in touch but not everybody wants to pick up the phone. Some people are nervous about contacting an adviser or planner, and also people might be on the website out of hours, that’s why contact forms are important. Make sure that your website has contact forms in appropriate places, the contact page and other popular pages. I would suggest the data fields to have on there, and we want to keep these to a bit of a minimum, are name, email address, telephone number, a simple message about how we can help you. I’ve seen some firms add in a source, so “where did you hear about us?” I can see how that would be sensible as well. Include a privacy policy confirmation, to make sure people have read the privacy policy and are checking a box to say that they’ve read the privacy policy. Then this is a nice touch, personalise error and success messages. Your error message is simply, if someone’s tried to submit the form without ticking the privacy policy box, your error message simply alerts them to that issue. Your success message is a good chance to personalise things and to tell them what happens next such as “We’ll be in touch later on today Dan.” “Abi will be in touch within 24 working hours.” And you can personalise your success messages based on the information they’ve put in the data fields above, especially their name. You might also allow an email to be triggered when the contact form is sent. It’s just an opportunity to raise things a bit. Then, also in terms of call to action, are newsletter sign-ups. Some visitors aren’t ready to book a meeting with you yet, but they do want to hear more regularly from you. Don’t overestimate as we said in a webinar last month, or the month before, when we were talking about building newsletter databases, don’t overestimate the number of people who are going to fill it out. But those people who do want to hear more regularly from you should be given the opportunity to do so. So a newsletter signup form, which explains what they’ll get, when they’ll get it, maybe make some reassuring noises about data protection, I think it’s important. I would just be asking for their name and their email address, then, it’s really straightforward, link that directly to your newsletter address book. So you don’t need manual intervention, you just know that if somebody completes the form, they’re automatically added to the newsletter database. You could consider a trigger email after a sign up. So if somebody signs up for the Yardstick newsletter, it’s out every Friday at 7:30am, let us know if you want it, they get a sequence of emails with our greatest hits so they start to see the sort of content that we’re putting out. Again, personalise the success and the error messages. It’s a nice little touch that a lot of people don’t do. Dan, what’s come in?

Dan Campbell  43:08

Michael has expanded on the question around surveys, and it seems to be more about the actual questions asked. So Michael asks, “What metrics from the client surveys would be good to use, to show your value?”

Phil Bray  43:25

I’m not a big fan of net promoter score, so we genuinely ask questions like, “Would you recommend us to other people? On the basis that people say yes, there’s clearly value from working with you. We ask a very straightforward question, “Has working with us, helped you to achieve your goals?” That’s a good demonstrator of value. We ask an open question, “What’s the best thing about working with [insert the name of the firm]?” and you get a load of really positive feedback there. That’s generally answered as a variation of peace of mind, confidence and reassurance. What else do we ask? We ask “Out of a list of things, which is the most valuable (inaudiable) of business that you get from working with us?” Interestingly, investment management is genuinely only 1 in 10, about 10% of people say that. There are four examples of questions we ask in the survey to demonstrate value. Anything else we need to deal with Dan?

Dan Campbell  44:34

No, if you’re using this as an opportunity to drink some tea, I’m going to have to disappoint you, there are no more questions.

Phil Bray  44:41

Let’s keep them rolling. Number 15, regulatory text. It’s amazing that so many sites that I come across – and we’re going to be doing our regular Yardstick websites survey in the next couple of months, where we look at about 500 adviser planner websites and just look at the trends and look at what’s changing. It’ll be interesting to see the proportion of those that do have client videos on there – don’t have the correct regulatory text. So don’t forget it and don’t hide it away. The FCA guidelines show it should be in the same font point, it should be easy to read. But even putting the regulator to one side, it’s just good practice, to make it easy for people to see. It needs to be included on every page as well, not just the homepage, not just the contact page, but every page because people can enter your site from different pages. So, take advice from your network, your compliance consultant, your internal compliance officer, take advice on the exact text you should use, what it should say about a complaint, your trading style, and the Financial Ombudsman Service website. There are a couple of examples here of standard regulatory text, putting to one side those other things. So there’s an example of what we’ve used for a DA firm, and an example of what we’ve used for an appointed representative firm here. The other thing I’d say on this is if you’re linking through to the FCA register, make it easy for people on your website, don’t just link to the homepage of the register, expecting someone to scroll down put your firm reference number in and find you, because the FCA register is horrible makes your eyes bleed looking at the thing. Make it easy for people by linking directly to your page on the FCA register. Regulatory text is one thing that we need to think about here, the next is your statutory text. This is often missing on firms websites. It’s very simple we need to explain if the firm is registered in England and Wales and for Scottish companies they need to show that they’re registered there. Then there is Yardstick’s example, VAT registered most of the people on this call will not be VAT registered, so you wouldn’t need that. It’s so important that you get your regulatory text and your statutory text on there. It’s a legal obligation to have that statutory text on your website, it’s clearly an FCA obligation to have your regulatory text, and if you don’t have it, it looks as though you’re hiding something. Let’s keep going. Awards and accreditations. It’s the Professional Adviser awards tonight, which is why I’m down in London. It’d be interesting if anybody on this webinar is attending as well to say hi. If you have awards and accreditations, don’t hide them away, think of having carousels on key pages, they’re the things that scroll around, a dedicated awards page and accreditations page with the logos there and explain what they mean, and why they’re important as well. If you’ve worked hard to get awards and accreditations, show them off. As I said in a blog a couple of weeks ago, you need to PR the PR. It isn’t just firms that have awards and accreditations, individual advisers do as well. The most obvious there is your VouchedFor reviews and VouchedFor Top Rated but there may be other things as well on the award side, on the accreditation side such as Chartered or Certified Financial Planner, tinder trained, there are all sorts of different accreditations that advisers can have individually so put them on their pages because they will engage some clients or prospects and explain what they mean, that’s really important. Press page. Again you’ve got to PR the PR and a ‘featured in’ carousel is important. So if you’re quoted in The Times, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The BBC or wherever, a ‘featured in’ carousel on your website helps to build trust. The fact you’ve been quoted in the press is a trust indicator to existing clients and potential clients. So a ‘featured in’ carousel, and then develop a press page. Abi if you could just paste a link to the Yardstick press page into the chat? Because that’s a good example of how a press page should look. Include all your positive coverage, not saying you’ve got any negative but include all your positive coverage, put the headline on there, and link out to the article, (inaudiable) are a little bit of a pain in the neck, but you should still link out. Put the publications logo, as you’ll see when you look at our press page, you’ll see them on there, and then really importantly, it isn’t just clients and potential clients who visit your press page. It’s also potential journalists, as well, so if press coverage is important to you, perhaps you use news page for example, if press coverage is important to you make it easy for journalists to find you. Put your contact email address, the simplest telephone number, which is probably a mobile, so journalists can contact you, even put a place where they can download your bio, and your photo as well. If press coverage is important to you, your press page is massively important, and you need to give it some love, care and attention. Dan do you want me to answer some questions or shall we carry on to the end and do the questions at the end? Which you prefer?

Dan Campbell  51:02

Let’s carry on to the end and do the questions at the end.

Phil Bray  51:06

Why Choose Us pages are surprisingly popular. We’ve done a lot of research using the Google Analytics of the firms that we have access to. Why Choose Us pages, I didn’t think people would visit them, I thought they’d go the same way as testimonial pages, but do you know what? People do. So, build one let’s give people what they want. This is where you talk about your differentiators. As I’ve said, there are no USPs in what we do, but there are things that separate you apart. So build that page that talks about what separates you apart, what makes you different than the majority. Why do people choose you? But make sure we stay in showing mode, not telling mode. So every time you make a claim, back it up with some evidence. So if one of your things is “Clients choose us because we have high levels of client satisfaction.” Right, let’s show some evidence, with client survey results, VouchedFor “Clients choose us because we’re independent.” talk about the benefits of that. But a Why Choose Us page, is important, it gets more visitors than I ever thought these pages would do, so let’s include them on your site. Privacy Policy, really important, especially after the advent of GDPR. 25th May 2018, GDPR came into effect. Don’t forget it, make sure it’s added to your website, make sure it’s accurate, and make sure it’s up to date. Too many times, we see firms put their client privacy policy on the website, which doesn’t explain how they deal with the data of people that aren’t clients. So privacy policy, don’t forget it, make sure it’s up to date, accurate and make sure it’s easy to find. The same with your cookies policy. There’re a couple of things here, firstly, don’t forget it – a lot of firms will have a privicy policy on but forget the cookies policy, make sure it’s up to date, and it’s accurate, and lastly, make sure you include on your website a pop up that gives people the opportunity to consent or opt out of cookies tracking their activity on your website. It’s something that the ICO are getting hotter and hotter on. We’re actually doing an audit next week of all Yardstick developed websites, just to make sure they’re in as good a place as possible, we are confident that they are but it’s always good to check these things. So we’re doing an audit next week. Make sure you’ve got a cookies policy on there and make sure you’ve got the pop up that gives people the opportunity to opt in or opt out of cookies. And then lastly, I see we’ve got a question about newsletters, Dan so this may cover it. A blog section, a news article section, an insights section, etc. is really important to have on your website. It demonstrates expertise, gives people a reason to return and adds value, but all of that goes out the window, and is ruined if the last blog you have on your website is from 2021. Dead simple, if you’re going to have a blog section on there, keep it up to date, and if you can’t keep it up to date, thake it down. There are many benefits of having a blog, but as I say, they all go out the window if it’s not up to date. So there we have it, 23 things you should have on your website. I could have done more but we’d have been here forever. What’s Next? Review your website using today’s webinar as a checklist. Everybody who registered for this is going to get exclusive access to our scorecard which will be out next week. So use this webinar and the scorecard as a checklist and then if you’ve got things missing, come and have a chat with us. Go and speak to the agency you use right now, fix it yourself! I don’t really mind. Actually, I do come to us. But go and fix it because your website is not just a tick box exercise, you’ve got to get this right and these little changes will lift your website above the norm, will set you apart. So I hope that’s been useful, we’ve got a couple of things to get through before the questions. We’ve got a giveaway and a really great guest to announce for next month’s webinar. Then Dan we’ll come to you for some questions. So Abi, do you want to do this?

Abi Robinson  56:11

Yeah, why not? So I don’t know if anybody’s seen on LinkedIn recently, but Phil has been scattering some of his favourite books around colleagues in financial services. So we thought why not spread the love and share them with everybody here today. So just a little bit of something in return. If after the session, you’re happy to leave us an honest – and we say honest, not positive, we want to know your genuine thoughts – Google review about today’s webinar, or post about it on LinkedIn and tag us in it so that we definitely see it, then in a week’s time, we’re going to collect all the names of everybody who’s done either or, and we’ll pick a name out of a hat. The person who gets chosen will get these six books as a big thank you. So there’s all sorts of good stuff here, the Building A Story Brand was the book that Phil mentioned earlier, They Ask, You Answer is one that we’ve been sending out to quite a few people, as is The Happy Index, and we’ve been talking about Show Your Work for years. So these are just a selection of our favorites. I’ll stick the links in the chat while Phil’s chatting away about our webinar next month and I’ll include them in the follow-up email this afternoon as well. An honest Google review, or an honest LinkedIn post, and we will announce in a week’s time, who’s going to get that little box of books.

Phil Bray  57:37

Thank you Abi. right, next month’s webinar. I am really excited by this. We’re doing something different next month, It won’t be me presenting. We are being joined by Rory Sutherland, who is vice president at a firm called Ogilvy. Rory is an expert in consumer behavior and he’s going to be talking to us about how all his insights can benefit financial adiviser, planner, and mortgage firms. We’re going to be talking about gaining prospects, gaining new clients, how to engage existing clients more deeply. Rory is a fantastic guest, he was on Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO podcast a few months ago, so we’re incredibly lucky to have him. Don’t miss out on this one. Abi, if you could put a link to register in the chat? 10am on Wednesday, the 17th of April. Rory’s going to be great, I’m looking forward to this. If you want to stay in touch with us, there’s our contact details. Dan, question time.

Dan Campbell  59:02

I think Anne says it best in the chat there, when Rory’s name was announced “OMG!!!” Yeah, really, really excited for next month’s webinar. Okay, let’s have a look at some of these questions then shall we?We’ve got a good question from Weronika here who says “Newsletters. I think it’s very difficult to create engaging newsletters in the financial advice field. We don’t want to spam our clients, what should we focus on with our newsletters?” And I suspect the answer here could be a webinar in its own right, couldn’t it Phil?

Phil Bray  59:37

Yeah, it could and and we might do that. Not next month though. Did I mention we’ve got Rory Sutherland next month? What should you focus on? I would be focusing on three or four different types of content. The first type of content would be personal finance, the things your clients and prospects will expect to hear from you. The simplest way of doing that is to answer their questions; They Ask You Answer is a brilliant example here.Get people to write down the questions that your clients ask and then write articles around them. The second type of content is lifestyle content. Now, I’m not suggesting you turn your newsletter into Vogue, or GQ or Horse & Hound, but I am suggesting you write about things that are not immediately linked to personal finance. So, if you were based in Dorset, you might write a piece about your five favorite beaches in Dorset, you might write a piece about 10 favorite country pubs for a Sunday lunch. It might feel a bit strange that your financial adviser or planner is telling you about these things, but I guarantee you that will get really good engagement in your newsletter, and on social media. The third type of article will be content about the business. You might not do this every month, you might do it every quarter, but things that are related to your business. People joining, people leaving, marriages, births, exam passes, charity work, community work or just an update on the business. So those are the three types of content I would be including. In terms of spam, if you monitor your open rate and your click to open rate, you will see whether people are engaging with your newsletter and I suspect you might be surprised that engagement levels are higher than you might think they wouldn’t be.

Dan Campbell  1:01:46

Brilliant. That was quite an eclectic mix of magazines, we jumped from Vogue to Horse & Hound in the fastest speed I’ve ever seen. Okay, last question actually looking at the list here. So if you do have any more get them in. This is from our anonymous attendee, mystery. “Can the information on this webinar be helpful for advisers with their own personal brand website?” It’s an interesting question.

Phil Bray  1:02:13

Yeah, I think it can. I’d be interesting to know what you mean, by your own personal brand website, I’ve got some ideas about what it might mean. But yes, if somebody hits your own personal brand website, then they’re still going to want your contact details, it’s still a good idea to show them the value you add, don’t tell them. You would still want to make sure you get any regulatory text right, you would still want to give them the personal information away. You’d still want to the (inaudiable) right. So yeah, thinking about it, as we go through the 23 there might be one or two – statutory text, for example, that don’t apply, but I think the majority of them would apply. Yes.

Dan Campbell  1:02:56

Brilliant, thanks for that. Well, that’s the end of our questions. So thank you to everybody that’s contributed today. It’s always appreciated, it really does make these sessions interesting for us here at Yardstick as well as you in the audience. But yeah, that’s that’s a lot today Phil,

Phil Bray  1:03:14

Thank you, Dan. Thank you to everybody for giving your time today and attending. We’ll be following up in the usual way. There’ll be a link in there to sign up for Rory Sutherland next month. Have a great day everybody, see you soon.

Dan Campbell  1:03:30

Take care guys. Bye