Financial advisors and wealth managers, consider yourselves warned: having a web site is no longer optional and you have to participate in social media if you want to be relevant.

Financial advisors and wealth managers, consider yourselves warned: having a web site is no longer optional and you have to participate in social media if you want to be relevant.

That was the take-away message from “Leveraging the Power of the Internet to Market Your Firm,” a popular educational session at Charles Schwab & Co’s twentieth annual Impact conference in San Francisco yesterday.

The financial services industry has been “late to the game” when it comes to the internet, said session moderator Kathleen Pritchard of Legg Mason. As proof, she cited telling research from the 2009 CapGemini/Merrill Lynch World Wealth Report survey: 66 per cent of high net worth clients said online access and capabilities were very important in deciding whether to stay with an advisor, as opposed to only 32 per cent of financial advisors.

Not only do advisors need a web site, Pritchard said, they need to have the best one they can afford and they need to make it the hub of their marketing communications. She urged advisors to leverage every resource the firm has to improve the web site; constantly refresh the site with new material; showcase every element of the firm’s  value proposition on the site, and assume that visitors to the site have a short attention span and consequently keep the test concise and to the point.

Web sites should prominently display the name of the firm and include a professional photograph of the firm’s principals and advisors, Pritchard said. “People want to see pictures of you and you want them to see the best possible picture,” she added. “Hiring a professional to take the picture with high-quality lighting is a worthwhile investment.”

Web sites also need to include the credentials of the advisors – but they must be spelled out. “Prospects may have no idea what initials like CFP or CIMA mean,” Pritchard said. “You have to tell them.”

In addition to basics such as including directions to the firm’s office, Pritchard strongly urged advisors to include popular features such as financial calculators and news feeds such as market quotes and local weather conditions.

She also recommended using the internet to research and qualify prospects before meeting them in person. “You can find out what their personal interests are to build a rapport, see what their charitable affiliations are and what they’re doing at their job,” she said.

In addition, advisors can use the web to find out how much money a prospect makes if they are an officer in a publicly held firm or find out their real estate holdings by searching property records.

Social networks critical

Using social networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook is also critical, Pritchard said. “The myths that they are only for young people, too time consuming and not exclusive enough, are simply not true,” she said.

Advisors should proactively connect with clients on LinkedIn, then look at the client’s connections, and ask for referrals if a connection looks like a promising prospect, Pritchard said. Facebook allows advisors to get to know clients better, and be able to connect on a deeper, more personal level, she maintained. “You may think you know your client, but when you see them on Facebook you’ll know much more,” Pritchard said. “It’s very, very powerful.”

Twitter can also help advisors connect to clients who have a Twitter account and regularly post tweets, as well as help advisors handle information overload, Pritchard said.

In fact, panelist Barry Glassman, president of Glassman Wealth Advisors, advised his colleagues just starting out in social media to simply spend the first few months taking it all in before becoming an active participant. “Eighty per cent of social media is listening,” Glassman said.

And Daniel Gregory, director of technology and marketing for Merriman, said his firm initially set goals for social media that were unrealistic. “We thought we needed to connect with a certain number of people,” Gregory said. “But the most important lesson we learned was that we needed to connect with the right people.”