Websites - are they enough?

There’s no lack of imagination in the digital world – in fact we’ve all got to run hard and fast to keep up! Most fund companies have a website, but the question of the hour posed at the recent MFEA Conference was “do you need an App?” But even that question took twists and turns into a discussion of public websites vs. secure sites vs. mobile sites vs. responsive sites!

Speakers from Boston Financial and ddm marketing and communications shared their opinions on current trends and best practices. They noted the quest for a consistent user experience across all communications as the key driver of decision making in the digital sphere, among other trends.

At a time when most smaller mutual funds are still just caught up to their larger peers with robust public websites, the speakers noted trends calling for the collapse of public sites with secure/advisor only content and stand-alone mobile site to address tablet and smart phone users.

In fact, I’d guess we’re all awed by the exponential growth over just a handful of years of mobile devices such as iPads, iPhones and other smart phones. Consequently, a new generation of web wisdom now calls for responsive web design, that adapts the layout and design of your content to fit any device resolution, virtually rendering mobile sites obsolete. (A mobile site is one that is accessed via a unique URL and is sized and simplified to fit the needs and screen sizes of smaller handheld devices).

Now here’s a mind-bender. The speakers posited that, when thinking about your online presence, your competition is not a host of other fund companies – rather it’s Amazon.com. It’s Amazon and that ilk that set the expectations for all of our online experiences. Taking a quick peek there, I see navigation that is organized but seemingly primarily driven by search and images. They show me what’s trending, what I’ve looked at recently and recommendations for additional products based on what I’ve purchased before. It’s friendly, “Hello, Marilyn” with an immediate link to my account. Now, my guess is Amazon probably employs a legion of programmers, so what can be learned from them by the reasonably sized mutual fund company?

Consider some of these ideas from the speakers:

• Your website can be a tremendous source of user/usage data – mine it and use it
• Delivery is king – commit to adding thought leadership monthly
• Stay alert for changing consumer expectations – and consumers are both retail investors and sophisticated advisors
• Make your site “responsive” to mobile devices.

More in our next post on this topic. 

by Marilyn Dale