Q&A: Hack Your TrafficQ&A: Hack Your Traffic

As a marketing and social media consultant for financial advisors, Kristin Harad (kristinharad.com) knows how to jumpstart any financial advisors’ outreach. With Aite Group estimating that 45 percent of advisors are still lacking a web site, there’s upside to investing in online. To Harad, that first starts with bringing personality, and professionalism, to your landing page.

"When you talk about brand personality, you’re thinking about who the targeted client is you want to attract. If you're not clear on your web site, it's hard for prospects to know if the advisor is a good fit, or how they're different from everyone else.

[Advisors] say, 'But I don't know what my brand personality is.’ First, I tell them to look at magazines and photos. You want to find the people who represent the look of a person you would associate with the identity of the firm. This is the person you want your company to be. That's who you want to be in market. It may not be your ideal client, or who you are personally, but it's your brand.

You also want to describe the personality of your brand. Pretend you’re writing a dating site listing. Is this person outgoing? Do they enjoy yoga? Dining out? Write something describing the person as if you were trying to find them a date. Every advisor needs to look at their site and ask, ‘Do I speak this way? If a prospect met me or an advisor at my firm, would it be congruent with my messaging?’ A lot of advisors have a wood-paneled, dark desk, old school personality coming out on their web site because of an old template. If a brand is more buttoned up, then that’s fine to bring out. But if it’s something else, the first place that needs to come out is on the web site.”