Establishing A Microsite As A Financial Advisor

According to a study by Broadridge, financial advisors are struggling to convert leads to clients through their websites and landing pages. 41% of advisors reported that they generate less than five leads per month through their website and 34% of advisors indicated they do not generate any leads through their website.

Having a website is not enough in today’s digital age. To give consumers the personalized experience they desire, your digital presence has to be optimized with the right content for the right consumer.

To help bridge that gap, advisors at Consolidated Planning benefit from having microsites to better speak to and engage prospects and clients. Because our planning philosophy focuses on delivering a world class client experience, we know that has to include an online presence as well.

As you read about microsites, you’ll be able to understand best practices for maximizing a microsite and if a microsite could be a good solution for your practice.

 

What Is A Microsite?

A microsite is a small, focused website with a specific purpose. These sites are designed to separate your brand or DBA from a company’s main website, by enabling its own unique domain or subdomain.

Unlike a main website that acts as a catchall for marketing and communications, establishing a microsite allows you to provide more targeted marketing that aligns with your brand messaging.

 

Microsites For Financial Advisors

Just like financial advisors have their ideal clients, clients have their ideal financial advisor. Establishing a microsite as a financial advisor is an opportunity to highlight your vast experience within the market while retaining the brand recognition of your firm. Since a microsite is a domain or subdomain of a firm’s website, there will be some tie to the firm that is obvious to your clients and prospects.

Now, we’re not saying that you don’t have brand recognition as a financial advisor, but prospects who don’t yet know you, might already know your firm.

Advisors at Consolidated Planning who choose to utilize our microsites benefit from a call-to-action(CTA) button on their directory profile which takes prospects to their site. From here, clients and prospects can browse industry-specific information and solutions for their financial needs. As consumers explore around on this microsite, the CP logo and ‘back to main site’ text remains at the top of the page.

Not only is a financial advisors microsite hosted as a subdomain of the main site, but with this, advisors benefit from working with dedicated staff to regularly discuss and update the content and copy within their microsite.

Unlike a website hosted by FMG, for example, advisors don’t typically have to worry about ongoing site maintenance and updates. As a financial advisor, you need to have the space to focus on your unique ability, not editing and updating your website.

With a focus on specific topics and keywords throughout the site, microsites increase the chances of appearing in relevant search results, driving organic traffic to the microsite, and attracting qualified prospects.

 

 

3 Ways To Maximize The Effects Of Your Microsite

Deciding to establish a microsite for your practice is just the tipping point. What comes next is how you will get the best value in utilizing your site effectively.

 

#1 TRAFFIC TO YOUR MICROSITE

Since email is already used day in and day out for financial advisors, this channel is the best option for directing people to your microsite. Even despite new tools and channels for communication, emails and email marketing are still one of the most effective ways for financial advisors to communicate with clients and to prospect. This is true of emails for a few reasons:

• Direct and personal
• Professional
• Provide documented communication
• Options for automation and efficiency
• Expand your reach and tracking

 

Regular communication through your email efforts not only enhances the client experience but is also a natural way to push more traffic to your site. This can help you prospect and generate leads more efficiently and effectively. 

But why aren’t more advisors actively pushing consumers to their site via email marketing?

It might be that an advisor doesn’t have a website, is not confident in directing clients and prospects to their current site, or thinks email marketing has to be a complex undertaking. Because a microsite is housed under a company’s main website, a firm who offers microsites typically helps you create and manage the content and the email marketing efforts. They aim to ensure these efforts are specific, readable, and to the point. Not every opportunity to push traffic to your microsite needs to be an email newsletter. 

Here is where you can specifically utilize your content to provide regular and relevant email communication to your clients and prospects.

 

#2 CONTENT

Establishing a microsite is only beneficial when that site has content. While that may seem obvious, there’s a difference between content and the right content. You’re not considering a microsite to have generic content to direct people to. The content housed on your microsite must align with your brand and the consumers it serves or hopes to serve.

Because a microsite exists to be incredibly targeted, the content ought to be relevant to your ideal client. While they want to learn more about you, they aren’t hoping to peruse your site for your full biography. Developing your content here needs to speak to how you can help them.

So, what kind of content can you provide?

• Articles
• Studies
• Downloadable resources
• Documents

Having these readily available serves two purposes: a way for prospects to find you and a means to further establish yourself as the expert in your field and market.

 

#3 FORM FILLS

Between valuable content on your microsite and people actually seeing that content, it’s time to capitalize on that. A form fill hosted on your microsite is an opportunity for a lead to share their contact information with you. Depending on the form you choose, a form fill can be beneficial for a few reasons:

• Nurture leads to convert them to clients
• An easy way to contact you
• Data collection (demographics)
• Market research
• User feedback
• Newsletter signups

With so many opportunities for form fills, you can actively capture people coming to your site.

When deciding which form fill is right for you, think about your own experience with website forms. Are you more likely to fill out a form that is only asking for your name and email? There is a fine line between someone seeing the value in providing their information and choosing to scroll by because of the extensive information required.

Not having a form fill poses a missed opportunity when it comes to maximizing your microsite and measuring the success of your efforts. They provide a means for visitors to interact with your business and enable you to gather valuable information to improve your marketing efforts and enhance user experiences.

 

Could Your Practice Benefit From A Microsite?

Microsites are quickly becoming more popular by offering financial advisors a targeted and customizable platform to showcase their extensive experience within their market.

Though a standard company website for your brand isn’t the end all, be all, microsites help create the experience that you desire to better drive practice goals. When built properly by your firm, microsites can help you:

• Build brand awareness + engagement
• Generate quality leads
• Demonstrate you as a subject matter expert
• Improve SEO

If you’re ready to get started with a microsite or simply directing more quality leads to your website, talk with one of our lead recruiters on what you need to help automate workflows for your financial advising practice.

 

 

 

2023-156308 Exp. 5/2025