Branding design ideas for financial advisors! I have been working with Financial Advisors on their Branding since 2004! Branding your practice has many benefits, the least of which is to stand out from the multitude of financial advisors competing for the same clients. Since purchasing decisions are mostly made subconsciously, it pays to brand your financial advisor practice.
What does branding GIVE you?
- Higher quality clients.
- Pre-sold prospects.
- A competitive advantage!
In my opinion, design concepts for the majority of the financial services websites in existence today are overly bland and unexciting. Every brand looks the same, which can sometimes be attributed to advisors’ fears of compliance.
Push back and demand a better brand!
Don’t fear your Broker/Dealer nor compliance! If you’re feeling stuck with a lackluster brand, don’t accept average. While there are several website and brand design companies that cater to financial advisors using standard template designs, for a little bit more money in your budget, you CAN ask for custom design. There is nothing to fear about asking.
Let me ask you a question:
Who is paying who?
Yes, you must pay attention to compliance and the guidelines given to you by your B/D, when considering your brand design ideas. BUT, who is paying who? If your B/D receives a cut of YOUR income, that means you are paying them. They WORK for YOU! So push back if they say they don’t like something or they don’t want you to have your own custom website.
I’ve had many clients over the years who have pushed back and won. All it takes is reasonable discussion and there can be a solution.
Clients and branding design ideas
Your ideal clients are looking for uniqueness and creativity in your brand. They want to see the BENEFITS of working with you. If you only share your left-brain features such as Tax Planning, Financial Planning, Investment Management, then you will not be painting a beautiful picture of your clients’ ideal lives.
Clients don’t want to see this:
- Uninspiring colors.
- Angular, uninteresting logos that could have been designed by a first-year graphic designer.
- Bland self-focused taglines that don’t express a benefit.
- Template websites without a custom message.
Poor branding mentors in the industry
It’s very discouraging to me to see that a popular financial services branding expert with many years’ experience produces very standard, ho hum designs (I won’t embarrass them by naming them here). Even the largest financial planning organization in the United States has a bland brand with a black logo.
- What is wrong with the financial planning industry?
- Is it full of too many left-brained people?
- Is it full of people who are not willing to take a risk? (oh the irony).
- Let’s get creative and attract better quality clients with unique branding design ideas.
What is good design?
It is not a blue website with an uninteresting logo. That is not good design. Good design uses imagination and creativity, while directing potential clients to take a specific action, like sign up for your blog or book a consultation.
Advertising executives and brand developers alike agree that companies that take visual risks are the recipients of prosperity in the form of new clients. This happens because purchase decisions are often based on “feelings” and “associations” as well benefits, which are demonstrated through creative design.
The subconscious purchasing decisions consumers make are clearly driven by quality and visual sophistication.
Your Big Branding AHA Moment:
Affluent clients are sophisticated, well traveled, and enjoy the finer things in life. If an affluent client visits your website and it looks exactly like other sites, what will they think? A stock image template website is not going to help you attract quality clients.
11 tips for a better financial advisor brand:
1. Please consider other colors besides blue – it can be overdone! (See this article about mistakes to avoid in color choice).
2. Avoid uninspiring colors like grey, beige, and black.
3. Don’t be afraid to take a visual risk.
4. Use more than one color – use contrasting colors (but stay away from black and red).
5. Hire a creative brand strategist who knows their stuff.
6. Use your imagination when brainstorming to come up with your tagline.
7. Clients want to know what’s in it for them so present your brand by focusing on BENEFITS.
8. Use Inbound Marketing to attract clients right to your front door, regardless of geographic location.
9. Use stimulating VISUALS in your brand.
10. Work on your Value Proposition – what’s unique and wonderful about you?
11. And last but not least, use custom design, not templates.
There. Now that’s off my chest and I can go about my day knowing I have shared something valuable about branding design ideas. I hope you decide to work on a creative brand that will help you stand out from your competitors.
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One thing that you can do after creating your brands site is go to surveymonkey to get feedback. Along with that you can go on the forums and have designer critique you and make changes based on the feedback that you get. When most of the responses are I like it, its great, ect. you know you have nailed it.
Oh yeah don’t hate me because I used red and black on my blog setup guide site 🙂
Garen
Hi Garen, Thanks for stopping by. Yes, using survey monkey is a great idea to get feedback. And no I don’t hate you for using black and red in your blog set up guide site because you use it sparingly, not as the main colors of your brand. Suzanne