Financial Idea of the Month

Web Content to Make Your Site More Effective

Responding to web visitors' needs and generating results for your institution.

The nature of financial institution websites continues to evolve. Many sites that began as electronic brochures are now offering transactional capabilities and more information about products and services. The next evolutionary step is to make those websites into effective marketing tools.

Web content that meets the marketing definition - understanding the customer's needs and then responding with products that fill those needs - can be an integral part of your website becoming an effective marketing tool.

Financial content that is educational and that addresses issues important to the reader can fit that definition. Topics should be carefully chosen and the content must be constructed (written) to lead the reader to the institution's product area that will address the issue raised in the content. The content should convince the reader that this institution has a financial solution for their needs.

Two Fundamental Questions

· What are the institution's website objectives?
· What are the visitors' objectives when visiting (or returning to) the website?

Answering those two seemingly simple questions can help in evaluating of your website and determining how it can be more effective. Ideally, there should be content (and capabilities) on your website that addresses both of these questions.

Institution Website Objectives	Web Visitors' Objectives
Position the institution - awareness and brand identification	Check account balances and review account activity
Enable visitors' transactions and account inquiries	Perform electronic transactions
Provide information on products and services	Check deposit and loan rates
Sell products or cross-sell additional products	Learn more about products (when they are ready to buy)
Generate leads	Financial tools (calculators and worksheets)
Strengthen the total account relationship	Help with reaching financial goals
	Become more informed and make better financial decisions.

The Financial Wisdom Proposition
Financial educational content can get readers' attention and draw them further into the website. Providing this type of content can help cross-sell additional products and generate leads by responding to visitors' desires to make more informed financial decisions and to take control of their financial future.

Focusing on the web visitor
While most individuals do not find handling their finances interesting, they are keenly aware that their finances are important and deserve serious attention. In many cases, especially with web users, they are interested in learning how to make better financial decisions if relevant issues are addressed in a usable and understandable fashion. This desire to become better informed can be leveraged by providing content that addresses readers' most important financial concerns.

Individuals' financial and interests generally revolve around their goals.
1. Providing for a secure retirement.
2. Funding college educations.
3. Reducing taxes.
4. Investing for better returns.
5. Managing their day-to-day finances with less anxiety and more convenience.
6. Protecting their assets (insurance).
7. Living more comfortably (housing).
8. Passing assets to future generations (estate planning).

Focusing on the institution
By offering account access and electronic transactions, the institution responds to some visitors' needs (often more cheaply than with face-to-face interactions). Providing information on products and services responds to a visitor's desire to learn more when they are ready to buy. However, neither of these web offerings responds to visitors' larger objectives of reaching their financial goals and feeling more in control of their financial future.

In most cases, after an initial visit, web visitors have little reason to return to the bank's website other than for account access, transactions or to check rates. Most financial institution websites offer little to encourage cross selling or to generate leads.

Financial education at the intersection of the institution's and customers' objectives
Consider the following ideal situation:

A person regularly returns to your website because he believes that on each visit, he will learn something that will enable him to accomplish his financial goals. With each visit, he improves his level of financial education and learns how your products and services can help him reach his goals. When interacting with your site, he often either makes a "purchase" decision or requests more information.

Web content that can help convert that ideal situation into reality requires five basic things:
1. It must get the visitor's attention.
2. It must address the visitor's needs.
3. It must connect the visitor's needs with your offerings.
4. It must draw the visitor further into your website and promote their return.
5. It must stimulate action.

The Suggested Approach
The goals mentioned above can be achieved with a combination of a clearly visible attention getting statement (or question), information that the visitor will find interesting (and appreciate), a logical path to your product that addresses the topic and reasons for the visitor to return to your site on a recurring basis. Adding a Financial Idea of the Month to your home page and a monthly newsletter or resource library would help turn that ideal situation into reality.

Financial Idea of the Month
Devote a small portion of your home page to the title and introduction of a Financial Idea of the Month article. A "More" button would send the reader to the complete article. The article would provide useful information on the topic, links to your related product page(s), a more comprehensive monthly newsletter and a resource library of articles.

Financial Idea of the Month Topics and Headlines

1. IRAs - Are You Aware of the New Benefits of IRAs? (attached as an example)
2. Direct deposit - Are You Taking Advantage of Direct Deposit?
3. Mortgage Refinancing - Should You Refinance Your Home Mortgage?
4. Deposit Accounts - Is Your Money Working Hard for You?
5. Certificates of Deposit - Are You Laddering Your CD Maturities?
6. Down payment for a home - Nine Ways to Accumulate a Down Payment.
7. Asset Allocation - Asset Allocation To Navigate a Bumpy Stock Market.
8. Liability Insurance - Do You Have Enough Liability Insurance Coverage?
9. Home Equity Loans - Consider the Convenience and Tax Benefits of Home Equity Loans.
10. Online Banking - Ten Reasons To Consider Online Banking.
11. Simplifying Finances - Eight Steps to Simplify Your Finances.
12. College Funding - Funding College Educations - Custodial Accounts, Education IRAs and Section 529 Plans.
13. Insurance - Reduce Your Insurance Premiums With the Right Deductibles.
14. Financial Review - Take a Fall Financial Check-Up.
15. Estate Planning - Does Your Estate Plan Reflect the New Tax Laws?
16. Financial Planning - Do You Have an Overall Financial Strategy?
17. Loans - Is Your Borrowing Under Control?
18. Investments - Why is the Federal Reserve So Important?
19. Savings - Do You Have a Financial Cushion?
20. Credit Cards - Guidelines for First Time Credit Card Users.
21. Mortgages - Does Your Mortgage Match Your Needs?
22. Investments - Is Your Tax Bracket High Enough to Justify Tax Exempt Bonds?
23. Investments - Are You Expecting a Retirement Plan Distribution?
24. Insurance - Who Owns Your Life Insurance Policy?

These articles would get your web visitors attention, draw them into the site and connect your products with their needs. Each month, you would load a headline and a sentence or two of the new Financial Idea of the Month on your home page. The full article would also be loaded to your site. Each article is written so you can add links to your related product pages or edit them to better fit your institution's offerings.