Branding and web design for financial services

A city livery

Legendary businesses in the City of London such as Goldman Sachs, Bloomberg and Barclays as well as countless Hedge Funds, Investment Management companies and Accountancy and Legal firms tend to brief us to an elegant, minimal design style. We’ve christened this a ‘corporate creative’ approach – and it’s one we’ve made our hallmark.

We believe the best way of managing a sound response to such a brand or web design brief is to propose a creative, modern approach that stands out – so clients remember you for all the right reasons. While the work we do for you will be right for your brand, equally no client likes to be bored.

A new kind of city livery: one that deploys this clean approach and is also forward-looking and ideally long-lasting.

A sound new business strategy

Our experience again and again is that many specialist financial services firms tend to dismiss the influence their website can have – an opinion we think could be worth reconsidering.

This negative view towards websites is often formed because key marketing personnel are so flat out focussing on the management of vital existing clients that new opportunities can often be passed by.

But the influence a website can have is worth looking at… and here’s why.

• Firstly, the sheer number of your potential clients who, at a loss to know who to hire to assist them, just resort to a straightforward Google search, is staggering. Without a persuasive web presence, never mind one that has plenty of relevant content about key services and thus ‘search engine-friendly’, these clients can evaporate.
• Secondly, that site needs to be kept fresh, both from a design and content perspective. This is the tough one for a time-poor marketing team. Keeping content updated (via News posts, or a regular cycle created by the turnover of financial reporting) won’t just appeal to the ‘random’ Google searcher. It will persuade an even more vital audience: personal referrals.

If when they arrive at the website and it’s a few months (or, worst case scenario, and not at all unusual: years out of date) they invariably just move on.

Our advice: work on the design and content on an ongoing basis with the same energy as you apply when looking after existing financial services or legal clients. We assist many of our clients with this process and managing the content so it is eye-catching, pithy and relevant.

Good financial services web design infers trust

It’s often assumed that your regular clients will never visit your website – why would they? they already know us, goes the logic – but we believe this is not a safe assumption.

Simple instances like using the site to find your office via the map on your Contact page, or hunting for your number quickly are incredibly common. Then, when the site appears and… it’s that same one they remember from five years ago, they could be mistaken for thinking that your business had begun to let things slide.

Logic follows: if the site has been neglected, what else is?

When a Financial Services firm’s website is in tune with all the other design elements in its ‘world’ and feels like a natural continuation from the design of letterheads or the signage at reception, that website can be as logical a business tool as a business card.

We consider consistent branding as essential a part of the business process as the handshake at a meeting. With all these elements not merely in tune but in harmony, your website can deliver something incredibly important: trust.

Build something different: build client relationships

Many Financial Services firms today are after an online presence that is a little more diverse and interactive than what has gone before.

That’s not to say that we’re talking about a radical re-appraisal of their business online, or that the site is going to be avant-garde in design terms, but rather that it harnesses modern technology in a way that services their clients better.

The kind of services that firms like financial analysts or hedge funds could offer include:

• Client login areas allowing for the download of financial records or the reskinning of third party portal apps;
• The inclusion of Investor Relations areas, as your business goes public and has to comply with stock market regulations;
• Pop-up ‘agree / decline’ Terms and Conditions panels on the homepage to comply with FCA regulations or compliance requests;
• Plus, all our websites are designed and built to be mobile-first – and work on tablets, laptops and of course the wide-screen monitors used in all financial services businesses today.

Time for a design update?

We’d love to build a great working relationship with your team and help you realise your business ambitions with strong financial services website design.

Schedule a call with us to significantly improve your web presence