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How to Design a Financial Website That Appeals to Millennials

As of 2020, millennials have grown to become the largest population group in the world. There are over 72 million millennials in the U.S. alone, making up roughly 22% of the country’s population.

From these numbers alone, it’s quite obvious that millennials are an extremely important demographic that businesses should target. But before coming up with a marketing strategy, we need to have a better understanding of who they are first. 

Who are Millennials?

A millennial is someone who was born between the early 1980s to the mid 1990s. People in this demographic’s age ranges from mid 20s to late 30s. 

They succeed the Gen X demographic and the much older baby boomers. Those who were born after the millennials are part of Gen Z – also known as zoomers – and are just starting to enter adulthood.

Given their typical age, millennials make up the largest chunk of the workforce. The oldest millennials have well-established careers by now or are on their way up the corporate ladder. 

What Makes Millennials Different?

Millennials are unique because they’re the first true digital natives. They witnessed the explosive growth of the Internet and social media, and were the first to grow up using personal computers and mobile devices in their daily lives. Consequently, millennials are very tech savvy and are quick to adopt new technology. 

According to research, millennials tend to get married much later in life compared to previous generations, and only 44%, or less than half, are married. They also tend to have children much later in life, and only 3 out of 10 millennials live with a spouse and a child. 

Millennials also have a higher level of education compared to Gen X and baby boomers. They’re also more ethnically and racially diverse. 

Education plays a huge role in the millenial’s income. While incomes have remained mostly flat for comparable ages in the last half century, millennials with a college education earn significantly more than those who don’t. Despite the additional income that higher education is able to provide, more millennials are saddled with student loan debts.

Millennials were also greatly affected by the housing recession of 2008, which affected their ability to accumulate wealth. This has caused many millennials to delay buying homes. 

Since millennials are still in their prime working age, yet are burdened with a rising cost of living and increased debt, they need financial advisors and prudent financial planning more than ever before. 

Why Your Website Needs to Appeal to Millenials

Millennials grew up witnessing the birth and evolution of the Internet to what it is now. They can easily tell whether a website has been professionally designed, if it’s regularly updated, or if it’s been largely neglected for several years. 

Millennials will turn to the Internet first to find information and recommendations before asking their friends and family for advice. This is a golden opportunity that shouldn’t be wasted. 

Your website will be the first point of contact for many people. It should present your financial advisor practice and brand in the best light possible. 

You only have a couple of seconds to leave a good impression, so it has to look outstanding and credible upon first glance. Your website also has to pique people’s interests and compel them to find out more about your products and services.

Once you’ve gotten their attention, your website also has to deliver accurate and valuable information. This will increase your trustworthiness and improve your brand’s image.

Let’s dive deeper into a couple of proven strategies that will make your website a more effective marketing tool for millenials.

Use Modern Web Design

A website that looks like it was put together quickly or hasn’t been updated in years doesn’t inspire much confidence. It plays a huge role in creating a positive brand image, so it has to at least be able to keep up with what your competitors and other successful websites are doing.

The days of static web pages are long over. Even simple websites need a touch of flare to entice visitors. 

Current web design trends embrace minimalism and do away with unnecessary clutter. Despite this, designers are still able to introduce modern design elements to make websites more interesting and engaging. 

Bold and powerful imagery is key to capturing people’s attention. Background videos, animations and microinteractions will make your homepage more dynamic. Intelligent use of different fonts and typefaces should also be a priority. 

Prioritize the User Experience

A flashy website is great, but during the design period you should also look into providing the best user experience possible. A poorly designed website will be frustrating to use and won’t entice visitors to check out the different pages of your site. This prevents you from maximizing its true potential.

Make sure your pages are easy to scroll through and that the most important ideas are presented upfront. 

Making your website more intuitive to use will increase the average time spent on your site and lowers bounce rates. Search engines keep track of these metrics to see how useful and valuable your website is to consumers. The more useful your site appears, the better your search rankings will be.

Optimize for Mobile 

Millennials are very tech savvy and will tend to have multiple mobile devices. If you don’t adopt a mobile-friendly design philosophy, then your user experience will suffer tremendously.

Make sure your website is responsive and shows up properly on different screen sizes and screen resolutions. Some people may have spotty mobile connections so you’ll need to optimize your pages to make them load up as quickly as possible. If your site doesn’t load up properly in 2 to 3 seconds, then there’s a high chance people will simply move on to the next search result. 

Add Social Media Buttons

Millennials like to connect with brands they love. Add links to your social media pages so that they can easily follow your pages and receive updates about your business through their feeds. 

Having an active social media profile also shows them that you care about your brand’s identity and that you openly invite customer engagement. This strengthens people’s trust in your brand, and helps you build and nurture individual relationships with potential clients.

You can also add buttons to your pages so that people can easily share them on social media. This makes your website more engaging to use and gives your pages more visibility.

Be Authentic and Provide Meaningful Content

Since millennials have been using the Internet for most of their lives, they’ve pretty much seen it all. You won’t be able to draw them in with generic content that’s only focused on SEO keywords that drive up traffic. 

Your blog posts and articles should aim to add value to people’s lives. Provide them with great advice and helpful tips that can set them in the right direction. This also sets you up to become an authority figure in the financial space which adds to your brand’s credibility. Add your own personal insights from your years of experience to make a more personal connection with your readers and visitors.

Consider creating a mailing list that provides exclusive content to be able to target higher quality leads. Newsletters with more in-depth insights allows people to see how much work you put into your financial analysis and strategy.

Add a Rating or Review System

Millennials put a high value on other people’s reviews of a product. You can add widgets that will allow people to ‘Like’ or rate your blog posts and FAQ pages. Add a comment section to your blog posts to encourage people to ask questions and engage with your brand.

You can also set up your Google My Business and Yelp pages since these sites’ listings also show up in search results. Some people are more comfortable leaving reviews on third party websites since they’re seen as impartial.

Add Self-Service Options

The millennial generation has grown accustomed to doing things on their own and solving things on their own. This means you should provide them with solutions to their problems right on your website. 

It could be something as simple as adding a FAQ or knowledge base section where you can answer the most common questions people ask you. Getting these preliminary questions out of the way saves both you and your prospect a lot of valuable time and effort. This also helps you target long-tail keywords and financial planning questions that people type into search engines. 

You can also empower potential clients by letting them schedule appointments online.This makes them feel like they’re in control, and enables them to choose the most convenient time slots. If you want to take it a step further, you can add financial calculators so that they can figure out simple financial planning issues for themselves.

Use Video Marketing

Millennials consume a lot of online video through social media and streaming sites. When it comes to marketing, videos are more engaging and easier to digest. They’re more effective at capturing people’s attention and keeping them interested in your message. 

If you want to make your brand really stand out, you should consider a video marketing strategy for your website. Add videos that showcase your company’s story and culture. This adds a more human aspect to your marketing. 

You can also add explainer videos to your website so that people who don’t have time to research can better understand their financial situation. Add client testimonials to earn people’s trust and show them what you can do for their financial future.

Final Thoughts

If you want to appeal to millennials and even younger generations, you have to keep up with the times. These population groups are not afraid of technology and often take pride in being early adopters. Businesses that are still stuck in the past just won’t be able to address their ever growing needs.

If you’d like to learn more about designing the best financial advisor website for your target market, give us a call or send us a message using the contact form below. 

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