Why UX Simplicity Is A Fund Website’s Secret Strength
Naval terminology has its fair share of applicable terms we use without thinking about their watery origins.
“Showing your true colours”, “the cut of one’s jib”, “shiver me timbers”. Perhaps not the last one. However for designers everywhere, the ‘KISS’ design principle – originating in the US Navy in the 1960s – has more sticking power: “keep it simple, stupid!”.
Nowhere is this concept better suited than the niche, insular market of alternative finance. Hedge fund managers and private equity leads know what they’re talking about, and institutional investors do too. But bombarding a website with jargon limits audiences, in the very same way that landlubbers will not understand what a kicking strap is, and deviates from the core ‘human’ side of a fund.
Firms locked into corporate comfort zones will appear to be on another world to prospective customers, where stuffy messaging and stock visuals are off-putting to online investors that are spoiled for choice in finding brilliantly intuitive digital channels. To change this, a fund’s C-suite might throw money at a rebrand and expect marketers to overhaul every inch of their digital and physical property, or try and juice investor engagement simply by fiddling with the logo.
That’s design for design’s sake, and does not not help financial sales and marketing’s purpose of appealing to LPs in the most direct and honest way they can. When it comes to a firm’s stalwart conversion tool – the website – trust has to be instilled immediately through simple messaging, branded visuals, and underlying user experience (UX) factors which grant an exceptional online experience to those choosing to invest vast sums with a firm across extended time periods.
In our recent research, we spotted that pretty much every leading hedge funds’ site looks credible and professional. Yet almost none used the channel effectively as the lead generation machine it can be, especially with regard to today’s UX design priorities.
How Does Design Boost the Sales Funnel?
UX can be a nebulous term banded around by fund marketing professionals. It’s not a cover-all for how easily an investor can surf your digital channels. UX is an overriding design idea that increases the functionality of every content piece, landing page, channels, call to action, and form a website or application houses. It’s a thoughtful approach to make things as seamless, navigable, and accessible to as wide an audience as possible.
The concept has grown exponentially, due to the fact that today’s investors undertake their own background research over months before they reach out to an advisor. It’s unlikely they’ll stroll into a firm’s office on a whim to get advice on diversifying their holdings. Instead, they build trust through intuitive websites, videos, blog articles, and email newsletters that makes a firm’s complex information distinct, transparent and simple: be that their investment strategy, their network of executives and portfolio managers, and their enduring value system in fluctuating financial markets.
Being able to access this information whenever they wish makes it more likely that prospects will take their own steps from initial engagement to an enquiry with the investor relations team. Secretly, this conversion path has been underlined by careful UX design. Used effectively, it ensures website traffic does not end at the home page, but produces AuM growth through guided investor-led journeys.
Enduring UX Fundamentals
We’ve seen the full spectrum of fund website usability over the years, and many sites make it far harder to find fund performance tables or content libraries than it should be. It’s a slippery slope for a firm to keep piling on colourful charts, pop-out videos, and large banners, as they do not help an allocator get to the right place as quickly as possible.
Strong design is all about reinforcing a fund that knows what it’s doing: who it’s targeting, why it does what it does, and how quickly that comes across without any effort on the end user’s part. An effective site will have menus clearly signposting pertinent areas of the sitemap, and a responsive search function for immediate access to a page. Too many navigation buttons can be overwhelming, and only useful so long if they cause investors to take an action, be it to submit a webinar sign-up form or download a performance factsheet.
When content is organised logically – tagged and segmented using metadata – it’ll more likely inspire interactions with themes visiting investors are interested in, naturally assisting them to browse information. Visuals can be used well to grab the eye, be it through people-based imagery, or colours and typography matching the fund manager’s house style. The downside is when images are poorly optimised and slow load speeds, as well as distract from the cohesion of website pages.
Clarity also comes down to the words on screen, alongside any block-based website components. Specific, consistent messaging ensures your web pages and contained content are all more easily indexed by search engines. Increasingly, investors are asking LLMs to ask what a firm does; in response, to utilise ‘Answer Engine Optimisation’ accurately, funds should reinforce their branded messaging, FAQs, About Us information and keywords around their strategic areas of expertise through a site.
5 UX Design Trends for Investor Engagement
Digital transformation will keep reinventing the wheel for how hedge funds and private markets can reach their investors online, and kickstart tailored nurture campaigns. Not all of it will work, yet steady maintenance of a fund website ensures that UX factors can drive and track traffic to keep interactions on the rise. So, the following considerations can elevate the website experience through increments:
Make a Screen ‘Humanised’
There are many ways to ‘grant a face’ to a fund’s digital interface, be it through short open letters from executives, or pictures of advisors to accompany commentaries or financial performance graphics. Successful websites will be able to convey what the brand stands for as soon as the homepage gets loaded; for instance, taglines and hero images around sustainability or growth investing.
Get Personalised
Dynamic websites will load content based on an individual user’s online breadcrumbs. But even if not all funds are toying with this technology, featuring value-driven content pop-ups or moving popular pages higher up in a navigation bar shows that they’re adhering to investors’ behavioural signals, found in their connected CRM. Letting users control how their data is used is a compliance requirement, but also instills trust that they can navigate the site how they wish, and that the fund has thought about that experience on their behalf.
Strike the Visual Balance
Banners and images can be excellent for prominently displaying key performance metrics next to concise text blocks, or even to visualise diversification strategies, such as through colour-coded charts.
Visual hierarchy should be considered to guide LPs’ eyes to buttons or lead magnets, as well as colour balance, while being responsive to both desktop and mobile screens. One UX principle works off of a typical “F Pattern” reading, where readers’ attention diminishes left to right, then down, as they go. This idea highlights where to position critical CTAs and information, and to edit down any long-winded landing pages.
Celebrate Certifications
Industry-specific accreditations, data security and handling protocols, accessibility factors (including WCAG 2.2) and regulatory authorisations all boost credibility in a firm, in a way that ‘shows off’ the hard work that goes into being an esteemed business using ethical practices. This also applies to any transparent disclaimers around risk tolerances, or AI usage.
Increase Interactivity
Multiple interactive graphs can become cumbersome. Yet the odd one to help investors toggle through historical performance charts or benchmarked data are useful to narrate a fund’s strategy without words. Even well-placed push notifications can make a user aware of a fund page or event sign-up they had not considered. So long as they’re not intrusive, these little ingredients can make strides towards increased deal flows.
Making UX Adjustments That Matter
Decreasing investor touchpoints across a fund website may be indicative of poor UX, hence why analysing visitor data holds the key to making significant improvements to areas that do not get enough traction. It’s a far more targeted way of updating a website’s usability, rather than fussing for hours over a new ‘perfect’ colour scheme that won’t be familiar to experienced investors anyway.
On-the-go investors want less hassle, and stripping away components will make financial design far more contemporary, pleasant and professional for LPs to engage with – hopefully more than once to see their repeat visits lead to sales communications and raised capital!
ProFundCom can help fund marketers increase their UX across digital channels and with tools and strategies tailored to the financial industry:
● Website Optimisation: By improving website design, content quality, user experience and SEO strategies, marketers can attract more visitors and strengthen brand visibility online.
● Personalised Communication: deliver tailored content recommendations, and targeted offers to clients and prospects based on their preferences and engagement history to help increase client satisfaction and retention.
● Lead Scoring and Qualification: Prioritise leads based on engagement levels and interactions through scoring and focus efforts on high-potential prospects.
● Unified Data Management: Fund marketers can consolidate customer data, engagement metrics, and campaign performance from various sources to gain a comprehensive view of their audience and marketing activities in one platform.
● Automated Lead Nurturing: Set up automated lead nurturing workflows to engage with leads at different stages of the customer journey, delivering targeted content, follow-up emails,
