Designing a website to engage new audiences
JUMP was commissioned by Joslin Rhodes to design and develop a new website for this unique lifestyle financial planning organisation.
Joslin Rhodes work with customers to help them plan for retirement by focusing on the questions that keep them awake at night:
- Should I transfer my pension?
- Will I have enough to retire?
- Will I always have enough?
Their focus is to understand what their customers care about and then help them to plan a retirement that they can enjoy.
Understanding the customers
We spent two days meeting customers on a one to one basis and talking to them about their experiences. We were overwhelmed by the positivity Joslin Rhodes had created around what can be quite a stressful experience and we gained insight into the less positive experiences that they had had with other financial advisors in the past.
Our time with their customers allowed us to gain insight into the challenges of planning for retirement and what motivated or worried different customers about their futures.
Understanding the business
In addition, we spent time with the client and supporting project team at their offices and got under the skin of the business. The Joslin Rhodes’ brand sets them apart from traditional financial advisors, even their office space feels more like a cosy living room or coffee shop. This friendly and welcoming approach extends to the way you are greeted as you enter their offices right through to the way they explain pension planning and support you once you become a customer. It was this unique feel to their brand that we wanted to capture on the website.
One of our goals was to challenge preconceptions about financial advice, which is often perceived as being money-focussed and filled with technical jargon. The welcoming atmosphere and personal feel at Joslin Rhodes is designed to make customers feel at ease, so ensuring the website was injected with personality and a reassuring tone was a high priority for us.
Delivering unique content
During our customer research phase we defined three audience groups with differing levels of understanding of the financial landscape and different motivations to seeking financial advice. On the website we used these insights to channel customers towards information that would resonate with them.
We targeted this unique content to each of the customer groups by asking key questions on the home page. The outcome is a more targeted page of content supported by real customer stories that our target users could relate to, with the aim of reassuring customers and allaying fears and myths around pensions and retirement.
Images, illustrations and diagrams were used throughout to aid understanding and to continue the friendly and accessible feel of the site.
The site has also been built to be a flexible tool for the Joslin Rhodes team to pick up and make their own; flexible yet with enough constraints to ensure a consistent and easy to navigate platform for them to communicate with potential customers.
Targeting new customers
The outcome is a welcoming and informative site that is much more reflective of Joslin Rhodes’ personality and brand values. It is designed to give enough information to get over some of the barriers that often prevent customers from getting in touch. Once they make that first step of picking up the phone or walking through the door the Joslin Rhodes team have a high success rate in converting potential customers into life-long loyal Joslin Rhodes advocates.
Getting the message right
Working closely with the Joslin Rhodes marketing team we also developed an advertising campaign to drive traffic to the website through both offline and online channels. The tone and styling of the campaigns helped Joslin Rhodes deliver a consistent message to educate and inform customers about the support Joslin Rhodes could offer.
