Website target-audience beyond my experience; Help!

[beowolfe03]

So I'm trying to redesign a very technical, corporate website for a company selling life insurance and financial planning aimed at elderly b/mllionaires. The company's emphasis is passing on the family estate down the family line with little tax invasion.

The problem is, I can barely understand that topic and I don't know anything about what old millionaires like in their Life Insurance websites. I am a poor, 22 year old illustrator; I'm not exactly the ideal person to be working this project alone, but it's not exactly my choice. I have little to no contact with the client and my hours of Google-research has been pretty fruitless. (Keywords include affluent, elderly millionaires, planning your estate, life insurance, and so on, but I get nothing. Am I even looking in the right places??)

At the moment, the client's website looks like this (http://www.epicgroup.net/). A little boring, but I imagine old rich people wouldn't mind it. I can rearrange the text a bit, add a new picture (which isn't proving as easy as I thought---good family tree-themed images aren't as plentiful at iStockphoto as I had hoped), but other than that I'm pretty stumped. (How do you handle all that copy, for one?)

I guess I want to know how you deal with creating websites that fall far from your expertise/knowledge base. Any suggestions or ideas that could get me started again?
(The client wants to see something this week and I have nothing to show him and I'm getting pretty worried...aheh.)

[semioticantics]

I think this is where you might want to look up competitors, and also find other sites old people are interested in, perhaps AARP and any AARP-affiliated site.

[beowolfe03]

I did go through AARP and what not. It's all pretty basic, which is understandable.
And believe me, I went through competitors---Metlife, OldMutual, any place that sells life insurance. But I don't know how helpful it was. Like I said, I did my research, but I'm not sure how much of it was applicable.
Maybe I'm just making it too difficult. I do that a lot.

[semioticantics]

The "little to no contact with the client" is certainly the issue here - Is there no way you can get more out of them?

[beowolfe03]

He's a busy fellow and he doesn't have time to talk to designers I guess. I've only met with him once and he didn't really talk to me. He mentioned wanting new website colors and changing the picture, but he said he'd get back to me later with the design survey that we asked him to fill out. He never did. And here I am procrastinating.

[frankster]

So, from what you've said it looks like you want to be selling the notion that these loaded oldies are buying peace of mind and the ability to relax and enjoy thier money without having to worry about wodges of it being taken away from thier family when they kark it. So, family is obviously important, and the lifestyle that much money gives you is what they are wanting to preserve, so images of eldery people happy with thier families and images of happy retired people enjoying luxury goods and services would sell that notion and keep the emphasis away from death and doom.

I have to admit that the current site's use of awe inspiring mountains and scenary is good. These people probably want thier fortunes to run down the family line and keep the heirs to the estate wealthy for years to come. Be enduring like the rocks of those epic mountains. With no human element to it at all, it is a little dry though.

I guess you have to find out whether your client wants to maintain cold detattched and text heavy or wants to bring enough emotion into the equation that it doesn't detract from business proffesionalism.

Other things to consider are making sure the site is 100% accesable to sight impared people if you are aiming at the older age group.

[TeeJay!]

For some reason an idea that comes to mind is a picture of a grandfather carrying his grandson/daughter on his neck:rolleyes:

Think you have a nice and compelling site. Looks oldieproof=)

[shalom_m]

I think you should Google the following:

Estate tax, death tax or whatever they call it in the USA
Endowments
Bequests
Charity Foundations
Philanthropy
Trusts
Charitable trusts
Then, look for a lawyer and an accountant in your circle of friends and use them as a sounding board and ask: "What would you recommend for an elderly millionaire?"

As I understand US law, the more you give to charity, the less your heirs have to pay in taxes. This is what that insurance company is trying to sell.

One word of caution:
Why would an insurance company that has much to loose with the wrong kind of website employ a "I am a poor, 22 year old illustrator" with no experience in this specific field?


As to your design, It has some qualities of solidity.


I would have liked to see a small addition on each page that allows the user to increase the fontsize.


Another function that is missing is the option for a printer friendly page. Most people 60+ prefer reading from paper.

[RageDesignGroup]

I recently worked on a site close to this. I had never delt with Insurance etc. Try this out (It's an application called RAGE SEkeyword, and also try the SEO book site). The Rage one is great because it pulls content from the actual site, and suggests things, and then you can check them on the SEO book site. Also check the site I just finished www.benefitsadvisorygroup.biz. You made be able to pull some keywords from my words or even content.


So I'm trying to redesign a very technical, corporate website for a company selling life insurance and financial planning aimed at elderly b/mllionaires. The company's emphasis is passing on the family estate down the family line with little tax invasion.

The problem is, I can barely understand that topic and I don't know anything about what old millionaires like in their Life Insurance websites. I am a poor, 22 year old illustrator; I'm not exactly the ideal person to be working this project alone, but it's not exactly my choice. I have little to no contact with the client and my hours of Google-research has been pretty fruitless. (Keywords include affluent, elderly millionaires, planning your estate, life insurance, and so on, but I get nothing. Am I even looking in the right places??)

At the moment, the client's website looks like this (http://www.epicgroup.net/). A little boring, but I imagine old rich people wouldn't mind it. I can rearrange the text a bit, add a new picture (which isn't proving as easy as I thought---good family tree-themed images aren't as plentiful at iStockphoto as I had hoped), but other than that I'm pretty stumped. (How do you handle all that copy, for one?)

I guess I want to know how you deal with creating websites that fall far from your expertise/knowledge base. Any suggestions or ideas that could get me started again?
(The client wants to see something this week and I have nothing to show him and I'm getting pretty worried...aheh.)

[beowolfe03]

One word of caution:
Why would an insurance company that has much to loose with the wrong kind of website employ a "I am a poor, 22 year old illustrator" with no experience in this specific field?


As to your design, It has some qualities of solidity.


I would have liked to see a small addition on each page that allows the user to increase the fontsize.


Another function that is missing is the option for a printer friendly page. Most people 60+ prefer reading from paper.


They hired our company to do some programming or something for them and they happened to also want some design done, and since we offer that...that means he has me, whether he likes it or not. Frankly, the client is pretty cheap (they "borrowed" their logo from someplace online and had someone in the family vectorise it---I found that rather distressing) so I don't think he cares who does it as long as it gets done well enough to entice the old blighters to give him their money. He will sacrifice some quality for the cheapest deal, as rich people around here tend to do. I'm sure I can probably pull it off...you guys are helping a lot!

And I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding---I didn't design the linked site. That's their current site that I'm supposed to REDESIGN. But thanks for the tips! Good to see what is missing so I can include it in the new design.

[beowolfe03]

I recently worked on a site close to this. I had never delt with Insurance etc. Try this out (It's an application called RAGE SEkeyword, and also try the SEO book site). The Rage one is great because it pulls content from the actual site, and suggests things, and then you can check them on the SEO book site. Also check the site I just finished www.benefitsadvisorygroup.biz (http://www.benefitsadvisorygroup.biz). You made be able to pull some keywords from my words or even content.

Boy, if I had a Mac at work, I'd totally use the Rage software. But since the Techboys can only fix/sell PC's, I get a Dell like everyone else. (Nothing like CS3 *I'm sorry but this program* on Windows *has performed an illegal operation* to brighten your day *and has to close.* ;p)
But thanks for the suggestion! I'll download it at home and check it out.

[Callendale]

I'm thinking the same thing... get some people on there. First thing that came to my mind was photos from home remodeling mags; the grandparents sitting in front of their million dollar+ rehab watching the grandkids at play on the beach. Also ads/articles from Fortune or high-end travel and lifestyle magazines. Anything that shows the present generation sharing/enjoying their wealth with the next.

[shalom_m]

Just remember, "Life Insurance" is a mismoner, it should rightly be called After Death Insurance.

So with us ordinary mortals, with ordinary problems, a good people picture would be children graduating. This would imply - put away some chash you have now to insure an education for your children, even if you pass away early.

For those multi-millionaires this would be no problem anyway. So in addition of what I mentioned in my previoud post, what they may be looking for is a kind of imortality. Their names on some institute or foundation. A fleet of ambulances with their names on....

A good picture for these kind of sentiments would be:

Mt. Rushmore (but an insurance company is using that already);
A rock in a stormy sea (but an insurance company is using that already);
A picture of the Poenix rising from the ashes (but an insurance company is using that already);
The Acropolis (but an insurance company is using that already);
A guardian angel (but an insurance company is using that already).....
See where I am heading?

[beowolfe03]

Yeah, I'm catching you. The message is becoming a lot clearer now. The whole family tree thing is out the window at this point, but I guess I need to practice thinking in metaphors. Maybe photo hunting wouldn't be so hard.

I agree with everyone---the lack of people definitely needs to be fixed and I intend to do so. I found a rather dramatic photo (http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/settings/seasons/summer/1692790_grandfather_and_grandson.php?id=1692790) that feels fairly appropriate and it matches the company colours, which is also a plus. I can't find anything I like better, anyway.
Now I just have to figure out exactly what I plan to do with it and all that uninteresting copy...lol.

My design process is so nonexistent/inconsistent. It's great.

[frankster]

I found a rather dramatic photo (http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/settings/seasons/summer/1692790_grandfather_and_grandson.php?id=1692790) that feels fairly appropriate and it matches the company colours, which is also a plus. I can't find anything I like better, anyway.

I would avoid photos of old men and young boys in swim suits. Just saying.

[beowolfe03]

[disregard]

[beowolfe03]

I would avoid photos of old men and young boys in swim suits. Just saying.

Dang it.
Well there's a couple hours lost for the sake of being PC...
back to the ol' drawing board I guess. Alas.

[super replicas]

unfortunetly I have imagination without taste what can I do for the website of my work