Video Marketing for Financial Advisors
Most people will visit your website before ever stepping foot in your office. That’s why it’s essential you engage them, gain their trust and inform them about your services in a way that will resonate with them. One of the most effective ways to attract prospects to your website and transform them to leads (and clients) is with helpful and engaging video.
Video is an effective way to demonstrate who you are and to profile your services. You can develop relationships and earn trust with prospects long before they’ve ever met you in person. Video helps you to establish a trustworthy, transparent, and authentic voice, and help prospects determine how well you’ll fit their needs.
Video Adoption is Soaring
There’s no question about it, online video is soaring. Video is expected to surpass 84% of all online traffic by the end of 2020. Today people want a fast, simple method to consume information and they don’t want to invest the time necessary to read huge chunks of text. In fact, according to Forrester Research, Google regularly returns video in organic search engine result– an indexed video stands a 53 times greater possibility of ranking on the very first page of results than any text-based page.
So what does this mean for Advisors?
With video soon to comprise nearly 90% of internet traffic, your text-and-still-image website will become less pertinent in the eyes of both search engines and your prospects. Your audiences will expect you to have video content, and wanting to know more about you, your services, and how you can help them, they’ll want that information to be delivered in a fast and appealing way (i.e. video). They’ll want to see and hear from you personally. And video is the best way to deliver what they’re looking for.
Good looking sites are no longer enough. Consumers want to be able to differentiate one Financial Advisor from the next – and let’s face it, most Advisor websites look and feel pretty similar. But with video, you have the ability to personally communicate with your audiences, providing beneficial details about you and your services, and giving them engaging content that lets them see you have the expertise they’re looking for.
Video Marketing Insights for Financial Advisors
Your prospects are searching for you online. In any given month in the U.S., there are as many as a million Google searches for the phrase”financial advisor.” Often, the people searching don’t personally know an advisor, nor do they know someone who can refer one. There is convenience in browsing online to see if they can find the service for their financial needs. The people that are going online to see a financial video are doing so because they have a problem and they are looking for someone who can offer a solution.
How can you be the one that resonates with them? Well, first off, the people searching have to be able to find the video, they need to be engaged enough to play it and see it in full and finally, they have to be so compelled that they contact you for additional information. Here’s how it all breaks down:
Searchers should discover your video
Optimizing your video for to be found by search engines is key to being discovered – this need to be done most importantly with relevant content in addition to compelling, relevant titles, descriptions, and keywords that make sense for your financial services practice and what your prospect is searching for.
When your business incorporates appropriate videos that line up with the content of your site, search engines discover and index the videos within the website’s context. This improves your general website and video search ranking as it connects to your companies’ material method indicating more targeted search based traffic for you.
They should push play
Ok, so the searcher was able to find your video… but that doesn’t mean they will push play. Unless you have a compelling heading and description, and an invitation (or call-to-action) to watch the video, nobody will click on your video.
It’s a very specific group of people thinking about viewing your videos: those looking for a source of financial information or those looking for ways to address a particular financial issue. For this reason, the types of videos you are developing should not be expected to go viral nor do they require to in order to get seen by members of your target audience.
Make it easy for them to watch the entire video
Having videos on your site isn’t enough if they’re not their job effectively. It’s a good idea to examine the effectiveness of your videos, discovering what works and, more importantly, what doesn’t. If no one is seeing your video through to the end, it’s probably not adequately engaging and you should re-evaluate your video marketing approach. It’s important for you to know your prospect’s main concerns and how you can address them. It also takes an experienced video creator to know what a targeted online audience is searching for and how to get you to communicate a message that will resonate with that audience.
They should be compelled to do something about it
If you are a financial advisor and you are using video to market those services, it’s a smart idea (though counterintuitive) to not focus the video content on yourself. Instead, create content that speaks to how your services can assist your prospects. The only method to get an audience to take action toward becoming a client (like calling you, scheduling an appointment, registering for a seminar, etc.) is to produce a compelling video that helps resolve your viewers’ issues.
Four Ways to Leverage Video to Attract Clients
At Advisor Inbound, we use video in four different ways with our Financial Advisor clients to help improve your content and engage your online visitors and prospects.
Tell your story
There’s no better way to tell your personal story than with video. Use video on your sites home page or ‘About Us’ page that shares your vision and philosophy. Doing so can help to construct an immediate connection and lasting impression prior to a prospect ever meeting you in person.
Share your expertise
Using video on your services page can assist attract and convert possible clients. You can produce useful videos that provide audiences with an in-depth look at your expertise around the different specialities you concentrate your services around.
Utilize your social channels
Video is an effective tool for engaging your potential clients on social channels (like LinkedIn, Facebook, and even Instagram) and your blog. Think about including videos regularly on subjects your clients will discover intriguing in order to increase engagement and interest. Position yourself as a go-to resource for information and suggestions with potential clients.
Drive pertinent traffic
Search engines like video, helping you drive more targeted traffic to your website. In fact, videos in universal search engine result have a 41% higher click through rate than their plain text equivalents (according to ReelSEO). Think of producing a variety of videos, each focusing on various targeted search terms that your potential clients would likely be looking for online.
How Advisors are Using YouTube
Billions of videos are viewed on YouTube every day. In actuality, it was estimated that in 2019, more than 500 hours of content was being uploaded to YouTube every minute. It’s obvious that millions of companies are out there trying to take advantage of this audience however you may be asking yourself, how, as a Financial Advisor would I use this platform?
Position yourself as a professional & establish reliability
It’s important to position yourself as a professional in your videos. By producing interesting, beneficial, and relevant material in your videos you let your target audience know that you understand what you are talking about. You also remain top of mind for prospects and present clients and give them a factor to return to your YouTube channel, site or to do business with you.
Reaching your target market
Google owns YouTube, which is now the 2nd biggest search engine after Google. By establishing yourself on YouTube you’re building a relationship with the biggest online search engine worldwide. Not a bad start if you are trying to build awareness and reach your target audience. Think about including how-to’s, pointers, interviews, and stories that will engage and assist increase your viewership.
SEO & publishing to social channels
Once you’ve established a branded YouTube channel and built a video library, you can feature your videos anywhere. In fact, you can embed or include them on all of your social platforms to maximize marketing results. Post videos to Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter, release them on your blog and send them through your e-newsletters. Make certain to consist of relevant video titles, descriptions and tags so the ideal individuals find your videos on YouTube.
The Botton Line On Video
But is there any evidence to suggest that all of this video watching translates into new clients? The answer is yes, and it is overwhelming. For the sake of brevity, it is best to quote one study. In its 2010 report, the trade group called the Online Publishers Association, the headline stated this: over 70% of online visitors watched a promotional video of some kind, and of that number over 40% took some form of action.
Our team is skilled in helping you build an online experience that helps your website visitor take the kind of action that benefits your business. Using video, audio, and text, we make sure that people online understand who you are and what you do as an Advisor. We also help them to understand why it is important to do business with you. Schedule a call with us today so that we can help you to build an effective platform to market your business.