Digital marketing has all but taken over traditional forms of marketing for financial advisors. With this growing popularity of digital marketing and social media platforms, video has become an essential part of an overall digital marketing plan. While each industry is different, financial advisors can leverage video for many things, such as nurturing prospects, informing current clients of news about the markets, and presenting investment practices to current and prospective clients in an easily digestible way.
While you may choose to still include the same information in a blog or whitepaper, video can be a way to reach those that learn better by watching and listening vs. reading. If you want to start utilizing video as part of your overall digital marketing/communication strategy, read our 5 Important Do’s and Don’ts for financial advisor video production.
Do: Use Video to Increase Your SEO Rankings
Video has become a key piece of the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) puzzle. That’s because search engines like Google give a higher priority to websites that include video than to those without video components. This is also partly because with video, viewers are likely to spend more time overall on your site, which also adds to your credibility in Google. This shows that you have quality content and the ability to hold the attention of your website visitors. This makes you a more valuable resource for Google.
Due to the ability of video to produce more traffic to your website, it’s critical that your website is optimized for both desktop and mobile environments. With increasing numbers of searches coming from mobile devices, digital marketers can’t afford to ignore this important detail. Also, optimizing your website with updated content, correct addresses, and/or phone numbers, and overall reduced clutter will help gain favor with the search engines as well. Make a plan to audit your website regularly, checking for dead links, outdated information, etc. will go a long way toward improving SEO and overall improved user experience.
Don’t: Make Videos Just for the Sake of Making Videos
When it comes to digital marketing, it’s never a good idea to jump on the bandwagon of the latest channel or trend. This is especially true for creating and posting videos. Before you get started, think about your audience and what would they like to hear from you. You can even ask your current clients if there’s something they would like a deeper understanding of, which will give you better insights when you onboard new clients. For prospects, there might be a different tone or overall flow of the video but be careful not to come off sounding like a salesperson. If someone is taking the time to watch your video, you need to make the most of every second you have their attention. That means writing scripts and preparing content in advance so that you come off as polished and knowledgeable as possible. You can even turn existing blog posts into videos, giving a personal element to some of your more popular evergreen content.
Do: Use Video to Generate More Conversions
Ultimately, financial advisor video marketing is just one channel in the mix of many other elements of your digital marketing plan. But don’t underestimate the value of directly speaking to clients or prospects on video. If done right, video can add an extra element of “stickiness” to any relationship by letting people see your personality and hear your voice, etc.
By keeping visitors engaged and including video on your website, social media channels, and emails, you’re increasing your chances of getting quality conversions from your video content. Additionally, by creating evergreen content as well as timely updates and commentary on the markets and relevant current events, you’re getting even more mileage out of the time and effort it took for you to create the video in the first place.
One method to, at minimum, obtain more leads is to put your content behind a “gate.” For example, if someone is sent to your website to view a video, consider including a brief form to collect data such as name and email address as well as a consent to contact. From there, you now are able to build your email list for outreach campaigns. Beware of including too many data fields or people may just pass up the video entirely because it’s too much work.
Don’t: Forget About Backlinks
Backlinks are an important part of any digital marketing strategy. As a quick refresher, backlinks are simply when another webpage is linking back to your webpage. By producing video content that is both 1) relevant and 2) easily shared, you are making it possible for other sites (such as industry websites as well as social media posts as an example) to share your content and link it back to your website.
This not only gets more overall views on your video, but it also sends more people directly back to your website. It’s considered a best practice to include a catchy video title and description within any shareable link or embedded code to entice people who come across your video to actually watch it as well. Also, consider including a transcript of the audio and/or captions for the hearing impaired and anyone who may not be able to access the audio but still want the information in your video.
Do: Work with Professionals if You Need Help
While it’s true that just about anyone with a smartphone can record and post a video, there’s much more to the overall picture. It’s true that hitting the record button is enough to film a video. However, videos will almost certainly need editing, and intro music and graphics and much more to look professional and polished.
If you have the time and resources to become well-versed in video production and distribution, you most certainly will be able to create engaging financial advisor videos on your own. However, if that sounds like something you don’t have the time (or desire) to do, there are highly qualified and experienced digital marketing agencies ready to help!
We also recommend selecting an agency that has experience in your industry. You can waste a lot of time and money on agencies that do not know anything about investors and the financial advisors that serve them.
