Financial advisor webinar marketing is becoming an increasingly popular medium for sharing content. They are an effective way to engage with large numbers of investors who need financial advice and services. Meanwhile, an evergreen webinar can produce results for months or years.
In fact, you might even say financial advisor webinars have some unique benefits that are difficult to produce with other marketing strategies that are used by financial advisors.
This article will describe five ways financial advisors benefit when they use webinars to reach investors they otherwise could not reach.
Investors Make Subjective Decisions
There is substantial evidence most investors make subjective decisions when they select financial advisors. That is, they select the advisors they like the best or sound the best. Very few investors know how to make advisor selection decisions based on objective criteria.
Therefore, a well-constructed webinar that communicates the culture and values of a firm creates a major competitive advantage. It is a lot easier for investors to like advisors when they can see and hear them.
Compare this to communicating the same information in a dry, written format. It stands to reason most investors will not commit time to reading thousands of words. They will nod off before they get to the end.
On the other hand, a high-quality financial advisor website can be engaging and informative in ways that cannot be duplicated by written content. This electronic first impression creates a major competitive advantage for advisors who use this marketing strategy.
Time-On-Site
Getting investors to commit time to learning more about your firm is a major step in the sales process. One key metric is the amount of time they spend on financial advisor websites. A productive webinar strategy is an excellent way to get investors to spend more time on your website.
As a case in point, our surveys show the average time-on-site for advisor websites is under three minutes. This means investors are very selective when they visit advisor websites. They have to be convinced to spend more time.
Great webinars can increase the amount of time investors spend on financial advisor websites several times over. And, Google tracks time on site so this increase can improve the online visibility of financial advisor websites.
Build Brand Awareness
Name a better way to build brand awareness than financial advisor webinars. First of all, it is a great way to reach large numbers of investors over a prolonged period of time. Evergreen webinars can produce results for months or years. Also, you will have the undivided attention of investors for the length of the webinar. This could be 15-30 minutes or the duration of your particular webinar.
Of course, the challenge is to provide compelling content that causes investors to register for the webinar, and it captures investors’ attention, so they stay for the duration of your financial advisor webinar. You will need three features that will keep people glued to their monitors:
- A riveting title for your financial advisor webinar
- High-quality content, in particular during the first five minutes
- A reason/benefit for staying to the end
The best titles will describe solutions for investor pain points. You may also use some sub-text to provide additional information about the topic of your webinar. For example, what is an investor’s biggest fear after they are retired? It could be running out of money late in life. This would be a great topic for a financial advisor webinar.
Next, what can you say in the first three to five minutes that will solidify your relationship with your webinar’s attendees. You could use the pain point strategy by spending the first few minutes describing the financial problem and the related pain. You may want to use case studies to illustrate real-life situations. The more attendees relate to the problem, the more they will relate to your solution.
A major byproduct of this type of financial advisor marketing strategy is establishing your firm as a relative expert on the topic of the webinar. This expertise and the personality of the speaker will cause investors/attendees to initiate contact with you and your firm.
Bring Life to the Subject
How much more effective is a financial advisor webinar that describes a unique financial pain point and delivers a rational, practical solution in a professionally produced video? There is a huge difference – like night and day. Investors will typically read messaging on a website (soundbites), but they rarely commit significant amounts of time reading long pages of straight text.
They would be much more inclined to watch a high-quality webinar that covers the same topic. The more time they spend on financial advisor websites the higher the probability they will be responsive when you follow-up to schedule appointments.
Think about the amount of information that resides on the typical financial advisor website. It can easily be thousands of words. Who is going to read all of that information? In particular, visitors who on average spend three minutes or less on advisor websites.
If you agree that the amount of information on advisor websites is daunting, then there is a solution that fits the way investors prefer to obtain information. That is, they prefer to watch a video that provides the information they are seeking.
This business opportunity peaks when investors commit 20 minutes to watch your video. It goes without saying there is a correlation between the amount of time they spend on your website watching a webinar and the percentage of investors who schedule appointments after attending the webinar.
Generate More High-Quality Leads
Webinars are a great way for financial advisors to produce high quality leads for their firms.
At the core of this relationship is an exchange of something of value. Let’s say investors are exchanging their contact information for the information in a financial advisor webinar.
There is a good chance they visited your website before they gave-up their anonymity and registered to attend the webinar. They must like what they see on your website or they would not have registered. They do not want to waste their time. These are two positive experiences that work in your favor.
