For some financial advisors, the words “live” and “video” can cause unnecessary anxiety. While financial advisor video marketing is nothing new for digital marketing, live video is increasing in popularity among all industries, including the financial advice business. While live video was well on its way before the coronavirus pandemic, there’s no argument that the effects of social distancing and sheltering in place have accelerated its use for advisors who are open to new ways of doing business.
We’re at a point in time where you can’t necessarily meet with every one of your prospects and clients in-person and this may last for months or years. Instead of losing that important one-on-one time, you can learn how to use live video to have real-time “face-to-face” interactions with people who are important for your financial advice business.
Make an Emotional Connection
We already know, in these unprecedented times, technology is creating more ways to communicate than ever before. But, it can also be argued that the lack of in-person communication is having a negative impact on the growth of financial advisor businesses.
It is time to master some new ways to communicate and win new clients.
While you can’t change the circumstances, you can change the way you communicate that is as close to face-to-face meetings or presentations as possible during these trying times. And since live video was already an emerging communication channel for financial advisors, it can put you in a position to be an early adopter and get a leg up on other financial advisors.
By streaming live – whether on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or any other platform – you’re allowing your viewers to get to know you on a personal level. Yes, you’re presenting and should have a script or outline of sorts but being live on video often displays someone’s personality and mannerisms more than a perfectly polished and edited pre-recorded video. Having a live video is as close as you can get to presenting in front of a large audience without being there in person.
Deliver Important Information Quickly
No one can argue that new “stuff” happens quickly, especially during times of a global health crisis that affects peoples’ current lives and future financial plans. With new legislation passed regularly regarding financial stimulus packages and other information, it’s more important than ever to be able to communicate quickly and effectively.
Have you ever noticed that when a bad storm or weather event is happening, some meteorologists will go live on a social platform to discuss the event in real-time? When anything significant happens in the markets that can affect your clients’ well-being, they will look to you to provide insights.
Instead of waiting and sending an email or painstakingly calling everyone in a hurry, you can prepare commentary and then quickly go live to show your clients that you're looking out for their interests and want to get them information and explanations as quickly as possible.
While you can’t address everyone’s specific concerns on one call, it opens up the conversation and can help minimize client concerns and confusion. Another benefit of being able to go live quickly is that you can take live Q&A during your video.
Again, while some questions might need to be researched or need to be answered privately, you can answer many of their most pressing general questions in regard to the topic you’re presenting on. After all, one of the main benefits of a live stream is to enable a back and forth dialogue between the speaker and the audience.
One note: when taking audience comments and questions, it’s extremely helpful to have someone from your team monitoring the comments and questions as they’re coming in. Again, this is a live stream, and if you’re on camera it’s very difficult to also read questions from the scrolling news feed. This extra person can also handle any inappropriate comments or questions before anything escalates.
Generate Quality Leads
At the end of the day, you can only stay in business long-term if you acquire new clients on a regular basis. So when you live-stream content, you are also able to reach people who are not currently your clients. That means unless you’re going live for clients only as a special event, be sure you’re addressing the audience as though some of those watching are potential clients.
Also, some ways you can get the live video seen by more people is to make the stream easily shareable so your viewers can send to friends or family who they think would enjoy and/or benefit from watching.
Keep in mind that many investors have cut out traditional cable and are watching streamed content more than ever. And while some of this includes television and sporting events, it also includes live streaming on social media channels.
While you should avoid being gimmicky and keeping in mind your professional image as a financial advisor, you can still use visual elements to attract attention as people are scrolling through their feeds. Another tip is to let people know when you plan on going live. Even if you’re going live within the same day or even a few hours (due to recent or urgent information) you can announce on all of your social platforms and build interest.
Add Quality Content to Your Website
Live streams are obviously live for a reason. That said, you can still use live streams as playbacks and add to your cataloged content. This helps build your credibility and SEO (Google loves sites with original, high-quality content).
Consider adding a section within your existing content for just live videos, so viewers understand why these videos are different from your pre-recorded and scripted videos. It’s also important that in the video description, you notate the day the live stream was filmed.
With the economy and word news changing every day, you may find that some of your videos are outdated and your commentary in later videos may contradict them. In addition to adding to your videos to your website, you can also add the videos to your other social channels to reach different audiences. In short, just because the video was recorded as a live stream, it doesn’t mean you can’t also use it to gain more visibility elsewhere.
We strongly recommend leveraging all of your content and communications.
