Webinars are proving to be a highly effective means of inbound marketing that costs considerably less than traditional outbound advertising methods. There is no sense paying hundreds or thousands of dollars to run a brief commercial on TV when you can spend a fraction of that amount on a webinar and enjoy a similar level of response.
Do not make the common mistake that no one will tune in to your financial advisor webinar simply because it is a one-time event with somewhat dry material. Though your webinar might not be as exciting as a celebrity’s Livestream, it will draw viewers.
The Basics of Webinars
Webinars have been simplified to the point that even a tech newbie can host one without major disruptions. Your financial advisor firm’s webinar is an engaging online presentation that connects you to people throughout your city and beyond with a couple of mouse clicks and keystrokes.
This inbound marketing tool pulls in leads to the top of your sales funnel while also serving as a means of scaling sales team members’ efforts to close the deal with prospects who have already demonstrated an interest in your service or information. The tech learning curve has been flattened to the point that all you have to do is download webinar software or log into a service for immediate, real-time webinar hosting.
Social Media Will Help You Make the Most of Your Financial Services Webinar
Social media has an important role to play in building momentum for your webinar. As long as your financial advisory firm has a profile on the social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and possibly Instagram, it already has a sizable follower base certain to prove interested in watching your webinar.
Let your followers know you will host a webinar a couple of weeks prior to the event. This way, you will have 10-14 days to build up the anticipation and give your audience enough time to coordinate their individual schedules in unison with your event. Some of your followers will even retweet and share your post announcing the webinar. These retweets, shares, and “likes” will be seen by others in their social networks, helping your webinar draw in even more interested parties that have the potential to become revenue producing clients.
It might even make sense to purchase a Facebook ad or another ad on social media to ensure users of these popular social media platforms in your local area are aware of the fact that you will be holding an informative and educational webinar in the near future. In fact, you can even use Facebook Live to host your webinar.
Facebook Live for Webinars
Facebook Live makes the broadcasting of live video streams in real-time incredibly easy. Though plenty of everyday Facebook users use this tool to broadcast their daily life to friends and family, it is also a valuable marketing tool for financial advisory firms. Give Facebook Live a try and you will find that many more members of your audience show up to your virtual event simply because just about everyone logs into Facebook on a daily basis.
Furthermore, Facebook Live facilitates a dialogue as opposed to a monologue. Those who watch the "Facebook Live webinar" will have the opportunity to easily ask questions of your webinar host, pose concerns and request additional information about your firm’s financial advisory services in real-time directly from their Facebook account.
Carefully Select Your Webinar’s Subject Matter
If you select webinar subject matter that is too specific, you run the risk of alienating the majority of audience members as some people are uninterested in highly specific topics. However, if your webinar content is overly broad, there is also the potential for the majority of your audience to feel as though the event might drag on for hours without delving deeply enough into specific financial management challenges. Find the happy medium between these two extremes and you will maximize your webinar viewership.
Once you figure out the subject matter for your financial advisor webinar, let it be known that you will cover those specific topics by stating that on your social media platforms. As long as the subject matter you select addresses audience needs and/or helps solve their common finance-related challenges, people will tune in. Now that you have their eyes and ears, it is time to flex your intellectual muscle, explain your financial advisory firm’s value proposition in plain English, and ultimately convert webinar attendees into paying clients.
Above all, the topic(s) you select for your webinar should be interesting. These subjects should inspire conversation including questions so your audience feels truly engaged with you. Involve the audience in the webinar and you will inspire the all-important brand recall as well as the development of meaningful rapport with your target clients.
Mind the Subtleties of Your Webinar
The “small stuff” of your webinar has the potential to make the difference between success and failure. Be mindful of the length of the webinar. Attention spans are quickly shrinking so your webinar should be capped at an hour at most. Ideally, the webinar will last 30-45 minutes. Be sure to allocate at least 10-15 minutes for audience questions. Furthermore, you should budget a half an hour prior to the actual webinar for a soundcheck and dry run. Test out the sound, make sure your webinar runs without a hitch from the participants’ perspective and you will be good-to-go at showtime.
Be sure to record your webinar for future reference! Post the recorded webinar to your Facebook page, Twitter page, and your financial advisory business’s homepage for easy access. Otherwise, only those who tuned into the live webinar will obtain value from it.
Record this monumental event for posterity’s sake, make it available to all interested parties across the entirety of your financial advisor firm’s online footprint and it really will prove to be the gift that keeps on giving. Every time a prospective client clicks the recorded webinar, you stand a good chance of adding a new lead that is based on the quality of that footage.
