Video Marketing for Financial Advisors
Join us with Jill Addison, the founder of FA Client Machine, who helps financial advisors leverage YouTube and video marketing, as we cover:
- How YouTube helps you show up in search results
- The 3 key videos advisors should have on their websites
- How to use video to get people to know, like, and trust you
- The biggest mistakes advisors make with video
- Success stories of advisors using video
- How to get started on your first video today
Videos mentioned in our conversation:
Steve Hutchinson’s video: https://www.hutchinsonfamilyoffice.com/team/steve-hutchinson/
Jill Addison’s website: https://faclientmachine.com/about/
Listen here now, or download and subscribe on iTunes to listen on your commute!
New episodes will be published weekly with various guests, including top advisors, tech consultants, and marketing machines who are excited to tell you how to use proven marketing strategies to grow a thriving practice.
Transcription
Claire Akin (CA): Hi and thank you so much for joining us today. This is The Marketing Podcast for Financial Advisors. I’m Claire Akin with Indigo Marketing, and today I’m really excited to have Jill Addison with us with FA Client Machine. Jill is one of the leaders in our industry and she is all about videos. Her company was started to help advisors use video to get in front of more prospects and to create powerful marketing machines using video. She helps advisors both to create whiteboard videos that they can use for their own marketing and to do custom videos that they can use to really showcase what makes them different. Jill, welcome to the program. Thanks so much for being here.
Jill Addison (JA): Of course. Thanks so much for having me.
CA: Jill really is an expert on video marketing. One of the reasons that I invited her on the program is her marketing is phenomenal. For her marketing for her business, she sends out these one-minute video marketing tips. I just thought that was so smart. It’s such a good idea and I wish I had thought of it. You get an email in your inbox that is a one-minute video tip for financial advisors about their marketing. So tell us how you came up with that and your success with that campaign.
JA: You know, it was interesting because I started doing that at the very beginning of my business, which was about 10 years ago, and that’s when online video was really just starting to become something. It was a really new idea, and I came into it with no preconceptions of what online video should be, because there really wasn’t that much happening yet as far as people like in business, proprietors, using video to market their own businesses. It was just a gut instinct. I was like, I think people have the attention span for one minute of video, and giving tips and adding value and educating people and making it really short and quick like that. It just made sense to me. I’ve actually ended up building my entire business around the idea of one-minute videos, and the statistics bear that out.
I mean, the attention span does drop off after about 80 seconds, and one minute really is the sweet spot for people’s attention span these days. People do want to watch videos, but they don’t want to be watching the same video forever. They just want to get in and get out and get the point and get on with their day.
CA: I love it. I watch every single one of your one-minute videos.
JA: Thank you.
CA: I’ll get other marketing emails where maybe it’s an article or maybe it’s a longer video and I always put this aside to do later. Of course, later never comes, but you always have one minute. It’s great to just get one actionable idea, and they’re all fantastic ideas. I also want to mention, Jill is the author of Financial Advisor’s: 7 Steps to Video Marketing Success. I definitely recommend picking that up if you’re interested in harnessing the power of video. Obviously, she’s built her own business using video, and she helps advisors set up and manage their YouTube channels. I get a lot of questions from advisors of “How can we use video marketing and how can we set up a YouTube channel?” and Jill’s the expert for how to do that. Jill, tell us, what are you most excited about in the marketing space for financial advisors when it comes to marketing with videos?
JA: One thing that I’ve definitely noticed, and especially in the last two years or so, is that advisors are really starting to embrace online tools in communication, and they’re becoming much more sophisticated about it than they have been in the past. It’s really exciting to see this transformation happening in the industry and see advisors really rise to the challenge of reinventing themselves and moving with the times by adopting these new kinds of online strategies and communication tools. Another thing that really excites me is a couple important trends I see. One is that the industry is moving more and more toward a fiduciary standard. You know what we call advisory firms, practices, like we call doctors’ and lawyers’ businesses practices.
The role that financial advisors play in their clients’ lives is just as important as the role of a doctor or a lawyer in those clients’ lives. The advice and guidance that advisors give will have a dramatic impact on their quality of life and even on their survival. It’s such an important role to have in someone’s life. That same standard of care and that code of ethics that we hold doctors and lawyers to should be the standard we hold advisors to as well. That commitment to doing what’s in the client’s best interest is so good and necessary. I’m so glad that the industry is moving in that direction. I’m really proud and excited to be part of that. The other thing that I think is really cool that’s happening right now is that the most successful advisors now are focusing on niches.
I believe in the power of niches to transform businesses and make them go much further and faster than if they try to serve everyone. I was really happy to start reading that in so many different places. For instance, CEG Worldwide Research said that 70% of top advisors are focused on niche clients or a specific component of the advisory market. That niche focus makes everything about your marketing easier and more effective. I’m super excited about that.
CA: Absolutely. That’s something that I preach all the time. When I started really encouraging advisors to embrace a specialty, probably four or five years ago, I got a lot of pushback. Now it’s everywhere. You see so many specialist advisors. The thing that I like to reference is a Jim Collins Book, Good to Great. One of the key components of that book is he did all this research on all these different companies, on which companies were successful and which weren’t. One of the key findings was the businesses that were successful across all of these 3,000 companies that he had sampled were the ones that actually had a specialty. It’s powerful. The more that advisors can really embrace a specialty, the more that their marketing will be really successful. Tell us a little bit more about some of the success stories of advisors that you’ve worked with and how you’ve seen video help advisors to share their story.
JA: Video is really transforming the way that advisors market, and it’s making it much easier to make a personal connection online. When people watch you on video, they feel like they’ve already met you, and that starts to build that trust factor that’s so important in a relationship business, and it enables advisors to leverage that personal presence on the internet. Also, it gives you credibility. It gives you more credibility and this star power because when people see someone on a screen, it kind of elevates them. It makes them seem like they’re a celebrity somehow. Video is really helping advisers add to their arsenal of communication tools so that they can expand beyond just phone calls and in-person meetings because most clients today are time-crunched.
They appreciate receiving communication through the internet that they can consume on their own timetable. Different people like to be communicated with in different ways. Video gives another way to touch clients that can sometimes be more effective than trying to reach them by phone or schedule in-person meetings. It’s a vital supplement to those traditional communication methods. For instance, one of our clients got this response from one of her clients. She said, “Thanks for sending these one-minute tips. I appreciate that they’re short, to the point, and they still offer a good tip. Nice work.” Communicating with video, it helps position advisors as forward thinking and that they’re staying current and relevant. When your clients and prospects see you using these newer tools like video, that’s a tip-off to them that you’re staying current in every area, including how you manage their money.
People don’t really want to read anymore. They want to be entertained. Video helps you communicate with them in the way that they want to be communicated with. Here’s a couple of examples of how this has worked out for our clients and some of the success stories I can share with you. Just to give a little context, let me just say that what we do with these one-minute tips is that we provide a consistent stream of monthly whiteboard videos, and those can either be chosen from our turnkey video library of 80 pre-created videos. Then we just customize it with your contact information and logo. So it’s a really fast and easy way to get that video content from a template library and then you own the content. It’s really unusual in this industry to be able to find that. Templated videos, you can just buy and own.
That’s the first way that we help advisors. The second way is they can get 100% customized content to help them communicate about your niche and your specialty. That’s the context so that you can understand what was happening in these stories. One of our clients, Dan Sauer, we created this “About Us” video for him, and they put it on the “About” page of their website. Then they started having prospects coming into their office saying, “Oh, I love that whiteboard video on your website. It made me feel so much more comfortable coming in.” There is something about the whimsical and lighthearted nature of these whiteboard videos; it’s disarming and it helps put people at ease and makes them feel more comfortable, because it can be really intimidating to come in and see a financial advisor.
What they found is that these clients were vetting them online, and the whiteboard video was helping bridge that critical gap between them just being looked at online and having those people actually come into the office and have the courage to meet them in person and become their client. Another one of our clients got nine new clients in one month using our videos as part of his overall digital marketing strategy, and he had a very specific niche. He’s targeting teachers. We helped him create these whiteboard videos that are all about the needs of teachers, and that really robust internet presence that he built all centered around his niche, started attracting people from all over the nation that were just finding him online because he’s specialized in what they needed.
He really uses those videos to communicate with them in a way that’s really engaging and entertaining, and also, the videos, because they keep people watching, it elevates his search engine results because people are staying on his site longer. Time on site is one of the big things that Google looks at to rank your website higher. It’s helping him be found online because he’s really strategically using this video content for people and for search engines. Another one of our clients also has a specialty. His niche is special-needs families, families with special-needs members. Then we created some custom videos for him about the needs of families with members with special needs. Now, he’s been using those in his presentations when he does live presentations, and he said it just makes the learning more fun.
It makes him stand out. He really appreciates that. Then one of our clients said that this is what he was hearing from his clients, that the videos are so professional in look and sound. I’ve heard multiple times that they’re way more interesting than a video of me trying to explain this stuff. That’s the feedback he got. Another one of our clients found that as she was using the video in email communication, that five times more people were actually opening the content and engaging with it. Just like you, Claire. It’s the kind of content that people want to watch. Then here’s the last one. One of our clients, he posted one of the videos that we made for him on his Facebook page. Then a friend of his from high school said, “Hey, Kevin, are you a financial advisor? We need to talk to you.”
That was someone who already knew him, liked him, trusted him, just didn’t know how he could help them. When he saw that creative marketing that he put out there online, they got in touch and that one client became a client worth $200,000 in AUM. Just one free Facebook post did that.
CA: That’s great. I totally agree. As you said with the-second-to last comment, that if you send out the same content in an email format, save linking to a blog post, or in a video format, the video will always get at least twice as many views. I see that with my own marketing. It’s just really powerful and people are much more willing to watch a video than they are to read the same content. I think it’s really important for advisors that may not know to understand the ecosystem out there, that Google is the biggest search engine in the world. Google now owns YouTube and they are really trying to push video content, specifically on YouTube, as an answer to the questions people type into Google.
So when people are typing up maybe something about their financial planning or a concern they have, if you have a video that answers their question, Google really wants to show that as the search result. Working with that ecosystem, it’s really smart if you have a specialty to create videos for your specialty that answer your prospects’ most pressing questions. I definitely appreciate all those stories. Thanks for sharing them with us. What are the most common mistakes? I have a lot of advisors that want to get started with video marketing. They don’t know where to start. What are the most common mistakes that you’re seeing with video marketing?
JA: Sometimes people are focusing too much on what we call talking-head videos, which is just you on camera talking, and I think it is very important to have at least one video of you on camera because people will feel like they met you in person. It really does establish that personal connection with you online, but after the first one, then I think it’s smart to move on to other styles of videos that are more entertaining, because it can get really boring watching a talking-head video if you’re watching a whole series of them. Definitely doing videos that are a different style, more entertaining, more educational—like our whiteboard videos—I think is a really smart choice. Another common mistake I see advisors making with video marketing is just too much talking about themselves.
That’s why we really focus on FAQs, frequently asked questions, because when you focus on the questions that people are asking, then you know that you’re providing valuable content that they can actually use. It has a really nice benefit of positioning you as an expert who can answer those questions. So I think that’s a much better approach rather than just talking about yourself, is to talk about the things that the person you’re talking to cares about and provide value and showcase your expertise. As Claire is saying, that can also help you be found on search engines when you’re answering those questions that people are typing into search engines. The last mistake I notice is we talked to a lot of advisors who know that they should be doing video and who aren’t doing it yet, and who keep putting it off.
I think that’s just a big mistake, is not getting started and just making it harder than it has to be. That’s really why we created our turnkey video system, is to make it very fast and easy to just get started and get out of the blocks without a huge investment of time and money.
CA: Absolutely. That’s a great tip. I think it’s so funny when advisors come to me and they want to do a video, but then they’re embarrassed to be on camera. And I always think to myself that, “You realize that you look like that in real life. Your clients meet with you in real life and so you shouldn’t be embarrassed to be on camera because you look the same in these face-to-face meetings.” I really recommend taking the time out, committing to video, thinking about where on your website you want your videos to reside before you make them, is kind of a good tip that I give advisors. I always recommend having one video on your home page that explains exactly what you do and who you serve. Having a video on your bio page, the page about you that explains why you do what you do.
I have a couple of examples of these that I’ll link below, but your story should bring people to tears, and I have a few advisors who have stories of why they became an advisor that will bring you to tears if you watch them. And I’ll link a couple of those below. It should be so powerful that people are emotionally moved to remember you so that when they need your help or someone they know needs your help, it’s easy for them to refer you. Then you should also have a video that talks about your specialty, and so when you go to your page about who you serve, you should be doing the videos that Jill mentioned that are talking about the most common questions you get from people, the urgent needs that they have, the things that they’re typing into Google at 8:00 p.m. trying to figure out.
The questions, what we call the 2:00 a.m. questions, of what are they thinking about at 2:00 a.m.? What’s keeping them up at night? Have a video that demonstrates you’re familiar with their background, their concerns, their situation, and invite them to start the conversation with you. I think that’s great advice, to think about what they need and not talk so much about yourself except when it comes to that one video on the page about your story. To close out, I just want to get your last piece of advice, Jill. If you could point the advisors listening to one thing today to make them more successful from a marketing perspective, what do you recommend?
JA: Just showing up is 90% of the battle. Just get started, stop putting it off, and don’t wait. Get into action with this strategy today with using videos in your practice. I recommend that you choose a turnkey system like ours so that it’s not overwhelming, it’s not too big of a commitment on your part. You can learn more about that if you just go to our website, faclientmachine.com. We’ve got a webinar there that we’ll walk you through it. You can educate yourself a bit about it, and then if you’d like to talk more, please reach out.
CA: That’s great advice and I totally agree. I was just talking to a really, really successful advisor, and he was saying they had the best quarter they’ve ever had, to which I said, “Congratulations.” He then said, “Yeah, well, thanks. But that quarter was built three years ago. The marketing that we did three years ago built our best quarter ever.” So marketing is something that is so important to invest in now because it takes time for people to get to know you, to start to trust you, and then to have a need that causes them to act. Getting in front of them every single month with a video, staying top of mind is a great way to start pouring the fuel into your marketing fire that will pay off down the road. Thank you so much, Jill, for being a part of our show.
If anyone wants to learn more about her business, go to faclientmachine.com, and thanks so much for joining us.
JA: Of course. Thank you.
CA: If you’d like any resources from today’s episode or from other episodes, go to indigomarketingagency.com/remember. It’s hard to forget that address, Indigomarketingagency.com/remember.
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About Claire
Claire Akin runs Indigo Marketing Agency, a full-service marketing firm serving financial advisors. It’s her mission to help independent financial advisors help more people through their incredibly important work. Claire is a former Investment Advisor Representative who holds her MBA in Marketing from the Rady School of Management at UC San Diego as well as a BA in Economics from UC Davis.
