You're listening to “Financial Advisor Marketing”—the best show on the planet for financial advisors who want to get more clients, without all the stress. You're about to get the real scoop on everything from lead generation to closing the deal.
James is the founder of TheAdvisorCoach.com, where you can find an entire suite of products designed to help financial advisors grow their businesses more rapidly than ever before. Now, here is your host, James Pollard.
James: Yes, yes, y’all, it’s another episode of the Financial Advisor Marketing podcast. If this is your very first episode, welcome aboard, I'm glad to have you. Go back and listen to all the episodes. I have them here for you to use. If this is your 100th episode or maybe more, then welcome back. I am so appreciative. I'm glad to have you here. [00:50.7]
I didn't really know what to title this episode. I was going to do “Does video marketing still make sense for financial advisors?” because there are some bad things and there are some things that have changed over the years. Then I was going to do “How financial advisors can get clients with video marketing” because there are some good things. There are some wonderful things about video marketing.
However, since I was thinking about both the good things and the bad things, I figured I might as well title this episode “Pros and cons of video marketing for financial advisors.” But before I get into the pros and cons, and there are a few of each, I want to read some video marketing statistics and give you my quick take as a professional marketer about what I think.
According to Insivia, viewers retain 95 percent of a message when they watch it on video compared to 10 percent when reading it through text, and this sounds good, but I'm not sure I believe this. I guess it depends on where the video is. If it's on a sales page or a landing page, something dedicated specifically for that video, then, yes, maybe. I've seen some sales pages convert higher with video while others don't. I'm going to talk about that later. [01:54.5]
In the e-commerce space, obviously, financial advisors won't be in e-commerce, but just to give you an idea, there are some upsell pages and the upsell headline will be “Don't proceed” or “Your purchase is almost complete. Make sure you watch this video,” and that's the only page people are on. Then, yes, they're going to watch the video and they're going to pay attention, and if they pay attention, they're obviously going to retain the message.
Another area where video has an extremely high retention rate based on my experience is email marketing. I constantly talk about email marketing as the best, most effective appointment-setting strategy for financial advisors, for one of the reasons, and I'm going to give you one reason, because people tend to focus on email and only email when they're using it on their mobile device.
A lot of people will check their email first thing when they wake up. They do so on a phone when they're opening their email, by definition, if they have an app open, unless there's some new split-screen thing I don't really know about. Most people's phones only allow them to have one app open at a time. If they have one app open at a time and they're reading their email, again, by definition, the only thing they're going to be focused on is the email. [03:00.0]
Most of the time, I want to be clear, I don't recommend that financial advisors try to insert video in their emails right away. They should master the basics. They should master the text only. I don't really even recommend images a lot of the time because images don't automatically load on email service providers. But there is an advanced way to use video in email. I've talked about this before in the inner circle newsletter. It is an advanced strategy. I would not jump to video right away, but there are areas where it makes sense.
On social media, I don't think that there's a 95 percent retention rate, because there are other videos and there are other distractions, and people are one click away from the cutest darn cats and the cutest darn dachshunds you've ever seen.
Look, I watched a video of a basset hound on YouTube, literally, just one video. I wanted to see this basset hound, I thought he was cute, and now I can't stop getting recommendations of basset hounds, basset hounds howling, basset hounds running. YouTube thinks I love basset hounds. They're just serving me more and more and more videos. I don't know what that has to do with retention, but I just figured you should know that I am being inundated with basset hound videos. [04:12.0]
Next statistic: according to WordStream, marketers who use video grew revenue 49 percent faster than non-video users. You have to remember here, and I don't want to be a devil's advocate. I know that I say you can't really listen to these people who are always trying to rain on your parade, but you really do have to remember that correlation is not causation.
Chances are, if a company is using video, that company is probably using other marketing strategies and trying other things. Video isn't exactly cutting edge anymore, but it was a couple years ago, and when social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn started pushing video in the feeds and it used to work really, really well. We're going to talk about how the reach has declined on LinkedIn, but there was a period of time where video was absolutely hot. [04:57.5]
If a company used video, chances are that company was also on the cutting edge with a lot of other marketing strategies, and those marketing strategies probably contributed to the 49 percent faster revenue growth. So, it may or may not be true that video marketing caused the increase in revenue. It's just correlated with the increase in revenue, and this same idea holds true with a lot of these stats. Correlation is not causation.
Another stat that I saw is that video marketers get 66 percent more qualified leads per year—that comes from OptinMonster—and that may be true, but the video may or may not have caused the 66 percent increase in qualified leads. It's just that if you have a company that is more likely to try video, that company is probably more likely to do other stuff.
There's a story I told on the podcast, many, many, many, many, many episodes ago where there's a whole series of books about what to expect when you're expecting and there's an entire section or market to pregnant women. [05:58.0]
The pregnant women who are most likely to get a book about babies and baby health and baby growth, they are probably going to be good mothers anyway, without the book, because they're showing a propensity to invest in themselves and invest in their education to secure resources for the child that they're going to have. The women who completely ignored these resources and they're like, I ain't reading no baby book, they're probably going to be terrible mothers anyway. It’s not like the book caused the women to be incredible mothers. They were probably going to be incredible mothers anyway. I hope that makes sense.
Another stat from WordStream. One-third of all online activity is spent watching videos. Apparently YouTube thinks that one-third of my time should be spent watching basset hounds videos, and this can be easily verified, and, yeah, I think it's spot on. I would say, now it's probably a little bit more than one-third. I think it's going to grow to be much more than one-third over the net next couple years, but it depends. You have to consider where people are watching the videos. [07:02.2]
There are a lot of big social platforms I've said, like LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. They are supporting video. The reach is going down because it is being saturated. I don't want to give the impression that everyone and their mother is doing video, because that's certainly not the case, but when you hear a stat about people watching video online. There's Netflix. There's Hulu. There's Paramount+. There's YouTube. There are so many different streaming services that are all online, so, yeah, if you're spending time online, the chances are a part of that is going to be on one of the streaming services. Are you seeking out a video that is a marketing video? Not necessarily, so you have to take that with the grain of salt.
According to eMarketer, 75 percent of all videos are played on mobile devices. This is also easily verifiable. You have to keep this in mind as you're creating your videos, and you can verify this stat for your own business if you're running ads, because, a lot of times, ad platforms like Facebook and Google will actually break down how much traffic came from mobile versus desktop. [08:03.1]
A little tip: a lot of the out-of-the-box webinar solutions, like EverWebinar, WebinarJam, and I think it's like WebinarNinja and stuff like that, they are actually built to convert on mobile and you might actually see higher conversions on mobile than you do on desktop.
If that's the case, you could probably get a big, big boost in your advertising by targeting on mobile only. If you're advertising a podcast, for example, the platforms like Facebook, Google, I know Twitter does it for sure, they will allow you to target people who are on a mobile device only.
Even more than that, you can target by which device they're using. If they're on iOS, which is the Apple, basically, the product, and it's not like Android or whatever, so if they're on iOS, you can direct them to an iTunes link because that is what would make most sense for them. They're probably going to use iTunes. [08:55.0]
You can also target Wi-Fi-connected versus Wi-Fi-not-connected, I should say, and if you're targeting people to show them a podcast or something and these people are unlimited data plans or whatever, the chances of them downloading a podcast go up significantly if the connect connected to Wi-Fi. I'm rambling a little bit, so I will move on.
According to Verizon, 92 percent of consumers watch videos with the sound off. This means if you're not using a service like Rev.com, R-E-V [dot] com, or Zubtitle, Z-U-B-title, Zubtitle, to caption your videos, you're wasting your time.
When I'm on YouTube, I almost never watch videos with the sound off. I almost always have the sound on when I'm watching YouTube videos, so I can hear those sweet little basset hound puppies howling, howling, howling. But when I'm on social media, I almost always have the sound off. I hate it. I can't stand it. Maybe I'm speaking for myself and myself only, but I hate having videos autoplay on social media, so I almost always have the sound off. You should keep that in mind. I'm sure there are a lot of people who are like me. [10:04.7]
Hey, financial advisors. If you'd like even more help building your business, I invite you to subscribe to James' monthly paper-and-ink newsletter, “The James Pollard Inner Circle”. When you'd join today, you'll get more than $1,000 worth of bonuses, including exclusive interviews that aren't available anywhere else. Head on over to TheAdvisorCoach.com/coaching to learn more.
Okay, let's get into some of the pros and the cons. The first pro I have for you here is that video is an asset that can operate independently of your time, and this is in line with what I teach financial advisors. It's also something that has changed so many lives. I'm humbled to see the increase in personal income, the increase in satisfaction, the increase in just happiness with financial advisors when they get this and they understand that business building is about building assets to operate independently every time. [10:58.0]
It's not like an E-Myth thing. It's not even like a systems thinking. It's literally just an asset. I'm not talking about creating marketing campaigns or even little tactics. I'm talking about having stuff that continues to work, no matter what you're doing, and the way I can explain this to where people get it is to describe a different asset, like real estate or, I mean, picture an index fund or an ETF with a bunch of stocks, like Vanguard’s Total World Stock ETF. The ticker symbol is VT.
The world's financial system would have to come to an end for the world stock market to cease being an asset for me, and I did some number crunching in Portfolio Visualizer and I found that if I made a $10,000-investment into VT, in that ETF, in 2012, my income from that investment in the very first year would be $265 and last year it would've been $562, assuming I reinvested the dividends.
That doesn't include capital appreciation. It's just the income. The asset would keep throwing off cash, no matter what I did. I could be working. I could be sleeping. Heaven forbid, I could be dead. Think of that. When I pass away, that asset will continue to generate income, it doesn't matter. It does not matter. [12:12.4]
There was a story about Jordan Belfort, and I don't condone any of the stuff that he did. I think that you can learn from everyone, good and bad. You can learn what to do; you can learn what not to do. But you have to realize Jordan Belfort made millions and millions of dollars when he was off doing illicit activity, okay? He was caught out and he has talked about this. I'm not saying anything new. If you’ve watched The Wolf of Wall Street, if you watch his videos, you know that he was off doing some illicit activity.
How did he continue to rake in millions and millions and millions of dollars? His asset was the team that made the cold calls for him and continued to reach out and continued to grow the brand that he had built. I'm trying to get financial advisors to think the same way, but to think of things that can be automated. [13:00.3]
Jordan Belfort didn't have websites or LinkedIn, or the powerful websites that we have today, or LinkedIn, or video marketing even. It takes some work in the beginning to create these assets, but you can get to the point where you have marketing that continues to pay metaphorical dividends, no matter what you do. Email is one. Direct mail is another. Social media is another, if set up correctly, of course—and, yes, video is, too. If you record a video and put it on your website, the video will continue to play for people, no matter what you're doing. People will see who you are and bond with you independently of your time.
The podcast is another example of this. Who knows what I'm doing right now as you listen to this? It doesn't matter, and it doesn't matter what I'm doing five years from now or 20 years from now. The audio recording will continue to exist as an asset for me, as long as I choose to use it. [13:56.0]
The next pro is that video marketing can be used across multiple marketing strategies. This is also 100 percent in line with what I teach. I just gave an example of putting video on your website. The same video could be used on social media. It could be used in your email marketing campaigns. Like I said, your videos should not exist by themselves. I personally use videos sometimes in my ads. Sometimes they've been massive winners. Other times they've been duds.
One of the cons to video is that it takes a lot of time to make, which means that with advertising and online ads, specifically, I can't always run as many tests as I want. I mean, it might take me five minutes to upload 10 different images to test in an ad, but it would take a lot more than five minutes to record 10 different videos for a test.
I'm going to let you in on a little secret here. What I do when I have a video ad is I test the thumbnail and/or the headline in the video. I use a service called Zubtitle. I mentioned Zubtitle.com. I actually use Zubtitle to add captions and sometimes I'll add a headline, too. [15:04.0]
I can go in there, change that headline and run a test. One video's headline could be something like “Seven video marketing tips for financial advisors” and the other one can be “Seven mistakes financial advisors make with video,” and I can talk about both in the video. That way, it's not weird. People wouldn't want to watch a video that says “Seven mistakes financial advisors make,” and then they watch a video and there are no mistakes, right? I make sure I talk about both topics in the video. That way, both headlines make sense and I'm split-testing them. That's what I'm doing.
Number three, the third pro that I have here for you is that video marketing can increase conversions on your website, but not always. This is straddling the line between pro and con. I will say that I have seen video marketing increase conversions more for financial advisors than decrease conversions, but I really do want to stress that it is not automatic, like Conversion Booster. There are some articles out there which suggest that you should always have video on your website and that's not true because I have seen it go both ways. [16:03.8]
There's not really a tried and true formula for the right way to have video on your website. I've seen doodle videos do extremely well, but I've also seen amateur videos shot from an iPhone do very well along with professional videos with expensive cameras, good lighting and awesome post-production. I've also seen all three of those fail, so there's really nothing I can tell you to give you a sense of direction as far as video. I'm sorry. I apologize for this, but it's just I'm not going to B.S. you with some B.S.
But I can tell you this. The headline, just like with the advertisements, what I'm actually doing with my own money, the headline and the text surrounding the video makes a big difference. Just like with those advertisements, if you're going to test something, test the headline above your video and the call-to-action button under your video if you have one.
Those are the pros. Let me give you [the cons]. I think I have two cons here. There are only two major, major cons that I can think of with video marketing, at least right now. I'm sure as soon as I'm done recording this video, I'll think of 17 more, because that's how things work, right? [17:04.2]
The first one is that video marketing can take a lot of time, so you have to weigh your options here. You have to see, Is my time better invested elsewhere? and for most financial advisors, the answer is yes, unless you already have an email marketing system maxed out; you have your social media maxed out; you have your direct mail campaigns maxed out; you have your client appreciation maxed out; you have your webinars maxed out. Unless you are checking all of those boxes, then you probably shouldn’t jump immediately to video marketing.
I'm also talking about the time it takes to create a video. You can shoot a quick video on your iPhone and be done with it, but the high-quality videos, they do require editing, and unless you're hiring a video editor or an editing service, you're going to have to do that in-house, which means either you or an employee you are paying has to do it. If you're paying somebody else to do it, it's expensive with money. If you're doing it yourself, it's expensive with time. [18:00.3]
The other con that I have here for you is that if you're doing LinkedIn marketing, especially stuff like I teach over at How to Get Clients with LinkedIn video training, video’s reach on LinkedIn is very low when compared to other types of status updates, and this is a double whammy when you consider the time it takes to make.
You could invest a lot of time and/or money if someone else is helping you, you can invest a lot of time recording a video and put it on LinkedIn, and it doesn't do very well. It doesn't have a lot of reach, and if you don't believe me, just try it for yourself. Post a video on LinkedIn and compare your reach to other posts, like text with image and polls. Just see what happens. You don't have to believe me. I want you to see it for yourself. See what happens, because men lie, women lie, but numbers don't lie.
The argument for video on LinkedIn is that it humanizes you. It gives people a chance to connect with you. Things like that, and all of that is true. People like seeing a human face. They like hearing your voice. They like seeing you in your office in your natural environment. They don't like seeing you being robotic. They don't like seeing you acting like you're someone who you're not, so video can cut both ways. You can invest a lot of time, not get the reach that you want, and actually turn people off by pretending to be someone else. [19:13.2]
But if you do video well, then yes, you can build rapport. You can build trust. You can build credibility. But at the same time, again, you must weigh all of the other factors involved in your business to see if it's right for you. You must consider the other things that you're doing, like webinar marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, website marketing.
Are you up to speed on those things? If yes and you have other time that you can't put anywhere else, you're just finding yourself with extra time—kind of like finding extra money in your budget, where you have maxed out your 401(k) contributions. You've maxed out everything you can do. You're putting a bunch of money in an after-tax account, something like that. Your emergency fund is maxed out. You have no debt and you just have extra money, you can give yourself permission to do whatever you want with that money, and that is kind of how good marketing builds on itself. [20:08.8]
You have to make sure you have that metaphorical marketing emergency fund, your deferred contribution plans. You have to contribute to a whole bunch of stuff. You have to make sure you have your right marketing strategies done before venturing out into something like video.
That is it for this week's episode. I hope that made sense for you. I hope that helps you, the pros and cons of video marketing for financial advisors. If you like this sort of stuff, please share it online. Leave a positive review. Costs you nothing, but it helps the show—and I'll catch you next week. [20:42.2]
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