MARKETING
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Your Video Assets Need Strategy to Generate ROI
By Kerri Feazell
An advisor recently asked me: “What would it cost to do a short video that describes our process?”
It’s not a bad question, but if I provide the simplest answer, I’m doing him a disservice. It’s a bit like one of your prospects asking you: “What would it cost to buy a stock?”
I wanted to help this advisor, not just sell him something, so I probed a little further to find out what benefits he was hoping to see from the video. He replied, “If we had a short video on our website which took a few minutes to explain what we do and how we do it, it would probably be very helpful. Is making this type of video difficult and expensive?”
Again, this kind of question is like one of your clients saying: “I’d like to buy Nike stock because they are a big company and are successful. Is Nike stock hard to buy, and is it expensive?”
My answer went something like this: “There are many ways to approach video for this purpose, not all of them difficult or expensive. Rather than quote prices for specific videos, I’d first like to clarify your goals.”
I proposed a phone call to learn more about the specific problem he was trying to solve and the results he was hoping for.
I’m guessing you might say something similar to a prospect asking how to buy a stock. After all, you’re an advisor, not a stockbroker.
Think of investing in marketing as you think of investing in the market. The purpose of creating a video isn’t to “have a video” any more than the purpose of investing is to own a financial instrument.
What Happens Without Strategy?
In the example above, I could make it easy on myself and quote my prospect a price for the type of video he’s looking for, hire a camera crew to film him, edit the video, and deliver it. He might put it up somewhere on his website and hope people watch it.
If this is the best result he can imagine, he’s better off recording himself with his phone. It might work OK. Plenty of investors purchase Nike stock through a discount brokerage and hope it goes up, but they’re missing out on the advantages of working with a professional.
Without a strategy, my prospect is missing out on options for business growth. Until he has a strategic conversation with a creative professional, he won’t know what those options are or which ones are right for his business.
As an expert in your field, your mind may be reeling with all the options our Nike stock buyer is missing out on simply because he doesn’t have your expertise. It’s not his fault that he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know—it’s what makes your work necessary and valuable.
Benefits of Strategy
If you believe strategy gets better results for investors, why not apply the same wisdom to marketing?
With strategy, you get advice from a professional.
An ideal video strategist:
- Specializes in the financial advisor niche
- Knows how to apply video strategy to specific business goals
- Has a strong network of other professionals with complementary marketing skills
By working with a video strategist instead of someone who simply makes videos, you will get better results because they will be aligned with your business objectives.
With strategy, you clarify challenges and discover creative solutions.
A good video strategist does a lot of listening and asks careful questions designed to understand the business problems that you need to solve and the goals you want to reach. The more specific your problems and goals, the more creative the strategist can be with solutions.
For example, I recently spoke with an advisor whose challenge was that he wanted “more clients.” After more probing, I discovered that he was offering his expertise to prospects on LinkedIn, individually, to prove he could help them. Once he made clear that he hoped to be hired, he never heard from them again.
It turned out that he had a more specific challenge: At a particular moment in his sales process, his prospects disappeared.
Because I had clarified this specific challenge, I was able to propose a creative solution that would begin his conversations with qualified leads who understood that he was both genuinely interested in helping and that he was offering paid advisory services.
With strategy, you gain an advantage over competitors who aren’t using strategy.
I sometimes hear from advisors: “I get all my business from referrals, so I don’t need to invest in a video strategy.” That’s the equivalent of our investor saying: “I have all my money in Nike stock, so I don’t need to hire an advisor.”
Many of your competitors have found something that works for them, and they do that, maybe for a long while. But even if it’s going well, it will eventually stop working.
Strategy gives you diversified options to keep your pipeline full even if your primary lead source dries up.
With strategy, you’ll have fewer blind spots—a competitive advantage.
How Will You Know if Your Video Strategy Is Successful?
Author Lewis Carroll wisely said, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”
Do you begin your engagements with clients discussing their end goals? Me too.
Focus on results; set outcomes from the beginning.
Because most video production companies are not video strategists, it’s likely that you’re not talking to vendors who ask about the results you want to see with video. It’s time to fill in that blank.
Ask yourself: Why do I want to use video?
Common answers:
- I heard videos perform better than other content on social media.
- I just launched a new website, and video is the last thing I need to check off the list to complete it.
- Everyone else seems to be excited about video, and I don’t want to get left behind.
Better answers:
- Acquire new clients
- Educate current clients and maintain good relationships with them
- Recruit advisors to work at my firm
- Talk to more qualified leads
Specific, goal-oriented answers:
- Gain 12 new clients this year
- Reduce client attrition by 10% and increase client referrals by 10%
- Recruit 40 new advisors who are a good match for my firm
- Reduce conversations with unqualified leads by 20%
The more specific your goals, the easier it is to measure the success of your video strategy.
If your video strategy is not as successful as you hoped—because, like financial markets, marketing outcomes can’t always be predicted—you can keep what works and adjust what doesn’t.
Key Takeaways
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Kerri Feazell is a video strategist and co-founder of Authentic Advisor Video. She is a listener, re-examiner, and introvert. Kerri especially enjoys interviewing advisors to draw out their authentic selves on camera.
image credit: istock.com/GOCMEN
