PRACTICE MANAGEMENT

Loom: Tech Fad or Game-Changer?

By Nick Covyeau

Each month it seems like there is a new technology saying it’s the answer to all your needs. Claims include saving you time, growing your practice faster, or transforming your firm’s client experience. It can be hard to decide which tech tools to experiment with (or drop) and how to implement a new tool into your firm’s current tech stack.

I’ve found five compelling reasons why it might be worthwhile to add Loom at your practice.

What is Loom?

Loom is a video messaging tool designed to help you communicate with your clients and prospects more efficiently and effectively through instantly shareable videos.

With Loom, you can record your camera, microphone, and desktop screen simultaneously, as you’ll see in this sample. Upon creating a short video, you can instantly share it through Loom’s technology, including embedding it into an email message.

5 Reasons to Add Loom

1. Your Practice, Following the Pandemic, Now Includes the Option for Virtual Meetings
Before the pandemic, 86% of investors reported preferring to communicate/meet in person with their advisor, according to a 2018–2019 global investor survey conducted by Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA). Two years later, DFA found that 60% of client meetings were conducted virtually. That’s quite a dramatic change.

Client behavior has changed since the pandemic, but has your firm kept up? If you’re now conducting more virtual meetings, this may be a good time to introduce other new tools to stay in front of your clients and further engage them.

2. Simplify the Complex
Remember how online scheduling software like Calendly solved the problem of endless emails back and forth to figure out a convenient meeting time for both parties?

Loom gives you a new option when explaining a topic—like Roth conversions or detailed transfer instructions—that is complicated to explain using email. You still provide the email with all the details. But you also send a short, personalized video explaining your email, expanding on the topic, and mirroring your screen as you walk your client through the topic. When the client opens your Loom video, there you are, smiling face and all, almost as if you’re in the room with them breaking down this advanced topic step by step.

3. Tell Me, AND Show Me
Research tells us that viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it on video versus 10% when reading that message in a text.¹ Messages in motion are more engaging, and a tool like Loom checks all of the boxes by engaging multiple learning styles.

Now, not only can you record yourself and send a quick note to a client, but within Loom you can also screen-share to show your client the step-by-step clicks involved in whatever process you’re attempting to communicate.

Loom videos are saved online. This allows your client to pause, rewind, and replay your videos should they need to or recall a certain step in the process.

4. Build More Engagement and Automate
Loom lets you create videos that you can use firmwide as staples of your ongoing processes. For example, think of all of the topics you need to explain when onboarding a new client. Create a video library to address these and other topics that you cover frequently.

You also can create separate videos that are unique and specific to individual clients and their email responses or for meeting follow-ups.

Plus, Loom timestamps your videos, much like DocuSign or marketing platform ConvertKit, so you can track and see who opened and engaged with your video.

5. Prospect Differently and Stand Out
Tired of leaving voicemails? Or sending emails that never get a response? Using Loom, you can now build rapport and demonstrate your value to prospects more quickly and efficiently.

Very few advisors are using Loom today, and even fewer are using it as part of their prospecting process to deliver value and stand out.

Think of what your experience as a prospect would be if, following an intro meeting with a financial planner, that planner emailed you a short, personalized, and concise video message highlighting your financial plan and demonstrating how they could help you make real changes.

Bonus Tip: Compliance

There are two key points to pay close attention to when using Loom. First, you must archive and properly store videos. Loom stores all of the videos on its platform within its Library feature. Additionally, I back up the video to the Microsoft Cloud and also securely and compliantly store it on my backup hard drive. Second, do not share or include sensitive client information like tax returns, account numbers, etc. These are points you should already be sensitive to from your other client communications.

Personalization Matters

It’s important to remember that we as planners are in the people business. Any time you have an opportunity to create an additional personalized touchpoint with your client, you remind them of why they chose you and how you’re adding value for them.

And relax. Not all Looms have to be breakdowns of technical topics like the new tax code provisions or major changes to client portfolios. They can also be used for light, fun messages. A Loom video can be great to send as a birthday message or to celebrate a major milestone with a client.

This could be a game-changer for you!

1. Lyndsi Stafford, “How To Incorporate Video Into Your Social Media Strategy,” Forbes.com.

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Nick Covyeau is the owner and a financial planner at Swell Financial, a planning firm in Costa Mesa, CA, that focuses on serving pre-retirees and millennials. You may reach him with your questions or comments at nick@swellfinancialpartners.com.

image credit: istock.com/ilkercelik