Seminars are Inefficient. Build Your Authority in Financial Services Efficiently with Webinars

 

Seminars have been used by financial advisors for years; however, with the emergence of webinars, seminars have become somewhat inefficient.

 

Using webinars as a sales tactic is also easier for your prospects, as the broadcast is available online in real-time and recordings are available if they missed it.

 

These are the reasons why you want to incorporate webinars into your marketing and client acquisition strategies for your financial advisory firm:

 

Webinars Are More Scalable & Cost Effective for Financial Advisors

 

As a financial advisor working with a limited marketing budget, you need to be savvy. This means finding more scalable cost-effective way of educating your target clientele.

 

Financial advisors who use seminars as part of their client acquisition strategies are constantly grumbling about the costs and lack of ROI.

 

A webinar is going to be considerably more affordable than a seminar.

 

You don’t have to rent a venue.

 

You also don’t have to spend a lot of money on marketing for the seminar because you are trying to get people into a single location at a specific time.

 

You don’t have to guarantee a minimum number of attendees from the venue you’re renting from.

 

You Get More Marketing Mileage Out of a Webinar

 

 

A seminar can be inconvenient for people who have busy lives.

 

You can’t expect everyone to show up at a certain time, especially if your venue is in an inconvenient location for them.

 

You will also have to set up a time, whether it’s morning, afternoon, or evening.

 

You will never be able to choose the perfect time for everyone.

 

These issues are eliminated with webinars.

 

Financial planning webinars can be made available after it goes live. This means that you can keep it up for a few hours or days.

 

Expert Tip: If you are proactive and add your webinar recording to YouTube, it will always be available for anyone to view.

 

Although it will not be live, your target clients can still get all of the information. It also allows people to contact you for help with managing their financial matters after the webinar, too.

 

The Presentation Stays on Topic

 

Have you ever held a seminar only to have one person constantly try to derail your presentation with their own personal questions?

 

A financial planning seminar should be beneficial to everyone – not just one person.

 

There is also an additional benefit for you: you will gain more insights about your target clients. When you make the leap to hosting your first webinar, there are several things you are going to learn, including:

 

• Which topics and talking points resonate with your target audience
• Which calls to action are most effective with your target audience
• Common questions that individuals within your target demographic ask

 

All of these are going to help your webinar, and future marketing for your firm, be successful.

 

Financial Advisors, these are the Required Steps to Ensure Your Webinar is a Success

 

 

These are the steps you will need to take to present a successful webinar

 

1. Build your email list – If you don’t already have a list from your website, try these steps:
   
   
   • Advertise via Facebook ads, Google ads, LinkedIn ads, Reddit ads, or manual outreach
     
     
   • Leverage another person’s list, ideally someone with the same target audience
     
     
   • Build your email list organically with blogging and guest blogging
     
     

   You should aim for a goal of 1,000 email subscribers before holding your first webinar. Use your email list to publicize your webinar and share the pertinent information with your target attendees.

    

2. Setup Your Webinar Platform – In order to communicate to all of your attendees, you need a platform to communicate with them all at once and also screen sharing capability.
   
   

3. Common platforms for webinars include (in alphabetical order):
   
   

   • Adobe Connect
   • AnyMeeting
   • BigMarker
   • ClickMeeting
   • EasyWebinar
   • EverWebinar
   • Google Hangouts
   • GoToWebinar
   • Join.me (premium version)
   • Livestorm
   • MeetingBurner
   • MyWebinarPlace
   • ON24
   • WebinarNinja
   • WebinarsOnAir
   • Webinato
   • WorkCast
   • Zoom

   
   Make sure to choose an option in which you can record the webinar for future marketing purposes.

    

4. Create your Webinar Landing Pages – There are several landing pages you should make for your webinar, including:
   
   
   • Webinar Registration page, where you provide the important details for the webinar like the date, time, and any downloads you want attendees to review beforehand. You also want to be sure to collect registrants’ contact info, specifically their names and email addresses.
     
     
   • Webinar Thank You page, where you provide options for registrants to share on social media
     
     
   • Webinar Replay page, where you embed the webinar recording
     
     

   I personally use Unbounce for my landing pages, but LeadPages is also a popular option.

    

   

    

5. Giving the Presentation – These are some best practices to remember before and during your presentation:popular option.
   
   
   • Remember to ask your attendees if they can hear and see you before you start presentingpopular option.
     
     
   • Start engaging your attendees from the start to break the ice, by asking their names and where they’re from once they join the conferencepopular option.
     
     
   • Give your registrants a few minutes to join the webinar and sort out any technical issuespopular option.
     
     
   • Remember there may be a lag between your speaking and your attendees hearing your words. Keep this in mind when asking questionspopular option.
     
     
   • Always make sure you provide value. This starts with the development of your webinar’s topic and content, and ends with you showing attendees that there is expert help available – you!

    

   

    

   Lastly, remember that your goal for the webinar is to entice prospective clients to book an appointment with you to learn more about your services

    

6. After the Webinar – When the webinar is over, you are not finished! Follow these steps to get more mileage from your webinar efforts:
   
   
   • Add a recording of the webinar to the replay page you created in Step 3
     
     
   • Add the recording to YouTube, and optimize the video for your target keywords. Also, make sure to include your office number in the video’s headline
     
     
   • Add intro and outro segments to the webinar to give it a more professional look and feel. You can create these segments yourself or outsource the work to a freelancer. Great freelancer sites include upWork, Freelancer.com, or FiveRR.
     
     
   • Transcribe the webinar video, and use it as a blog post on your website. You can also take snippets from the transcription and use them on your social media platforms, namely Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. You can also leverage a freelancer’s services for this task
     
     
   • If you used a slide deck during your presentation, upload this deck to SlideShare.
     
     
   • Extract the audio from the recording and provide it as another option to consume the webinar’s content. You can add the audio clip to the blog transcription and also other audio content sites like Soundcloud.

 

Webinar Marketing for Financial Advisors: Why They are a Great Time Investment

 

 

Learning how to use webinars as a client acquisition tool is easier than you might think.

 

Webinars allow you to:

 

• Present to more prospective clients
• Promote to and reach more potential clients outside of your geographical area
  
  

If you’re going to be smart about presenting a financial planning seminar, then you should choose repurposing that presentation into a webinar.

 

Those individuals who are interested in your information will surely thank you for it!

 

Interested about learning more about any of the steps listed here? Contact us today for more information!