Meet John. He is a baby boomer who had been working his whole life tirelessly to accumulate wealth. Throughout the years, John had been served thousands of investment products through social media, print material, personal consultations, and TV commercials.
Now let’s meet Jane – a proud member of the Generation Z. She spends her day on desktop and mobile devices, browsing the internet, interacting on social media, working remotely, and shopping online. Jane is earning a good income and realizes she will likely be the one with the purchasing power in the following decades. She wants to invest but feels overwhelmed by all the options out there.
What unites the Johns and the Janes in today’s market is that they either don’t have the time, the interest, or the trust to believe ads, especially when it comes to managing their finances. But connecting with the Johns and the Janes is essential for financial institutions, as they are the ones with the capital today and tomorrow’s purchasing power.
As an investment manager, you likely already have an SEO strategy, a PPC campaign, a social media presence, or an email marketing initiative to follow. But the chance is you are missing the most effective tool to help you bridge the gap with your target audience – video marketing.
Why video marketing for financial institutions and why now?
The financial industry is all about trust. Unfortunately, the Johns have seen this trust erode over time due to the financial crisis of 2008, the following yield-starving years, and the low-performing funds. On the other hand, the generational cliff today makes it challenging for financial institutions to relate to the Janes and the younger audience.
So, the question that remains is how to bring that trust back and establish steady and sustainable relationships with the market? The obvious answer is through honest and transparent marketing. And more specifically – through the most powerful marketing tool of the XXIst century.
Video has made its way onto the marketing scene in basically all industries. The financial one, however, is still behind. According to statistics, 90% of financial institutions¹ still have no video content. On the other hand, per projections, online videos will account for 82% of all internet traffic by 2022²
“The lead sheep has moved, the pack is shuffling, and very shortly, the herd will stampede.”
This positions your organization in the perfect spot to exploit the gap and capitalize on video marketing’s unrivaled efficiency if you act now.
At Squash, we speak your language and understand that you believe the numbers, not the theories. So, let’s start by saying that 95% of the video viewers retain its core message³, compared to just 10% when in text form. This means that, with video, what you have to say will be heard and memorized by basically anyone you try to reach, compared to one in ten if you just post it on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog.
To paint it differently, if you have the chance to increase the return of your investment fund 8x with just a single resourceful step, wouldn’t you be jumping on the opportunity? The same is valid here – a video instead of a post, and you can immediately stick your offering into the minds of your audience.
Don’t trust us – trust the numbers
There are thousands of statistics that prove why video marketing is superior to all other forms of content, but let’s name just a few:
- 8 seconds⁴ is the average attention span of adults. If you fail to capture their interest for the time being, you will lose them;
- 80% is the increase in conversions⁵ financial institutions can expect from adding a video to a landing page;
- 1 week since video launch⁵ is the projected period to expect ROI from a video marketing campaign;
- 300% is the projected increase in email click rates⁶ when a video is included;
- 53x better chance⁷ for websites with video to show up on the first page of Google;
- 157% more organic search traffic⁷ is expected on average for websites with videos;
- 49% faster revenue growth⁸ does usually businesses using video enjoy on average.
All these numbers show that video as a format is the most comprehensive and effective way to deliver information. It brings benefits on all fronts, supporting engagement, promoting audience interaction, showcasing brand personality, and most importantly – generating a solid ROI.
But wait – not any fund video will cut it
Promoting an investment opportunity or even broader financial services via video is a great idea, but given the nature of the industry, it can surface many challenges if not done appropriately.
The common thing between all successful financial institutions is that they base the relationship with their clients on trust. Alternatively, to prove that they are both competent and trustworthy.
Videos should reflect all those values to send the right message to your audience. They should be memorable, engaging, impactful, and of great emotional value. With video marketing, it all comes down to telling a cohesive story. One that adds touch-ups to your organization’s public profile and shortens the distance with your clients.
Everything else is a waste of resources.
At Squash, we aim to create brand-aligned, bespoke video solutions, wherein we utilize everything we know about our partner. This allows us to find the best way to express your values and achieve the goals you are after.
Over the years, together with the financial institutions we work with, we have created hours of video content. The carefully crafted visuals are combined with a personalized copy and narration to create a production that engages viewers at precisely the right moment with the perfect message.
Through the emotional storytelling approaches in our videos, we succeed in building a stable trust-based relationship with the audience and convey a message that will appeal to their needs.
Due to this, our videos don’t strike those on the other end of the screen as “promotional material.” Just the opposite, we paint your organization as someone dedicated to solving a problem, assisting in a difficult situation, or enabling them to grasp an opportunity.
Below is an example of a video aligned to a complete brand strategy, tone of voice, and visual identity overhaul for the FAM MegaTrends financial product.
Our team focused on creating an engaging and informative story that depicts everything essential about the product.
The key message was then conveyed through 3D graphics and animations to create an emotional, empathic, and convincing visualization of the FAM MegaTrends’s key advantages.
Our client used the video for social media promotion, as well as for distribution among its financial advisors to ease and enhance their selling strategy.
https://www.squashideas.com/projects/FAM-MegaTrends/
“Fund video marketing campaigns have to incorporate elements of great videography and emotional storytelling. They can’t be approached like standard ads,”shares Gregorio Chierici, Director at Squash.
“Instead, you have to make sure that even the most mundane information is presented in an engaging enough way to take up 30 seconds or two minutes of someone’s time. If you fail to do so, the viewer would feel annoyed and distance himself from your brand. That’s where financial institutions struggle, and we’ve seen it first-hand.” he adds.
As an investment firm, one of your first priorities when selling a fund to your prospective clients is to show them that you recognize each one as an individual. Video marketing is an easy way to bridge that gap because it allows you to showcase stories, create personalization, and start a two-way dialogue well beyond the standard, static marketing.
A few bits of advice beyond the video production
The number one mistake financial institutions make when conducting their marketing operations is that they fail to embrace the full potential of a single form of content. Alternatively, they can do more with the resources they have.
Let’s take a campaign for marketing a fund with a video, for example. Once they have their videos produced, many financial institutions make the mistake to just post the material on platforms like Youtube and Vimeo and end up there. What they fail to do is capitalize on the full potential of the video they have invested in.
Here is what we suggest you do to make the most out of your videos:
Post it on your website
Your website is the home of your products and services and the main destination you want your audience and potential clients to land at. Adding the video on your website’s home page will introduce the user right off the bat. If you add it on the inner pages, it will make the prospective client spend more time there, engaging and interacting with your site.
Share it on social media
Social media is the quickest way for organizations and their clients to get in touch with each other. This makes it also an excellent place for your videos to gain additional reach and shorten the path to conversion. A good video will naturally lead to increased engagement (shares, likes, and comments), spreading quickly and attracting additional awareness to your products and services.
Embed it in your newsletter
Over 70% of Generation Z, Millennials, and Baby Boomers prefer email as their primary communication channel for company-to-consumer interactions⁹ . Considering that video is the preferred content format by all age groups, then all things align perfectly – as a financial institution, you should have a newsletter, and you should add videos to it. Statistics point out that it’s almost guaranteed that an email with a video will have a high click-through rate (CTR). Furthermore, once Google notices the increased traffic from your email links to your website, it’ll naturally rank your website higher in search¹⁰.
Other purposes
Videos can be of tremendous help in the communication with your existing and prospective clients. They can be a great way to explain complicated concepts or market product offerings online when the circumstances prevent you from meeting in person (i.e., the restrictions surrounding the COVID pandemic; when working with clients from abroad, and more).
They can also be a great tool to share within intranet platforms for communication with your network of financial advisors. Engaging visuals and narration prove to be the most efficient medium to help you convey your message to an audience as busy as financial professionals. Videos can be consumed on the go, when hopping from one meeting to another, while in a break – basically anywhere and at any time.
Marketing your fund with a video is no longer optional. It is mandatory for attracting investors.
Let’s be honest – the market is saturated. The competition is increasing, and even if your fund has the lowest fees and the highest returns, you might still fail to grow the investors’ base in line with your expectations.
If done right, marketing your fund with a video can be a critical weapon to engage with potential clients, increase customer retention rates, gain a competitive advantage, and grow your business. On the other hand, failing to capitalize on the potential of video marketing to elevate your investment fund services can prove a deadly mistake in a market under the influence of a progressive shift in generations.
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