Webinar marketing for financial advisors is the key to unlocking high conversion rates.
If you’ve spent any time on my website or reading my blogs, you know I really like webinars. Way back when I was working at one large marketing firm serving advisors, I ran a statistical analysis to see which efforts correlated most with new sales revenue. Guess what? It was webinars. The more webinar viewers we could get, the faster the business would grow.
So when I was in the thick of launching my business, I created a new webinar each month with the mission of giving away 90% of what I know about financial advisor marketing. And guess what? Creating those webinars allowed me to:
- Build trust with my audience.
- Share complex marketing topics with prospects in an engaging way.
- Double my email list in six months.
- Get more free traffic through advisors searching for marketing help on Google.
- Get featured on webinars with other companies, broker-dealers, and key influencers.
- Create a system for advisors to reach their ideal clients and grow their business through webinar marketing.
I truly believe webinars are the next marketing frontier for financial advisors. When done correctly, they have a 20% to 40% conversion rate compared to just 3% to 5% for email. (You’ll be hard-pressed to find conversion rates this high with other marketing strategies.)
So, why are webinars so powerful? Why are they the key to unlocking such high conversion rates? Here are six reasons.
1. Webinars give you an engaging way to explain complex topics.
Your conversion rate is only going to be as strong as the webinar topic you choose. That’s why it’s critical to pick a topic that’s interesting, relevant, and valuable to your target audience.
When it comes to ideas for webinar marketing for financial advisors, I recommend creating two types of webinars:
- A foundational webinar. Think of this as the cornerstone of your webinar marketing. It explains who you are, what you do best, and how you help your clients achieve their financial goals. It allows prospects to get to know you on a personal level to see if you’re a good fit for their needs.
- A complex webinar. It’s difficult to explain complex financial topics in an engaging way on your website. But when you can explain them in a webinar, it’s an entirely different story. Your personality and expertise shines through. You can use visuals to guide the discussion. You can get into the weeds of things without coming across as boring or difficult to understand. That’s why I recommend creating at least one webinar on a highly relevant topic specific to your target audience.
A lot of advisors we work with do employer-specific topics for their complex webinars. They may do a webinar on “7 Financial Actions UC San Diego Physicians Should Take in 2020,” “An Overview of the Qualcomm 401(k) Plan Investments,” or “How to Maximize The Benefits of Your Indiana State University Retirement Account.”
When you choose the right webinar topic, your ideal prospect thinks, “Wow, this person really knows what they’re talking about!” And even if they don’t take action right then, they move on to the next stage of the sales funnel where you can continue to nurture that lead.
2. Webinars weed out unqualified prospects.
Time is money in the financial services industry. You can’t afford to meet with dozens of prospects each week who aren’t a good fit for you and your firm.
I’ll never forget one time one of my advisor clients got an email from a prospect saying: “I have money to invest, but I don’t want to pay any fees for investment management or advice. Can you help with this?”
This was an email, thankfully, so the advisor could quickly respond without wasting much time. But what if this person had saved this question until the first in-person meeting? It would’ve been a huge waste of the advisor’s time.
Webinars give you a way to automatically weed out unqualified prospects. During your presentation, you can talk about your minimum investable assets and your minimum account size. You can clearly communicate who you serve best and the value you offer, so those no-fit clients don’t wind up in your inbox—or worse, across your desk in an in-person meeting.
3. Webinars help you grow your network.
Webinars are an excellent way to grow your network and showcase your expertise. I know a lot of advisors who have been guest hosts on webinars put on by CPAs, lawyers, and other key influencers in their community.
The advisor joins the webinar and shares valuable information with a group of attendees they might’ve never come into contact with on their own. Those attendees get to learn more about the advisor and what they do. If they’re in the market for a financial professional or know someone who is, they hop on the advisor’s email list where they can nurture them through the sales funnel. Everyone wins.
4. Webinars have an irresistible call to action.
A strong call to action is where the conversion magic happens. It’s where webinar attendees become prospects. It’s where prospects become clients. Your webinar call to action should be so strong that viewers can’t help but take the next step.
So, how do you choose an irresistible call to action?
First, you want to create value. Remember, your prospects don’t necessarily care about the tax strategies you use or the risk analysis software you swear by. They care about how you can help them solve their problems. They care about the value you offer.
When creating your call to action, think about what your prospect will gain from taking the next step with you. Here are some strong call-to-action examples we’ve used in webinars for financial advisors:
- Get your free financial review.
- Schedule a 15-minute financial goal-setting phone call.
- Schedule your Social Security review phone call.
These offers entice webinar attendees to take action.
5. Webinars allow you to showcase the best version of yourself.
I should preface this by saying there are two types of webinars: traditional webinars that are usually held live and automated webinars that are pre-recorded but made to look live. I recommend automated webinars for financial advisors. Here’s why:
The challenge of traditional webinars is that they’re live events. Unless you do live events regularly, they can be scary, you can have technology challenges, you can have a low attendance rate, and you can end up skipping over important information if you get nervous.
With an automated webinar, people who are watching get the best version of your presentation. You don’t have to worry about technology risks. You can record and get compliance approval in advance.
Plus, automated webinars usually have double the engagement over live webinars. I know, this is odd. You’d think if people signed up to view a webinar at a specific time, they’d do it. But what I’ve found over the years is that 55% of registrants actually miss the live event and watch the replay instead. That’s where having an automated webinar comes in handy. If they miss the event they signed up for, they can catch the replay at their convenience.
6. Webinars save you time.
Think about the sales pitch you usually do at a client’s home, in a coffee shop, or at your office. Now imagine having that sales pitch automated, so it can run over and over and over again in a digital format while you’re out camping with the kids or laying on the beach with a piña colada.
That’s the magic of webinars. They allow you to truly automate your marketing so new leads show up on your calendar without you actually doing anything.
Webinars are also a game-changer for those times when you need to get information out to your clients but you don’t necessarily need to tell them one-on-one. I have some advisors who do a webinar every quarter for market updates. I have others who do them every time changes happen with tax laws or IRA rules and they need to get information out quickly.
Instead of having to call up all your clients individually, you can give an update in a webinar and then send it out to your email list. It’s an instant time-saver.
Ready to Grow Your Business With Webinar Marketing for Financial Advisors?
Webinars are the secret to increasing your conversion rate and landing new clients. If you do them right, and you get people to register, you can bring in new clients every month with a predictable conversion rate.
But I’ll be honest, they’re not easy to master. It’s taken me a full six years to get the formula just right. That’s why I encourage advisors to hire an expert to write, design, create, automate, and promote their webinar for them. Our webinar marketing package includes everything you need to launch your webinar in 30 days!
Ready to harness the full power of webinar marketing for financial advisors? At Indigo, we create fully customized webinars at an affordable price. We do everything from writing and designing your webinar to automating it and promoting it across your social media channels. Learn more about our Custom Webinar Creation package here. Or watch our webinar on webinars to find out how to do it yourself.
For weekly marketing tips for financial advisors by video, subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/IndigoMarketingAgency.
