By Craig Foster, Simplicity Lone Beacon’s Director of Digital Media.
As we start off 2023, you may be thinking about fresh new ways to upgrade your business. Well, have you thought about what your strategy for YouTube is and how you will execute it? At Simplicity Lone Beacon, we’ve worked with some of the largest, most successful financial advisor businesses in America, and we’ve found that YouTube has the potential to play a strong role in generating brand awareness and leads. People are searching for information about the services that you provide on YouTube every day. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to have your target audience see your brand simply because you don’t have a channel. If you want to know more about how YouTube is a powerful catalyst for new clients in the financial advisory business, take a look back at a previous article that explains “Why YouTube is Your Answer to Connecting with New Clients”.
So, You Want to Construct a YouTube Channel
The next step is figuring out what the right strategy is to help build your brand and generate leads through the YouTube platform. To start, if you don’t have a YouTube channel yet, you’ll need to build one. It’s not hard to create one but to construct a channel and upkeep it well enough to see real lead generation takes both effort and expertise.
However, you must be patient. It takes time to build up an audience for your videos. A strategy that can help you is to make sure your profile includes the right keywords and phrases across your profile and “about us” section. You’ll also need to brand your page in every way possible so that it looks legitimate trustworthy, and so that people don’t have any second guesses if your page is actually yours. However, you might find that that’s easier said than done. There is no replacement for marketing expertise when it comes to properly constructing your page.
Once you have the channel set up, you shouldn’t expect to see instant results. Make sure that in every spot that matters, people can find and subscribe to your channel. Your website, digital ads, social media pages, social media posts and ads, landing pages, emails and newsletters, and many more locations should have links to your YouTube channel or videos where applicable so that your marketing and sales efforts can keep prospects engaged. Remember, YouTube won’t get you anywhere if it lives in a vacuum! Share it and promote it.
What Should You Put on Your Channel?
When figuring out what to post on YouTube there are many directions for you to go in. It is important to have posts that talk about your business and the services you provide. Your videos should also have good thumbnails, strong calls to action, titles, and descriptions that have strategic keywords included in them. It is important to communicate your subject matter expertise by picking retirement topics that you have knowledge of and have unique, interesting takes on those concepts.
In the same vein, that knowledge and those unique takes should show your personality. The one thing you have that no other financial firm has in their marketing efforts is your and your partner’s personality. Your professional, yet warm and authentic personality can be the main communicative factor that conveys trust to your clients and prospects viewing your videos. Do you really want to come across as just another person who is trying to sell something?
Consistency is Key
Consistency is also key when it comes to a strong YouTube strategy. Make sure that you post at least once or twice per week. To help keep your subscribers engaged you should also post on the same day of the week. In terms of the time of day, if you are posting on weekdays, it is best to post in the afternoon. But you need to remember that it takes Google time to index your video, meaning that if you want your video up in the afternoon, posting it about 2 hours before noon will give Google enough time to index the video (that’s where the keyword strategy comes in!) and place it in front of the right people.
As you can see, we’re only scratching the surface of a robust, lead-generating YouTube strategy. If you need help getting your financial advisory set up on YouTube and start seeing the benefits of brand awareness and lead generation that it can provide, marketing experts with knowledge and experience in the financial advisory industry are your best teammates.
About the Author: Craig comes to us after 7 years at an agency and working independently in digital marketing, focusing on digital campaign creation and strategy. He did most of his work solving data problems and coming up with data-driven solutions and strategies. Craig grew up in the Boston area and graduated with a BS in Business Administration from Johnson and Wales University. When not working on digital marketing you might find him coaching a CrossFit class or spending time with his daughter.
