The Value of Video Content for Financial Services Marketing

The effectiveness of video content for marketing has already been proven in a wide variety of business sectors. Video marketing has the ability to enhance customer awareness, boost engagement and increase return on investment.  It also appears that the financial services industry is following such a trend.  In the United States, financial services are increasing their spending on video content, with an increase of 21.7% from 2017 to 2018 alone. The total amount spent on digital videos in 2018 by financial services alone was $1.8 billion.  These staggering figures indicate a growing trend of video marketing which has no intention of slowing.

Many financial service providers are recognizing the value of video content and are readily implementing it as part of their digital marketing strategy. Any financial service provider who fails to do so risks falling behind its competitors. 

What are the key benefits of using video content?

Video content encapsulates the target audience through targeting both audio and visual sensory aspects.  The use of video content captures the attention of your target audience as individuals will often be forced to stop what they are doing to pay attention to a video, as opposed to a still image, which only requires a momentary glance. 

Help customers better remember your brand

• As a financial service, there can be little differentiating your services from other providers. However, studies have found that video content can help enhance one's ability to remember concepts and details.  Using video content can help make your brand more memorable to customers and in turn, generate a greater number of leads.  This is an example of Top of Mind Awareness, which occurs when a brand is the first which comes to mind when customers are asked an unprompted question about a category.

Videos strengthen trust and credibility

• One of the biggest weaknesses facing the finance industry is the lack of trust the general public hold in such organisations. Videos can be used to humanise your brand and help build customer rapport. The greater number of videos you have, the more likely customers are to trust your brand.

Videos appeal to mobile users

• Financial services have leveraged customer engagement through the use of mobile applications.  Financial services can further use the accessibility of customers on their mobiles through generating more video content. Video content works incredibly well on mobile platforms, which will increase exposure and market penetration.

How do you use video marketing for financial service marketing?

Create human-centric videos

As mentioned earlier, video marketing can help financial services better establish trust with their customers. But how exactly can we do that?  Financial services can feature real human stakeholders of the company to show the faces involved with the business. These videos can range from customer reviews, testimonials and even to celebrating employees at the firm.  Using real-life people signals to customers that this is a real company that promotes a positive work culture and has a customer-centric focus

Help simplify complex financial terms

Financial terms can be confusing for everyday consumers.  Financial firms can help simplify the process by creating education videos to help customers understand the financial services in which are they investing. Not only will this further grow trust, but it will also help position your firm to be a thought leader and a trusted expert on financial topics.

Tutorials

Another video content idea can be to create demo videos. These videos can highlight particular features of the service you are offering. For example, how to use the mobile app of banking service to track spending.  Rather than relying on merely text instructions alone, this can simplify usage for the customer and improve the overall customer experience.

Final tips for making video content for financial services

• Keep it simple
• Consider stages in the sales funnel which is deterring leads
• Focus on storytelling in your videos
• Ensure you have a goal in mind when creating your video (e.g awareness, education, informational)