If you’re reading this, chances are it represents a shrinking proportion of the content you consume in written form. While text is far from gone, engaging and easily digestible video is rapidly becoming the preferred content format for many, with bite-sized clips taking the lead over long-form content.
Changes in how people consume information are influencing nearly every industry. That’s definitely the case in wealth management, where technology innovation and new communications channels are transforming relationships between financial advisors and their clients.
The sticking point for many wealth firms is that most of the advisors and the executives who run the company are not digital natives. Slow technology adoption has become a real problem across the industry.
Firms are aware of the stakes. Research by Datos Insights found nearly three-quarters of business leaders in the advisory space identify low technology adoption as a significant obstacle to achieving firm growth objectives. According to Advisor360, roughly 80 percent of advisors contemplating or leaving a firm say technology was a partial catalyst for the move, and 98 percent say they face tech issues at their existing firms that impact their ability to service clients and manage their book.
Speeding the integration of technology can help wealth advisors in nearly every facet of their business. Artificial intelligence (AI) and other new tools can significantly reduce the amount of time advisors spend on research, administration, and other tasks not directly related to serving clients and growing the book. Recent survey research by Orion found more than half of advisors cite time constraints as a major barrier to growth. If given an extra hour, advisors would overwhelmingly focus on new business development (34 percent) and client service engagement (25 percent). New productivity solutions promise to free up that hour and more. Innovative technology platforms can also help slash operational costs and enhance client service. AI-based solutions readily available today are helping advisors deliver personalized service at scale, across their entire book at an affordable price.
Technology adoption can improve performance in a host of other ways, boosting both growth and profitability. But the question facing many wealth firms today is how to drive that adoption among advisors, many of whom might be set in their ways and resistant to change. To firms in that situation, we often give one bit of advice: roll the video.
Video-based marketing and communications might seem like an odd jumping off point. After all, creating video content has traditionally been so expensive and complicated that most advisors never even considered it. That perception is exactly why introducing video to advisors today can have such a profound impact. Innovation has democratized video. Today, advisors – and anybody else – can make high-quality, professional videos quickly and cheaply. New video platforms have eliminated the need for extensive production teams and expensive equipment. AI “coaches” help hone the final product by perfecting lighting, placement, creating high impact scripts and other technical factors for optimal display and quality.
All this can be done at a relatively low cost, and with minimal time demands on the advisor. In fact, using emerging avatar-based video production, advisors can roll out a steady stream of new content without ever taking time to appear on camera, after an initial session. Avatar videos are not to be confused with cartoonish or animated characters; rather, they feature hyper-realistic, AI-generated digital avatars that closely resemble real human beings, making them a professional and engaging alternative for advisors to communicate with clients.
Of course, it’s one thing to show advisors that they can create videos. It’s another thing to convince them of why they should. That’s actually an easy argument to make.
Video – and especially avatar-based video – is the ultimate personalization tool. Research by Envestnet suggests that as many as 70 percent of wealth management clients say highly personalized and interactive service is an important factor in deciding whether to stay with their current advisor or switch to another firm. Avatar-based videos allow advisors and firms to create multiple versions of video content tailored to the interests, needs and preferences of different client types, or even individual clients. Costs for this content are low, advisor time commitment is at a minimum, and the almost shockingly high quality of new avatar videos helps maintain the advisor’s personal brand and relationship with the clients.
Video also unlocks two-way communication, helping advisors learn about clients and convert client interactions into sales. Interactive elements embedded in videos, such as quizzes and values based and other surveys, help advisors develop a 360-degree view of the client and inform future conversations, content and product recommendations. Advisors can integrate calls-to-action throughout their videos, providing clients with links that enable them to download content or schedule an in-person meeting. Like retailers that give customers easy opportunities to click and buy as they consume marketing content on social media, advisors can layer conversion opportunities throughout their videos, driving direct client engagement and business growth.
All this sounds great, but there is always a catch, right? In the case of advisor video content, one of the biggest catches has always been compliance. That’s especially the case when firms and advisors make the jump to personalized videos produced and distributed at scale. Using traditional compliance processes, that would just be too much content to review. Luckily, technology adoption can help solve that problem as well. AI-powered avatar-based video technology lets advisors create videos with consistent, compliance-approved scripts, even as the content is personalized for different audiences.
Advisors know that technology is changing their business and they understand they will have to adopt new technology to compete. For wealth firms looking for ways to encourage and accelerate that adoption, video is a smart place to start. Innovation in video production has been so fast and dramatic that it’s easy to demonstrate the positive impact that integrating video content can have on marketing and client communications. Video, especially avatar-based video, can help advisors better understand clients, enhance and personalize service, and drive conversions. All these rewards can be achieved at relatively low cost and, critically, with minimal time commitment from advisors. We firmly believe that exposing advisors to the benefits of video will make them more open to, and in the best case maybe even enthusiastic, about trying out other new transformative technologies.
Michael Alexander is president of wealth management and global managed services at Broadridge, with leadership responsibility for the Broadridge Wealth Platform. Amber Kirbos is VP, head of product for advisor solutions at Broadridge, and leads the company’s digital marketing solutions for financial advisors.
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