Smile For The Camera

The Internet has revolutionized business over the past 20 years – first as an online brochure medium for companies to direct customers to before evolving and allowing firms to directly sell their products and services to consumers.

Things haven’t stopped there however, the latest revolution – video – means anyone with a half an idea about who they are and what they want to say can get in front of a video recorder and broadcast to the world through increasingly popular sites such as MySpace, YouTube and Facebook.

It seems financial planners around the world are also embracing the medium, with a cursory search of YouTube revealing 500 plus financial planners/advisers using it to promote and broadcast their wares to the world.

The explosion of Apple’s iPod and its associated software iTunes, means more and more people are finding it easier to introduce multimedia capabilities to their websites and therein making the internet a more personal experience for clients and potential customers.

Some of these videos are ads, some are newsletters while others offer rudimentary advice, such as the one shown below by Ray Prince, a UK-based financial planner.

Other planners, like US-based Joan Norton, shown below, have put a bit more time and effort into making an actual ad to promote their services.

However as much as a face talking to you via video might be more welcoming than an online PDS, consumers still prefer a more personalized level of interaction when it comes to seeking financial advice itself.

At CoreData we recently asked planner clients how they wanted to hear from their planners.

Number one is face-to-face, number two is via the phone, then by mail, then by email – no one brought up the idea that they wanted to be able to access videos of their planner on the Internet.

Perhaps, like the Internet itself, this will change over time and allow planners to reach a greater audience than they would otherwise be able to.