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Webinars for local?

by Delta223
5 replies
I'm thinking of putting together a webinar for upper (and upper middle) income individuals on something like estate or retirement planning fundamentals. The goal is to get a signup to meet with a local wealth manager (I would sell them the lead).

I think there's a good chance something like this will be effective, but before I spend decent change on an auto webinar program I wanted to ask if anyone has tried this with local individuals and whether it was more effective than say a simple form fill squeeze page in their experience.
#local #webinars
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  • Profile picture of the author rhealy29
    The first question that comes to my mind is, do you have any specific qualifications that will make high-income individuals trust you for information on estate management or retirement planning?

    If I was a high-income individual, who, even if I'm a total fool with my money, probably considers myself pretty savvy, what would make me trust you and your information over, say, a financial planner at my bank?

    I don't necessarily think your plan is bad, or won't work, I'm just wondering what, in this specific niche, would legitimize your webinar in comparison to the wide number of other avenues I could pursue when planning my retirement?
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  • Profile picture of the author Delta223
    @Dennis, the high net worth standard can be a fair bit lower than that. For example a new specialist physician can be high net worth, or in the building phase. Same for a top salesman.

    Just wanted to point this out so its clear the market is less intimidating than it appears in name (very high net worth indivituals usually make up a fairly small part of an advisor's client list -- there's just not enough of them to go around to the 400k+ advisors out there).
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    • Profile picture of the author DABK
      So, let's say I'm a low high net worth individual. Why would I care about anything you have to say?

      Based on the little you say, you're going about it backwards. Get a financial adviser on board first, have that person supervise the creation of the content.

      If I were the financial adviser, I'd skip you entirely and set up an interview on a local radio station on one of their financial / real estate investment segment.

      How do you plan to sell the leads? You might be able to create them and not be able to sell one because the financial advisors you approach are not 100% sure you did not get them in some manner that would get them, the financial advisors, with whatever board renews their licenses.

      PS If you're at the beginning, 'in the building phase,' you ain't a high net worth person. You're a high net person when you have high net, not before. I know, I know, words! Still, when you talk to them... the financial advisors... those words matter... I know of a guy who advises... if, and only if, you can place at least $7,000,000 in his hands. He does things quite differently, and sounds quite different, from the bunch of advisors I know who talk to your average teacher or police officer.

      PPS Compare:

      Hi, I'm DABK, a small business owner and marketer and I am going to talk to you about investing.

      Hi, I'm DABK, a small business owner and marketer. I'm here to introduce you to ABC, a financial advisers who's client list includes half of the people in (Name most expensive neighborhood in the area).

      Well?

      Originally Posted by Delta223 View Post

      @Dennis, the high net worth standard can be a fair bit lower than that. For example a new specialist physician can be high net worth, or in the building phase. Same for a top salesman.

      Just wanted to point this out so its clear the market is less intimidating than it appears in name (very high net worth indivituals usually make up a fairly small part of an advisor's client list -- there's just not enough of them to go around to the 400k+ advisors out there).
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  • Profile picture of the author marciayudkin
    I'm thinking of putting together a webinar for upper (and upper middle) income individuals on something like estate or retirement planning fundamentals. The goal is to get a signup to meet with a local wealth manager (I would sell them the lead).
    I used to do marketing for a financial planner who had a very successful dinner seminar program going for years, and from what I know of the dynamics of that marketing program, I believe your plan is missing several key elements that will make it have very little value and little hope of success.

    1)Face to face meetings build trust. People who attend a dinner seminar at a nice local restaurant at no cost get to interact with and watch someone for 90 minutes and thereby assess their trustworthiness and expertise. Since your plan doesn't involve any face to face and doesn't even feature the local wealth manager, in what sense would there be a lead from your program?

    2)With your webinar idea you would not have very much control over the qualifications of who shows up. With the dinner seminar program, my client spent a lot of time and energy choosing zipcodes, marital status, age and estimated earnings for people who would receive the written invitation to attend. People would have to RSVP and bring the invitation to the event. With a webinar, how would you know whether or not the people you wanted to target were those who showed up?

    3)Where's the value and incentive to attend the seminar? With the dinner seminar program, those who were very carefully invited got a free dinner along with the seminar. What's comparable to that with your plan, and how would your webinar be any different from what's already available on demand online?

    Anyone who's been in this business for a while will know that because of the above factors, any "leads" you produce will have little value for them.

    Marcia Yudkin
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    Check out Marcia Yudkin's No-Hype Marketing Academy for courses on copywriting, publicity, infomarketing, marketing plans, naming, and branding - not to mention the popular "Marketing for Introverts" course.
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    • Profile picture of the author Delta223
      Marcia, I think building enough interest for someone to take a call for further discussion about retirement planning or some other subject would be sufficient as a lead. I know financial planners and they build their cred at the meeting; getting in front of someone with interest and means is the hard part.

      Sounds like you disagree and feel the lead should be presold on the planner beforehand; I guess we disagree on what a decent quality lead is.

      My question to you would then be, why is a lead that leads directly to a sit down meeting ok, but not a lead from a webinar that leads to a phone call and then a sit down meeting? And if the second case is lower value, could not the lead be priced lower to make the numbers work for everyone?
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