The Value of a Great Webcast

In a webcast Wednesday, Pittsburgh based Legend Financial Advisors offered viewers a window into the financial planning ramifications of widowhood.

According to Kristen Luke, president and chief executive officer of Wealth Management Marketing, webcasts can fit into an advisor’s communications strategy in three ways; to nurture existing clients, to nurture prospective clients already in your pipeline and to help generate new leads by promoting the webcast on social media sites and elsewhere.

This webcast for widows was led by Diane Pearson, an advisor at Legend, and promoted to clients and prospective clients in the firm’s database. It covered financial issues that arise for widows and clearly stated specific, necessary actions to take in the short and long term following a spouse’s death.

From informing the decedent’s employer of the death, to collecting on a life insurance policy and figuring out how to invest assets to keep up with inflation, there is a lot a widow must do.

However, Pearson said, there aren’t a lot of resources available for people to research and learn about navigating the financial aspects of widowhood. “It’s one of those topics nobody seems to talk about,” Pearson said. As such, Legend offered this webcast in an effort to provide a resource for widows and get the information out there, she said.

Legend tries to do webcasts at least once a month focusing either on a financial planning or investing topic, Pearson said, and sometimes it’s chosen based on demand from a client. “If one person is asking about it, we think that means other people are probably wondering about it too,” she said.

No matter which segment an advisor is trying to reach, Luke said the real value of a webcast is that the recorded version can stay on the advisor’s website to be watched anytime, and in fact most viewers will watch it after the fact. “Widowhood is a really good topic for a webcast because it’s timeless. You can use it over and over and there’s real value there,” Luke said.

Pearson said the webcasts haven’t been a “phenomenal generator” for Legend, but they have helped enhance the current client relationship because they often lead to clients calling with questions about how the information applies to them specifically. “It opens the door to continue building client relationships,” she said. 

Are you offering webcasts to help inform clients and prospective clients? Is there another way you are trying to deepen client relationships or build new ones?