Video: Currency Marketing and Brave Media Meetup

Currency Marketing and Brave Media Meetup, edited by ToGoPros.
Here's Tim McAlpine of Currency Marketing and Sam Omidi of Brave Media speaking at the January Financial Services Marketing Meetup.

Sam spoke first about the importance of businesses using blogs, Twitter, and Facebook together as means of reaching different audiences at different times.

Tim then spoke about his early connection with social media in the credit union community and the evolution of credit union communications in reaching Gen Y, their newest customers.

Keeping in mind that there are more and more social media sites appearing online everyday, what do you think is the best way for financial services businesses to reach clients and prospects?

Related Reading: Video of John Chow and Wealthy Wilma Meetup

Want top quality video editing? Check out ToGoPros for audio/video transfers and editing.

Financial Services Winter Olympic Ads

Vancouver's 2010 Winter Olympics has two finance industry worldwide partners, RBC and Visa.

RBC's multi-platform Olympic partnership includes two distinct television campaigns, Carry the Torch, and "Advice you can bank on".  The latter, of most interest to financial advisors, focuses on the customized solutions of the client-advisor relationship.  RBC's sponsorship has been called "one of the most integrated and robust" campaigns, and even goes a step further to directly employ Canadian Olympic athletes.

To explore the city's Olympic branding environment, Vancouver's Adhack has been blogging about Olympic advertising, has coordinated Winter Olympic photowalks to examine the city's Olympic brand exposure (including those of RBC and Visa), and is sponsoring an Olympic advertising photo contest called The Oly Awards.

James Sherritt, CEO of Adhack will be presenting at the Vancouver Financial Services Marketing Meetup on March 23rd. RSVP Here.

Considering that the Winter Olympics have appeared as a worldwide trending topic on Twitter and dubbed by the media as the "Twitter Olympics", what internet marketing strategies do you think are a worthwhile investment for financial advisors?

Related Reading: Financial Services Superbowl Ads

Want to learn more about using Meetup for your Financial Services Marketing? Download the free presentation for tips and tricks on building your business using Meetup.

No FAIL Financial Services Websites from AdvisorWebsites.com

Want to put up a professional website and wondering where to start? Today I spoke with Loic Jeanjean, Online Marketing Strategist at AdvisorWebsites.com about internet marketing for financial advisors.

AdvisorWebsites.com has been around now for about 7 years in Vancouver and they provide compliant financial services websites for financial advisors and financial institutions across Canada and the USA.  In this podcast, Loic and I talk about where to start when you're thinking about marketing online, and what you'll need to consider along the way.

The biggest objection for many advisors when they're setting up a website is the amount of time it takes and the compliance clearances that are required.  AdvisorWebsites.com saves the time by maintaining your website for you and providing compliant solutions right 'out-of-the-box'.

Starting today, AdvisorWebsites and I will be cross-posting on each other's blogs.  You'll see some blog posts by me over on their blog and some of theirs right here on mine.  You can see Loic's latest post gives you some good advice about Search Engine Optimization.

Listen Now:

• Subscribe in iTunes

Related Reading: Host Finance Events Using Eventbrite

Financial Services Superbowl Ads

This year's Superbowl had only one advertiser in the financial services category, E*Trade (Scotia iTRADE in Canada) with the 'Girlfriend' commercial.

According to BrandBowl 2010, the E*Trade commercial ranked ranked 15th in favourable sentiment and Twitter metrics, just ahead of Census 2010.

Last year's financial services Superbowl ads: Cash4Gold, H&R Block, and E*Trade.

Considering that Pepsi has skipped the Superbowl in favour of social media marketing and now Google has done their first Superbowl ad, do you think Superbowl ads are a worthwhile investment?

Related Reading: Coast Capital asks, do you love bank fees?

Want to learn more about using Facebook for your Financial Services Marketing? Download the free presentation for tips and tricks to build your business using Facebook.

Host finance events using Eventbrite

Eventbrite For Financial Advisors

View more presentations from Cesarini.ca.

If you're an advisor interested in hosting paid finance seminars, today I uploaded a presentation about hosting paid events using Eventbrite.

Eventbrite is an event marketing website that creates event announcements, sends invites, and manages your registrations.

There's a small fee for using the service, which you can either add to the price of the tickets or include it in the face price. Eventbrite works with Paypal, so your attendees can pay online using credit or debit.

I've used the service on more than one occasion, and have found the most important step is to spend some time writing a thorough event description that includes photos. Features aside, it's also important to remember to contact your invitees before and after you send them the invites.

Related Reading: Internet Marketing for Advisors Presentation Series

5 Financial Meetup Member Websites

Call Writing originally uploaded by Ayami at Cupcaketoons.

Say Hi to our 5 newest meetup members with websites:

1.   Simone of O2West.com
2.   Tony Yeung of ODL Canada.ca
3.   Loic Jeanjean of AdvisorWebsites.com
4.   Robert Stone of MrTaxes.ca
5.   Chris Milton of EvolutionFund.ca

If you haven't added your website yet, what's the hold-up? Members who add their websites get recognized in our member directory, online, on Twitter, and of course, in-person, at our meetup.

Related Reading: Meetup Welcomes Charan, Richard, Andrew and Sam

Video of John Chow and Wealthy Wilma Meetup

John Chow and Wealthy Wilma Meetup, edited by Galelio Design films.
On December 9th, John Chow and Bernadette Giet presented at the financial services marketing meetup.  John discussed his seasoned approach to internet marketing, and Bernadette proclaimed the merits and methods of achieving financial independence.  Both our speakers instigated a lot of good feedback.

Bernadette began our meetup with a motivating talk for women to take control of their finances and to support each other in their financial independence through the Wealthy Wilma Book Club.  As you can see from the clip above, Bernadette's passion turned the loathed subject of personal finance and goal-setting into something stirring and achievable.

John was up next, and introduced himself and his extensive business history, and then delved into some of the dynamics of internet marketing and the background behind being featured in this New York Times' sponsored tweets article.

Beginning with his arrival in Canada, John chronicled his history of internet marketing, and explained the source of his passion for technology.  He accommodated the many questions from our group on entrepreneurship, the monetization of internet technologies, and the development of social networks.

Thanks to Ronnie at Galelio Design films, you can actually check out highlights of their presentations and tell us what you think. So what do you think? Do you agree with the comments that John's presentation was controversial, did Bernadette's message strike a chord?  Feel free to leave a comment below.

Related Reading: Watch the Smart Cookies in Vancouver Meetup Video