Using online videos to educate and sell is one of the top tactics Forrester Research recently highlighted FIs could learn from their retail peers.

According to Forrester, as far back as 2011, more than three in 10 retailers surveyed found videos to be an effective marketing tactic on their websites.

Great retail examples exist from Dove and Budweiser; both are driving more than 50 million YouTube views and evoking human emotion.

According to Forrester, web visits when the prospect views a video yield conversion rates at more than twice the rate of visits where no video was viewed.

And, if your potentialmembers are millennials, then that's all the more reason to get into video advertising. In a post by eMarketer.com, 18- to 34-year-olds said they found online ads the most influential.

While for some time now, people have been using the internet and YouTube to make fun of financial institutions, FIs have only recently caught on to the value of online videos.

For a video to be effective, it must be funny, entertaining and/or inspirational. Simply pushing products won't cut it. Customers, especially millennials, want honest humanizing content.

While not common, fortunately there exist some very good examples of honest, humanizing, and fun online video content coming from financial institutions:

Royal Bank of Canada last year produced a number of movie-like trailers promoting its mortgage products and driving more than a million views. 

Toronto Dominion had one of its videos go viral producing more than 22 million views and highlighting TD Bank thanking various customers. 

DNB bank in Norway recently recruited Norway's most famous choir, the Norwegian Broadcasting Boys Choir, to sing all of the messages for its automated, touch-tone telebank. For the entire Christmas season, every word on DNB's phone banking system was sung by the choir. During December, the telebank was called more than 2 million times. For contrast, the entire population of Norway is only 4.9 million people.

American FIs like Bank of America, US Bank and Wells Fargo have also been developing clever videos focusing on financial education, community involvement, environment, business and providing advice.

Online video can be a great place to rerun popular TV spots or test media concepts before investing in more expensive TV media. Additionally, if a company has an entertaining story or a creative way of telling it, attention can be captured for longer than a traditional television advertisement might run.  

A great example comes from Commonwealth Credit Union. It enrolled a young spokesperson to engage the 17-25 year old demographic; resulting in the development of a simple, low cost and highly effective mini-series highlighting the differences between credit unions and banks. The three part series, which was approximately five minutes long and has been watched by more than 200,000 people, has become an advertising cult classic. It is frequently referenced as an example of how to reach the millennial segment accomplished through honest humanizing content.

So, to answer our original question: Should online videos be your institution's version of a selfie?

Based on our research, yes!

Online videos are a cost effective way to communicate with your existing members and/or prospects. They should serve as selfies to represent what your credit union really is: Human.

Just keep in mind, those online videos need to be funny, entertaining or inspirational. 

Lawrence Pruss is senior vice president of Strategic Resource Management, Inc. in Memphis. He can be reached at800-748-2577 or [email protected].