Guest: Erin Moriarty, creator of the Erin Talks Money YouTube channel, which has over 440,000 subscribers and more than 110 million views.
In a nutshell: Imagine a prospect couple walking into your office who already know everything about your process.
They’ve spent hours watching and listening to you discuss retirement, taxes, and the complex financial decisions around retirement that keep them awake at night.
They have a strong feel for your personality and have decided that they trust your judgment — all before you say “Hello!”
On today’s episode, Erin Moriarty and I discuss digital marketing strategies for building trust and broadening influence. While Erin is not a working financial advisor, her daily interactions with hundreds of thousands of viewers — and the data she’s gathered on what does and doesn’t attract eyeballs — have given her deep insights on the psyche of the modern investor and the attention span of the modern financial media consumer.
.Erin Moriarty and I discuss:
- Mastering the YouTube algorithm and why long-form, deeply researched content targeted at retirees yields the highest returns for Erin.
- Why Erin turns down sponsorships and gives away her content for free.
- What comments from her viewers have told Erin about the the specific financial anxieties retirees are dealing with.
- What motivates the DIY investors in Erin’s audience to start working with an advisor.
- The critical importance of remaining non-judgmental and avoiding dogmatic financial “rules.”
- Why Erin includes a blooper real at the end of every video.
Erin Moriarty on common retirement anxieties:
“A lot of my audience is pre-retirees and retirees, and the biggest worry going into retirement is, ‘Will I have enough money in case I have a long-term care event?’ Or, ‘Will I have enough money, just plainly, to fund the life I want?’ Then once we segue to the retirees, it’s, ‘How do I allow myself permission to spend what I’ve accumulated?’ Because so many people hold back, and they’re like, ‘I’m only spending the dividends. I’m only spending from this account, and I’m not going to touch the other one.’ So I think, depending on which life phase you’re in, there’s different concerns.”
Erin Moriarty on her non-judgmental communication style:
“I don’t have these hard and fast rules that all debt is bad, or you should never do this, or you should always do this. You should never do a Roth conversion. You should always do a Roth conversion. I think there’s a time and place for everything. I recently started talking about annuities on my channel; it seems like they’re four-letter word in the financial community. But I think they’re a tool that could benefit some people. And I don’t think they’re a benefit for everyone, but that’s kind of how I look at most things in finance. There’s a time and place for everyone, and everyone has different situations. They have different money scripts. They have different amounts in the bank. They have different families. They live in different places. We can’t pretend to presume we know everyone’s situation. So I think non-judgment helps.
“I would say it goes along with my personality. I’m pretty easy to get along with in life because I don’t have these dogmatic views. We’re all stubborn in one way or another, but it’s something I try not to be, and I’m willing to change my mind if I feel like I’m wrong. So I just feel like you can have an open mind and you can say, ‘Okay, there’s room for you to have this belief, and that is valid for you, and that is your situation, but there’s also room for someone else to have a different belief, and that could be right for this situation.'”
Erin Moriarty’s advice for advisors who want to start creating content:
“If you’re looking to start a channel and build an audience, share your expertise freely. People want to know what you have to offer, so don’t do the marketing tactic of, ‘Watch this and you’ll figure out these four things. Oh, wait, you have to call me to figure out those four things.’ Give away value. Make sure you’re rewarding your audience for watching you, and make sure they walk away with a greater understanding. So give the value.”
