[According to a 2025 Wyzowl survey of a large cross-section of marketing professionals, video as a marketing tool is used by 89% of businesses and is considered integral to the marketing strategy of 95% of those marketers – an all-time high. Data reinforces that explainer videos comfortably top the charts as the most popular video type created, and that consumers are more receptive to video marketing than ever.
Barriers to adoption, though, still exist for many marketers, with most citing time constraints or simply not knowing where to start as their main obstacles. This indicates that getting started with video marketing could feel overwhelming.
To better understand how to tap into video marketing and its creative applications in financial services, we reached out to Matt Novello, Managing Director of FLX Media, a subsidiary services partner on the FLX Networks wealth and asset management platform. Matt brings a unique perspective to the industry from his previous work as a co-owner of a Los Angeles production company and Director of Photography for a wide array of television and cable projects. As a winner of a slew of video awards from SIA, AVA Digital, Viddy, and The Telly Awards for video work with his asset manager and wealth firm clients, we asked him to share his unique perspectives and experiences on the nature and power of the medium of video.]
Tooth: What is meant by the saying that video brings content to life?
Novello: When advisors or portfolio managers try to get their message across, they ultimately want to convey confidence. That is paramount in any relationship, especially when dealing with finances and money.
While video messaging can provide subject matter expertise, its real power lies in helping to build trust. Its rich visual character capitalizes on the fact that people want to see who they are dealing with. It can become a kind of virtual handshake, a way to get to know you, build your brand, and gain visibility and traction in a highly scalable way.
In a video you can use cinematography – a visual language – with a strong customer-oriented message and evocative music that can combine all these elements to create an emotion, an emotion that generates impact. I see it as the ultimate combination of all the arts in one. You can do and say things in ways that don’t come across in everyday conversations or in standard marketing brochures. It creates a living, breathing differentiation from other competitors and that’s really at the heart of how it brings content to life. We always say: it’s your story, but we help you tell it in a powerful way.
Tooth: From your unique experiences in both the entertainment and financial services industries, how do you develop media content for a financial company that sets them apart? How do you help them tell their most compelling story?
Novello: Of course I look at it in different ways. From one perspective, I look at myself as a cinematographer of a given subject – the choices I consciously make in how I tell the story visually, how I use light, what lenses I use in different situations or locations. Is there camera movement or advantageous camera positioning? It is an art and skill to film the subject in a way that distinguishes them as unique individuals and thought leaders.
From another perspective, it’s really getting to know your subject personally, with the ultimate goal of humanizing them and finding out what makes them tick. Why did they end up in this room? Why did they choose to work in the financial sector and their specific markets?
If you look at the websites or speak to most asset managers, financial advisors or asset managers, many of them say the same things. Many of their goals are the same, such as protecting downside risk. That’s why I ask questions to dive into their underlying motivations and goals. My goal is to differentiate them from what everyone else is doing and saying. If the subject is a company, I ask why that company goes beyond just making money and delivering returns for their customers? What is the ultimate goal? What do we solve?
Then I add my visual skills, essentially adding an extra layer of accessibility to see them as human and distinctive and thus gain trust and emotional connection.
Tooth: What are the different video media solutions you offer to meet the unique objectives of different financial companies?
Novello: We like to think of our different video solutions as a spectrum of offerings: brand videos, product videos, spotlight videos, FLX Reels. On the one hand, there’s a customized, on-site, white-glove, focused experience where I work on-site with firm leaders or their advisors in their offices, and it’s very high-touch. We assemble a small, agile team of professionals and cameras to tell their stories on the spot, using the practical background of the office and personal recordings.
At the other end of that spectrum, it can be virtually hands-off on the FLX platform with our embedded virtual FLX Studios, designed to meet people where they are – no travel and easy plug-in from their office. Within this area we can produce low-engagement business stories and powerful video messages for clients. We can also fully utilize our one-click video studio for market speed and responsiveness, where companies can publish their timely market or quarterly updates with their portfolio managers or other designated spokespersons. Of course, there’s a director’s version of that where I, or someone from our media team, will sit with people and walk them through the studio environment, ask them questions, or whatever else they need.
To complement our video solutions, FLX Reels offers digital avatars to solve for busy portfolio managers or advisors who don’t have the time or desire to be in front of the camera. This is completely at the opposite end of the spectrum from the high-touch on-site experience, with FLX Virtual Studios in between.
Tooth: What are the key parameters or elements required for a media product to be effective?
Novello: I always go back to the story. Everyone has a story, but is it unique? Does that message get across? Ultimately, I think it comes down to your message and why people should pay attention to you. Why are you different? I think if we can capture that, that’s the biggest part of the job. But with today’s attention spans, it also needs to be concise, unless someone is tuning in to hear about something in their portfolio, and they know they’re signing up for something so detailed. You have to get people’s attention, do it quickly and be different.
To do that – build a differentiated story or approach – you have to develop the right storyboard together with the customer to really dig out and determine those differentiators and emotional connectors. Sometimes it is difficult for companies to do it themselves, to discover those elements. They need that third-party perspective, otherwise you’ll end up with the same-sounding story on industry websites and marketing brochures.
Tooth: Once the media product is ready, how can you help them broadcast and amplify that media message?
Novello: One of the reasons why it made a lot of sense for the FLX Networks platform to create a video content studio, rather than using external agencies, is that we are directly connected to the wealth and wealth communities. We can easily broadcast and amplify all kinds of media content.
We’re gaining that ability to scale the message, obviously through our social channels, but also through our targeted email campaigns to financial advisors, our newsletters through channels that have this wide net but can also be targeted at the same time. We orchestrate campaigns where we follow the lead generation process and pass these leads on to our client members.
Tooth: Can you give us a brief case study of your involvement with a financial company in video marketing and the results of a recent video product?
Novello: Frankly, many of our assignments start with a company that has had a bad experience with video media. They’ve done something before and been completely turned off by it. Through their relationship with us here on the FLX Networks platform and being exposed to all the different capabilities we have, we persuaded them to give it another try with our help to correct any mistakes previously made. Winning more than sixteen major video marketing awards across multiple video award groups has also helped us make this case.
After one video with a recent asset manager, they were so pleased with the quality of the reporting and results that they signed up. Many of our case studies and experiences followed the same playbook: they were transformed and their experiences changed with the power of video.
Tooth: Any closing thoughts you would like to share?
Novello: I’d like to clearly emphasize that our goal at FLX Media is to deliver meaningful video content that increases audience engagement, generates leads, and gives brands their unique voice, all while saving the company time and money building in-house production teams and infrastructure. And every video we produce is amplified across FLX’s own email and social channels, so your message reaches the audiences that matter most.
I am personally excited and privileged to bring my visual skills and video production experience to the financial services industry to powerfully bring their important work and message to life and better engage their audiences. I welcome discussions to explore a creative collaboration.
This article was originally published here and is republished on Wealthtender with permission.
About the author
Bill Tooth
Founder Institute for Innovation Development
Bill Hortz is an independent business consultant and founder/dean of the Institute for Innovation Development, a platform and network for business innovation in the financial services industry. With over 30 years of experience in the financial services industry, including expertise in asset manager sales/marketing/branding, as well as creatively restructuring and developing internal/external sales and strategic account departments for 5 major financial firms including OppenheimerFunds, Neuberger&Berman and Templeton Funds Distributors. His broad experiences have led Bill to a strong belief, passion and advocacy for strategic thinking, innovation creation and strategic account management as the nexus of business skills needed to meet a business environment challenged by an increasingly rapid pace of change.
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