Equity Trust Company is a financial services leader specialising in self-directed IRAs. Video is a key medium for customer engagement and education in the industry. Jesse Briley, Equity Trust’s Senior Manager of Marketing Engagement, oversees a team dedicated to producing compelling content across a range of channels to effectively engage their audience.
Recognising the growing influence of video, Jesse set ambitious goals to expand their video production efforts. To increase video production, the company sought innovative solutions to enhance efficiency and scale content creation. HeyGen provided a transformative solution, enabling Equity Trust to streamline its workflow and optimise resources.
Addressing resource constraints and efficiency challenges
One significant hurdle was resource constraints, making it difficult to produce video content at the scale and quality they had in mind. Moreover, creating professional-grade videos required substantial time and effort, particularly from the company’s Director of Education. As a highly sought-after subject matter expert, the director had very limited availability for video shoots.
“The volume of content that teams are putting out seems to be growing every year to stay relevant and competitive,” said Jesse. “Scalability is important, and content teams need an expanding set of tools that enable automation and efficiency, which increasingly includes the use of AI.”
The team also had to meet the high expectations of their audience, who expected professional and authentic content. The videos needed to reflect Equity Trust’s commitment to quality without looking “AI-generated”, as maintaining trust and credibility with viewers was absolutely critical. These challenges highlighted the need for a more scalable, efficient solution to support the team’s video production goals and sustain the trust of their audience.
Using HeyGen to create scalable, authentic video content
Equity Trust came across HeyGen during an online search and decided to try out its innovative AI video capabilities. For Jesse and his team, the experiment was designed to see whether AI-generated videos could help them achieve their goals of producing high-quality, scalable content, cutting down production time and dependence on resources, while still maintaining authenticity to retain audience trust.
In just one hour, the team created a digital avatar of their Director of Education, capturing his voice and visual presence. This enabled Equity Trust to produce professional-grade educational videos for social media, internal training, and customer engagement without needing the director’s direct involvement and time. By reducing bottlenecks and ensuring consistent quality, this innovative approach opened up new avenues for scalable, authentic content creation.
“With HeyGen, we were able to create short, snappy videos that still looked highly professional. It worked particularly well for social media,” said Jesse. “The scalability it offered truly transformed the way our team works.”
Reimagining video production with AI-driven solutions
After initial trials and some refinement, Equity Trust successfully integrated HeyGen into its content creation process. The results were substantial:
- Time Savings: Before HeyGen, producing a single video required over five hours of work. With HeyGen, the same output was achieved in minutes, significantly improving productivity.
- Content Volume: The team produced 12 videos within a short span of time, something that was not possible earlier due to resource limitations.
- Versatility: The AI-powered videos were used across multiple channels, including TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels. While primarily customer-facing, the videos were also used for internal training.
“HeyGen is the future of scalable content creation,” said Jesse. “For small teams or even individual creators, AI tools like HeyGen are indispensable.”
By leveraging HeyGen’s AI capabilities, Equity Trust could tailor content to specific audience segments, experimenting with different avatars to match diverse demographics. The platform’s ability to scale video production efficiently without putting pressure on internal resources aligns with the team’s long-term goals, ensuring they can meet growing demand.
As AI technology advances, Equity Trust’s experience highlights the transformative potential of tools like HeyGen for today’s marketing teams.
