Building an Effective Financial Services Marketing Strategy
About one in five businesses fail every year in the United States. While there could be a lot of reasons for that, failure in marketing is a big one. Improper marketing has led to the failure of many businesses across the states.
Whether you are a financial institution, a pet store, or a travel business, marketing is something you must prioritize. There is not a single industry that can forgo marketing.
Financial services marketing is just as important, however, there are financial marketing tactics that do not apply to every sector. In this guide, we will go through how marketing works in the financial services sector so that you can apply it to your business.
By the time you’re done reading, you’ll be an expert with this knowledge. Then it will just be time to apply it!
Get started reading to learn more about marketing techniques for financial companies:
Network to Build Community
As a business, you may not look at networking as a way to build community. It is a way to get more clients. However, in order to get clients, you need to build a community around your business.
One way to do this is through networking. You can host an event for financial education, you can go to a lunch event about wealth management, or you can simply attend a city or community event and ask to host a table.
At the events, you can showcase your accomplishments, past clients, or awards as a business. This is a surefire way to start showing others who you are and what you stand for. Future clients will also begin to trust you the more they get to know you.
When hosting an event to build community and as part of your marketing plan, it has to be done right. This means that you need to market the event itself.
Financial marketing tactics around events are very similar to regular events. You have to lead up to the event with a lot of momentum… Promote with email campaigns, social media campaigns, an email campaign, on your website, flyers in breakrooms, and more.
Use Social Media
With billions of users on social media, you need to build an online presence on various platforms. Although you may feel that financial institutions are above social media, that cannot be further from the truth. Social media is a way to reach an audience that you otherwise would not have.
If you vary the platforms you are using, you are also going to be reaching different audiences that may become potential clients. You should consider marketing on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Their uses are different, you’ll just have to create enough content to change up how to use the content on the different platforms.
On these platforms, you are able to answer questions for clients, answer questions for potential clients, place your email for more lead generation, and provide value. The more you provide value on your social media platforms, the more visitors to your pages will become customers.
If you can build more trust and identity for who your financial institution is and what you stand for, no more likely you will gain clients from social media.
There are so many different ways that you can utilize social media. You can create content that will make potential clients and clients themselves seek you out rather than your competition.
You can use YouTube to post videos about financial advice. You can even break down various videos into series to give more beginner advice. You can record short-form videos that you post on Instagram to be educational. You may even want to put some humor into it to make it go big on TikTok.
Sharing Videos on Platforms
Most people would prefer to watch a video rather than read text. Think about it, if this article was in video form, you would probably click on that rather than read this.
That’s because videos can capture attention much easier than text can. It can keep the attention as well. Not only that, but videos are also much more beneficial when trying to get a point across as they can evoke emotion.
Options for sharing videos are endless. You can re-purpose content over and over again for the various platforms.
Connect With Your Audience
Most consumers these days are gravitating toward companies that are more human. This means that if your company is not engaging with clients, your audience is most likely not going to engage with you. This could be a loss in potential customers.
If you are constantly engaging on your social media platforms with others, they are more likely to become customers. You are building trust with them and differentiating your brand from other financial companies.
Create a Website or Blog to Showcase Your Services
If you do not have an online presence as a financial institution, you are behind the times.
A lot of people spend the majority of the day online. Whether they are checking emails, browsing the Internet, or scrolling through social media, they are on their computers or on their phones.
That means if you do not have a website, you’re missing out on all these people. They do not have a way of coming across your institution.
In the financial services sector, you need a website. This is how people will find your services and become clients.
Creating a website, you need to keep it simple and professional. You should have separate pages for services, an about us page, and a contact us page. You may also want to start prioritizing blog posts to drive more traffic to your website.
SEO Optimize the Site For Optimal Traffic
As important as creating a website is, if you do not optimize the website, you will not get the traffic you want. Search engine optimization is one way to get more traffic to your site. This is how Google directs traffic onto different sites based on coding that has to do with what you put onto your site.
If you are not SEO optimized, Google will not be able to find you. You simply do not have the correct coding for them.
Here are a few ways to optimize your site as a financial institution:
- Make sure to include backlinks and external links to other authority websites like governmental websites (be sure not to include competitors)
- Focus on the grammar of your blogs and articles
- Research the most appropriate keywords for your niche
- Search for the secondary keywords and phrases that you should put into your blog posts
- Optimize your titles and headers
- Ensure that your website is up-to-date on processing speed
If you create a website, you need to prioritize search engine optimization. If you do not, you are missing out on a lot of potential clients.
Be Consistent With Brand Messaging
As a financial institution, it is important to come across as professional. This means that you need a logo, a professional profile picture and header image, and a common design across all of your platforms. This will allow potential customers and customers themselves to recognize you.
The type of content that you post across platforms should also be consistent. If you’re posting advice on your social media channels, your blog should also have advice.
Create a User-Friendly Digital Experience
When you create a website and social media channels, they need to be clear and concise. If you have too much info or your page is hard to navigate, the digital experience will not be great. Most customers will decide to navigate away instead of converting.
To do this, you should focus on the following:
- Create navigation tabs that are easy to use
- Ensure that every web page loads quickly on your website
- Track your analytics and data to improve the customer experience
Create an Email List
Creating an email list is important because you own the list as a business.
That means that you are able to send out emails to your current clients that are educational, inspiring, and motivational. They may also be a way to convert a client to become a better-paying client as well if you offer other services to promote.
Another thing to keep in mind is that if anything ever happened with your website or on your social media platforms, you still have your email list. This means that you still have your customers and potential leads as data.
Focus on Customer Outreach
As a financial institution, customer outreach is extremely important. It is also one of the most effective in terms of historical financial clientele.
Reaching out to customers who may need your expertise can lead to many conversions.
However, a great way to do this is to start with free consultations and webinars. If a customer enjoys what you have to say, they will be more likely to convert into a paying client.
Following up on these via email is one way to create those conversions.
Utilize AI
In addition to customer outreach, you also need to prioritize your own customers and clients. However, you may think that you do not have the time to do this. This is where technology can come in.
You can utilize chatbots for customers to speak with an agent if they have a question. This will free up time for your employees and increase productivity in your business.
However, be sure that the technology you are using like CRMs and email automation is doing a good job. You want them to evaluate your customer base, but you also do not want to break the bank by spending too much on artificial intelligence.
Utilize Automation and Big Data
When you think of automation, you may think about the tools and platforms that make you do things faster. They usually help you get tasks done in a simpler and easier way than doing them yourselves.
For instance, email automation will send emails that you set up to your customers at a time that you choose them to send. There are many other automation tools that can help you document files, post on social media, and more.
However, in the financial world, automation tools can actually be used to apply data as part of your marketing strategy. This data can tell you information about potential clients to help you with your marketing.
Instance, some automation tools can tell you who may need preapproval for a loan, who is saving up for a purchase, and who has been looking at more financial education tools. By understanding the demographic of these potential clients, you are able to better target them.
Financial Services Marketing: How to Up Your Marketing Game
Although you are not in the marketing industry, as a financial service institution, it is your job to market your services to others. By following this guide, you have a better idea of how to go about your financial services marketing strategy.
However, it can be quite time-consuming and overwhelming to figure out search engine optimization, how to go about customer outreach and growing your email list, operating social media, and designing a website. Luckily, we are here to help you grow your financial institution without stressing you out more.
At the Elements Group, we provide many services such as digital marketing, social media strategy, and more. We also offer a free digital assessment to get you started. You can reach out to us today to get the help that you need.
