Financial Services Marketing and Advertising Strategies & Tips

Financial services marketing can be any marketing effort made by a company or marketer in the financial sector that promotes a financial product or service. Financial services marketing is in many ways different from the typical form of marketing that we are all familiar with. Even though the goals of financial services marketing are not any different, the challenges involved in its execution are unique, to say the least.

As far as financial service providers are concerned, the biggest challenge is to establish trust between them and their prospective clients. In one way or another, all financial services marketing efforts aim to earn the trust of their prospects. This article discusses some of the most effective financial service marketing and advertising tips employed by leading experts.

Follow and implement the tips and strategies below, that can help you streamline your financial service business’s marketing efforts.

1. Build Trust With Exceptional Branding

As we have already mentioned before, the foundation of effective marketing when it comes to financial services is trust, and the best way to capture this trust is through exceptional branding. To accomplish this, you need to convey an exceptional company culture, build engaging digital experiences, and even consider celebrity endorsements. So, make it a point to bring these aspects of your business to the attention of your prospective clients through your marketing efforts.

You should prioritize defining and highlighting the core values of your financial service business to your existing and prospective clients. This is best done when the marketers work closely with the executive team. Furthermore, it is not enough that you just define your company’s value to the prospects. You must also show them the company upholds these values. Doing so shows how committed you are to your values, and this, in effect, builds trust in the customers.

Branded Social Content by Transamerica

The branded social content used by Transamerica is a perfect example of using quality branding to establish trust. Transamerica used a consumer-focused approach and brilliantly used it for promotion on its Facebook page. Transamerica used content that predominantly focused on the health, wellness and charitable programs of the company. Highlighting the humanitarian deeds of the company, they were successfully able to present themselves as a company that has strong values and is committed to them.

2. Utilize Relatable Content

The effectiveness of any marketing content is deeply connected with how relative it is to the target audience. When it comes to content in the financial sector, there are three things that your customers value the most: remarkable digital experiences, rewards, and convenience. If the prospect finds your content or the information you give them to be reliable and addresses their pain points, they will perceive your brand as an expert and trust what you have to offer.

To create campaigns that can connect to your target audience, you need first to identify your target audience and their pain points so that you can offer relevant solutions to their problems. The content you use for this purpose can be any format and used on any platform. It can be a simple infographic posted on your Facebook page or a well-produced video advertisement that runs on YouTube. So long as you have quality content and choose the right channel, your marketing efforts will not go in vain.

Creative Videos by MasterCard

MasterCard is among the best to use quality content that is highly relatable to its target audience. Their financial services marketing and advertising campaigns often make use of relatable customer-centric videos. The storyline of the videos often highlights a problem that their prospective customers face, and once the pain point is introduced, they pitch their product/service that can effectively rectify the problem. Additionally, MasterCard utilizes a focused documentary approach and covers specific locations, industries, or personal hobbies.

Social media influencers have now become an essential part of the marketing world today. Perhaps the most attractive thing about influencer marketing is that they already have a well-established fan following which guarantees a minimum reach for the campaigns. However, you must be extra careful when it comes to selecting an influencer for promoting your financial services. You must not choose an influence based on the number of followers but on what niche they specialize in.

The only way influencer marketing can prove to be effective is if you analyze the influencer and his/her followers and ensure your message will reach the target audience. Furthermore, influencers can speak the language of the target audience better than any marketer can. You need not go after the super-famous celebrities either, as the desired result can be obtained by simply using micro-influencers. Using multiple micro-influencers gives you access to a diverse audience and better reach.

World of Hyatt Credit Card Launch by Hyatt and Chase

Not too long ago, Hyatt and Chase partnered up with celebrity mom Molly Sims to launch their world of Hyatt credit cards through the platform. Take a closer look at this influencer marketing program from Hyatt and Chase, and you will notice that the influencer’s interest aligns perfectly with the travel card she helped launch. The travel card features health and wellness perks, and you can notice the same interests if you check out the Instagram account of Molly Sims.

Content marketing has been here for years now, although the term was coined only recently. It employs useful content for educational purposes to appeal to the customers on things they want to know about or provide solutions to a problem they are facing. The content marketing for your financial services can include everything from educational Alexa skills to actionable blog posts. You can then use this content to promote your financial services on several platforms, including social media.

Almost all customers turn to the internet before they invest their money in a financial product or service because they have limited knowledge about it and want to make a well-informed decision. Although generating inbound traffic is the biggest advantage of content marketing, that’s not all it does. The quality content and feasible solutions that you provide are consumed by the prospective customers. So if they find your content helpful, they will consider you an industry expert and create brand awareness.

Journalistic Style Videos by Jyske Bank

Jyske Bank is an expert when it comes to content marketing. Jyske Bank produced journalistic-style videos for educational purposes, which successfully helped their target audience. The video content from Jyske Bank successfully captured market attention and raised brand awareness. This further aided Jyske Bank to establish themselves as the industry expert that their customers could turn to in their hour of need.

Direct mail was always an integral part of financial services, and it remains one of the most utilized modes of communication for financial institutions. However, the innovative direct mail solution that is used today is very different from its traditional approach. Today companies use a multi-channel direct mail marketing method that combines your online and offline marketing efforts flawlessly. Direct mail is a sure-shot way of reaching your audience as long as you have the accurate address of the recipients.

Direct mail ensures that your message is received and read by the recipients. By incorporating a QR code or URL inside the mail, you can then take them to your website or landing page, thus combining offline and online marketing efforts. For accomplishing this and ensuring the deliverability of addresses within Canada, you can make use of a SERP-certified direct mail tool like PostGrid. Using powerful tools like PostGrid even allows you to automate the entire direct mail process.

Direct Mail and Social Media Combination by Barclays

Barclays, a popular financial service provider, was among the first to successfully combine direct mail marketing with social media to create a successful financial services direct marketing campaign. What Barclays did was that they delivered direct mail to its customers, which contained a bottle of coke and a packet of mentos. This was symbolic of the explosive growth Barclays can deliver if the customer joined hands with them. You can come up with your original idea to pitch your financial services to the prospective clients that best suit your unique brand.