Fears of breaching compliance and regulatory rules, together with undefined grey areas regarding digital promotions, have understandably meant that financial service companies lagged behind many other business sectors when it comes to digital marketing and online promotions.

However,  times are changing and this is partially due to the publication of the FCA guidelines FG15/4, which clarifies many areas of uncertainty and also because financial service companies are taking on board the many positive aspects of online promotions and communication.  

So what  is digital marketing?

It covers all online advertising and promotion whether it be social media networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter,  Snapchat and Instagram to name a few, through to email marketing, CRM integration, SEO, AdWords, video promotions, and anything that promotes your company in a digital form such as your website.

This is a brief outline to highlight how aspects of digital marketing can be used in order to create more effective targeted campaigns and provide that necessary ongoing contact with clients. So let’s take a brief look at social media marketing first.

What Are The Benefits Of Using Social Media For Marketing Your Business?

• It is cost effective – little to no set up fees
• Immediate effect – can be set up very easily, content can be distributed quickly
• Real time measurability – most platforms have bespoke free tools to measure success, such as Facebook Insights and Twitter Analytics
• Improved customer service
• Can view the competition and analyse what they do, this will inform your own strategy
• It can be integrated with  other forms of online marketing to improve targeting and visibility

Social media can  also enable your business to do the following:

• Acquire new clients
• Retain existing clients
• Encourage engagement and enquiry
• Showcase your expertise

Integrate Social Media With Other Forms Of Digital Media Marketing

Email Marketing

Use platforms such as LinkedIn in order to obtain contact information which can be used for email marketing. Contact information can be uploaded and integrated with most CRM systems and used to specifically target particular groups of people and is especially useful for targeted communication. This would fit into FCA guidelines on being specific with individual promotions, instead of using blanket one size fits all communications and for encouraging ongoing dialogue with clients.

What is the Benefit of Email Marketing?

• It can provide ongoing regular communication with current clients and contacts
• It can be used to nurture new contacts.
• You can keep clients and contacts up to date with company and industry news.
• It can separate clients into different sectors and areas of interest.
• You can incorporate links to blogs/videos and areas of your website to create interest and inquiry.

Find out more about email marketing

Improving Basic SEO Through Content

One of the basic functions of digital and social media marketing is to push  targeted audiences back to your website.  For example links from social media very often take the audience back to content such as blogs or informational pages.  Having well written content is not only essential for engaging your audience, promoting your brand and promoting your company as a market leader, content has a principle function in improving SEO (search engine optimisation) and for getting higher in the search rankings.  It therefore needs to be professionally written and should take into consideration keyword optimisation, in order to provide high value links.

Optimising content is about making your website stand out amongst a wealth of others. Not being found easily results in lost viewings, no interest and loss of future prospective clients.

If you have any questions or would like to know more about the areas covered then we would love to hear from you.