corporation-taxTraditionally slow to change, financial service companies are now playing catch-up with today’s digital media trends. So which aspects of digital media are the most important for financial firms and how can they maximise their results quickly and easily?

Omnichannel Marketing

“Companies with extremely strong omnichannel customer engagement retain on average 89% of their customers, compared to 33% for companies with weak omnichannel customer engagement” – Aberdeen Group

Financial service companies benefit from omnichannel marketing. This means giving visitors access to information from any device (desktop, mobile etc.) This is particularly important in the banking industry where people need access not only to their account information but also to related banking services and products. This means that websites must be responsive or mobile optimised and using cloud-based solutions allows faster content updates.

Brand consistency is important across all platforms. Your business should be instantly recognisable by its logo, colours and style.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is all the content you put into the digital space, including articles, website copy, social media posts, online advertising, email marketing etc. The key to successful content marketing is ensuring:

  • Your content is useful and relevant to your target market
  • You focus more on the actual customer needs, rather than features or services offered
  • You differentiate your business from that of your competitors
  • You include calls-to-action where appropriate
  • The benefits of using your firm’s services are upfront and clear on your website

Financial services firms can use content marketing to establish themselves as experts in their field and as a go-to source of information for existing and potential clients. Financial services with a niche market are in the best position to showcase their knowledge in this way.

Online Advertising

Allocate some of your marketing budget to advertising on digital media. Digital advertising is a key tool in lead generation for financial services. It is cost-effective, low risk, trackable and helps boost your firm in the search engines. One of the main benefits for financial service companies is that it can be highly targeted. Targeting small business owners or people who are interested in investment in a certain geographical area, for example, means that the right people get to see your information.

Social Media

When it comes to social media, here are the most important considerations for financial services companies:

  • Quality is more important than quantity. It is better to have a 100 faithful Twitter followers who are in your target market, than 500 followers who are not.
  • Be active on only those platforms used by your clients, whether it is LinkedIn or Google +, Facebook or Twitter
  • Post regularly
  • Focus on interacting with a core group that is active and relevant to your business

Tracking

Digital media is a good source of information for financial service companies. Use it to:

  • Find out what other firms are doing, who their clients are, what events they are attending, what awards they have won and people are saying about them
  • Monitor your reputation. This is particularly important for financial services companies, which often benefit from word-of-mouth referral. Track what people are saying about you and your service
  • Understand and get closer to your potential market. Observe what problems people have and how they would like them resolved.
  • Stay ahead of industry trends and legislation

A Listening Report is one of the best ways to gain a snapshot of your business and wider industry on digital media.

However you choose to market your services online, it must be tied to a solid marketing strategy. Download our free PDF ‘5 Steps to a Better Digital Marketing Strategy for Financial Services Companies’.