Financial Marketing

Who needs a content strategy?

You do. Seriously.

For many companies, content marketing has become the link between brand awareness and lead generation. If you can nail it, you’ll build trust with future and current customers. In fact, according to recent studies, search queries for “content strategy” has more than doubled in the past two years. It’s becoming its own medium. It can seem daunting, but with careful planning, a focused strategy, and precise execution, content strategy can work for you.

Wow. Okay, so how do we even begin?

The first thing you need to do when considering a content strategy is to get support from your stakeholders. Content marketing is not something that is short-term. It’s a long-term commitment and requires everyone to be on board and supportive to the point of involvement sometimes.

Having everyone on board means you’ll have to sell the idea to your executive team as well as other people with key roles in your company. When you talk to these people, make it about them, not about the content strategy. Talk about the company’s goals and then prove how content strategy and marketing can help meet those goals. There is a return on investment when it comes to content, but that return is not instant. This exercise is about building a relationship. Like all relationships, that takes time. Make sure you manage those expectations when pitching your content marketing plan.

They’re on board. Now what?

To be successful, you must understand your audience. All content needs to be relevant to their needs and what they want from you. To figure this out, figure out who your customer is. Ask questions like

• Who is our ideal customer?
• How do they make purchasing decisions?
• What makes them happy?
• What are their pain points?
• What areas of their life can we speak into as experts?

Answering these questions will allow you to build a picture of the person to whom you are talking. Once you have that person, give him or her a name. Make it personal.

Gotcha. Did it. What’s next?

Great. So far, so good. Time to figure out what content to create.

Now is the time for research. To create content that will be most relevant to your customer, you need to know what’s out there already — and identify holes that you can fill with your information. Some ways to do that include:

• Looking at social media channels with listening tools (a variety of which are free) to figure out what people are talking about, meaning what conversations are already happening around your area of expertise.
• Take a look at your website analytics and see what brings people to you in the first place.
• Look at the industry as a whole and find new trends and relevant things. Be a thought-leader.
• Yes, just ask your customers what they want to know more about, what they care about, and what they want you to teach them.

Remember: It’s not all about you. When it comes to actually creating the content, it’s about making things your customers want. Is this a video about financial planning? Is it a case study about the current things happening in the market and how they should react?

This fact brings us to the next most important point: make sure your content is cross-channel and cross-media. Oh, and don’t just create content, curate it. Tons of information exists already and can be re-purposed and reshaped to meet the needs of your customers. Plus, finding existing content just shows that you’re out there looking and not stuck inside your brain (or boardroom).

We have lots of great stuff gathered. What do we do with it?

Plan, plan. And then plan. Think of content marketing sort of like writing a magazine. Each “issue” or month must be carefully planned out. Put together an editorial calendar to map out topics and methods of capturing them. This approach is good for overall content campaign strategy, and also a tool to show the executive board that willingly (or reluctantly) agreed to let you begin marketing this way in the first place. Let them in on this process. Let them approve the calendar before a single piece of content gets produced. Then there are no surprises for them, and you can go off to the races. The race to create the most relevant pieces of content for growing your customer loyalty — and your customer base.

No matter the size of an organization, everyone is searching for the perfect formula: The one that will grow their customer base and their ROI. Honestly, a company that isn’t growing is dying. It’s a basic Business 101 concept.

There are plenty of formulas out there businesses like yours are using to achieve a great deal of success. Our goal is to help you capitalize on models that already exist — while not breaking the bank in the process.

That sounds great, what’s actually working?

Start with checking account acquisition. If it seems too easy, maybe that’s because it is. It’s the simplest way to attract and convert new people, create lasting relationships, and serve as a reason to contact them with cross-channel promotions.

Think about it. Everyone needs a checking account. No matter how digital things go and how much people hate to write checks, they still need to be able to write them. And every banking transaction typically goes through this account, whether by debit, EBT or a classic, old-school paper check.

How exactly does this work?

Start by understanding your market. Spend some time on the front-end doing analysis so that you fully understand the objectives to set. One way to do this is by using predictive analytics to target your future market as well as existing customers. Then commit to an offer and make it appealing.

Why would someone choose to go with you over another institution? Incentivize the heck out of whatever you offer. (Sorry if we used strong language there, but this is important!) Do this and you’ll see results.

Consider offering a set interest rate for opening a checking account with you or offer a pre-paid debit card as a thank-you for joining. Then blast this offer out wherever you can. That means maximizing the offer across channels. Promote it in branches, on the internet and anywhere else you get traffic.

Once you get new members, retain them with a set onboarding strategy. Gather their email address and send follow-up offers, news, and incentives. Thank them for trusting you as a financial partner. Sure it takes a little legwork upfront, but it pays dividends.

What does the research say?

Okay, checking account acquisition is a great place to start. Next let’s take a look at the mindset people are in when they’re making the decision to change and how that impacts what you should do.

Research finds that there are certain reasons consumers decide on a primary financial institution. Marketing, negative experiences and life events are drivers in the market for people to switch. Some shifts in consumer mindset show that organizations like yours need to be “always on” as this is a driver for people considering a switch. If your brand as seen as available and caring, it’s easier to secure a new customer. Especially when they are shopping different institutions at once.

It’s also important to remember that the financial services path to purchase is not as predictable as it was before. Take checking accounts for example. Most consumers visit at least one bank or credit union website prior to purchase, with a majority visiting multiple sites. For this reason, it’s challenging for financial marketers that want to be where the consumer is shopping for new checking accounts. Sure, digital retargeting is still a smart tactic, but it’s time to start thinking outside of that box, too.

One more thing before we go.

Okay, the fact times are changing is apparent, and that can be daunting based on your goals and needs. But don’t let that get you down. Here’s why: Our research shows that prescreen credit data can be your most powerful marketing tool.

Great news, right?

Make sure to use this data to its full potential; it can be segmented tons of ways to identify a large pool of qualified members. In acquisition speak, that means targeting specific messages and incentives to people based on their needs, needs identified before your second point of contact with them. And that is the first step to acquiring new members — and growing.

Who are you and what do you stand for?

There is nothing more important for a business than knowing who they are. I’m using “who” because that’s how a brand should be seen — as a person. It’s the best way to start and deepen your relationship with your audience.

So as a brand ask yourself, what do you believe? What do you sound like, look like, and feel like? Who are you talking to? How are talking to them? And what do you want people to feel when they hear you speak?

You don’t invent this meaning. You uncover it. Branding starts inside an organization and then grows to meet the public. It’s important that everyone who represents the company understands and represents the brand. A brand is a promise. The people in your organization handle fulfilling that promise. That’s why it’s vital that your brand is communicated clearly and consistently across all channels — and every touch-point for consumers.

Okay, so how do we figure out who we are?

Start by asking yourself some basic questions. Then survey several key people within your company to answer them, too. Things like:

• What’s the most important thing we want people to think about our company?
• Do we want to talk at people or talk with people?
• What are some keywords that you think customers use to describe the company?
• Are these the keywords you want them to be using?
• Write down a list of brands you admire. How can you get closer to their type of branding?

You might notice some inconsistency in what you’re hearing. If that’s the case, consider hiring an agency to take a look at your brand and evaluate it/grade it. A complete rebrand isn’t always necessary, but sometimes it is.

As the saying goes: if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.

Once you figure out who your brand is, it must stand for something. To figure out what that is, start looking into the different channels.

Right now, the buzzword is “content.” Content marketing might be right for you, but not necessarily. Would your customers benefit from content? Would they even want it? The answer here requires an in-depth analysis of their daily habits and where they get information. Once you understand their information-gathering patterns, you’ll know if targeting them with content is smart – or not.

So if it’s not content, what is it?

Good question. A lot of brands find success by being altruistic. They help make the world a better place. We’ve seen this work with huge brands like TOMS and Apple, but it can work for your brand, too.

Consider partnering with a cause you believe in and committing to donate a percentage of your profits each year to benefit them. Partnerships like this not only help create an emotional connection for Customers with your brand, but they also help give you a reason for being or a “Why.” And every brand needs a “Why.”

Is a brand a logo?

So glad you asked. A logo (or a mark in old-school advertising speak) is only part of your brand. While it’s a vital visual representation of you that is consistent across all channels, it’s not who you are. If your logo is green — not everything you do has to be green. If your logo has a star in it, you don’t have to be named Star Company, Inc.

That said, a logo and proper brand materials are important to have a well-received, established brand. Partnering with a design firm who specializes in branding is a good place to start for this project. They should be able to provide you with multiple options of logos, taglines and ways to talk about your company as well as ideas for cross-channel collateral and incentive programs.

Brands tell stories.

So enough about what we think, let’s talk about you. Or rather, let’s have you talk about you. That’s the beginning of defining your brand — and it sets you on the path to telling the beautiful story of who your company is, why it exists, and what it has to offer the world.

Incent, incent, incent. And after that, try using an incentive. In our over-cluttered, over-informed world, one of the best ways to grow it through referrals. If you think that think this strategy sounds like you’ll be paying people to sing your praises, you’d be right.

There’s no shame in rewarding people for expressing what they already believe. These folks have enjoyed working with you. With the proper motivation, they will happily refer their friends, family, and inner-most circle. And that’s when the magic happens. Once more people find out you’re incentivizing referrals, the more referrals you’ll get. And then, boom. It’s like a waterfall of new business.

So we’re not going to be losing money on these incentives?

Absolutely not. Well, maybe on the first one. But after that, the returns pay dividends.

Companies like Airbnb and Starbucks see huge results by incentivizing referrals. But you have to go about it correctly. A lot of banks and credit unions view referrals on a small scale — typically implementing them as short referral campaigns and then shelving them.

We think we know why. The process needs to be easy for the customer. We’ve seen a lot of referral programs advertised on a website or email, which is fine — until the customer is required to take an extra step like printing out a PDF to make the referral. This one extra step can lose you a referral. People want to be rewarded — but with the minimum amount of work. The easier you make it, the more effective you’ll become.

Okay, what’s the right way to do it?

Look into using a digital referral platform. But not your old stand-by. In fact, we’ve seen that the typical digital referral platforms aren’t as effective as a few new things out there. Let’s take a look at some examples of companies that are using new digital referral techniques and seeing success:

• Several neo-banks including Simple and Coin are making digital referrals an integral part of their lead generation and acquisition strategy.
• Outside of our industry, services like Uber, Airbnb and Clear use these programs and continue to gain customers — and market share.
• Banking institutions who are using referral programs correctly — like Simple, view it as not just a once-a-year campaign but as a key piece of their digital marketing and lead generation strategy. Especially when it comes to onboarding and cross-selling. Simple even has a referral function within their online banking platform to make it easy for their customers to do this. But they don’t stop there. They follow through with referral call to actions across onboarding emails once someone has applied for an account with them. They make the process (you guessed it) simple.

Not totally convinced?

It can be scary to change the way you approach referrals, but it doesn’t have to be. Talk to the people behind the scenes of your digital marketing and ask about testing a new referral system.

Sometimes, taking a small step in the right direction is the right place to start. Once you begin to see positive results, look into implementing the new strategy across multiple channels. You won’t be disappointed by the results you see; chances are you’ll experience exactly the opposite.

You must understand what your customers need and want – and what would be the right way to incentivize them. No one wants an incentive they don’t need. So spend some time on the front-end doing research. Find out what’s working in similar institutions. And then, sit back and watch the referrals flow.

Just don’t forget …

The single most important part of this puzzle is to track your referrals — and follow up. Say thank you. It creates a positive reinforcement loop that sends a message your institution is all about action and accountability. People aren’t required to refer you to anyone. The fact they did so is a big deal — an extra step. Sure, you’ve made it easier for them by digitizing it, but it’s still something they did because they believe in you. Prove to them that you believe in them, too.