The financial services sector is incredibly competitive, so when it comes to differentiating your business and attracting valuable prospects, marketing is crucial.
“71% of financial services organisations plan to increase their digital marketing spend in the year to come.”
Along with helping you build a strong B2B brand, developing a comprehensive marketing strategy can assist your company in effectively positioning yourself as an industry leader.
If you want to truly optimise your financial service company’s investment in marketing, it’s essential that you stay up-to-date on the latest trends. However, this certainly doesn’t mean jumping on board with every tactic that’s recommended to you. Instead, you need to understand the changing business landscape and leverage your knowledge to construct highly relevant, targeted strategies. Whether this involves looking at what your competitors are doing, reading reliable industry sources or collecting and analysing data, such information is vital. This will assist your financial services business in establishing a sound marketing strategy for now, while also aiding in your ability to proactively plan for future endeavours.
The Growing Prominence of Digital Technologies
Digital capabilities are becoming an increasingly important component of many company’s business strategies, and for businesses providing financial services, this is not different. In a recent survey, 90% of respondents said they believe that the financial industry is being disrupted by the evolution of digital technologies. However, less than half of those surveyed feel as though they’re adequately prepared to meet the demands of these new digital pressures.
So, what does this mean for your business?
In most scenarios, this change will equate to one of two things, depending on how your financial services business reacts.
Scenario #1
The first is that you’ll be unresponsive and, consequently, end up being left behind in the rush. As your competitors evolve and adjust their processes to improve efficiencies and satisfy the ever-changing needs of consumers, you’ll remain relatively stagnate. If at some point you decide to start adopting digital technologies, your team will likely still be a step behind everyone else. While your competitors are already planning for the future and developing proactive strategies, you might find yourself stuck playing catch-up.
Scenario #2
Alternatively, let’s say you make integrating digital technologies a priority. Once having effectively incorporated them into your company, you can start thinking about what’s next. With strong foundational systems in place, you’ll be able to dedicate more time towards building innovative, proactive plans for future endeavours. This can, in turn, help you improve your responsiveness to new advances, all the while remaining competitive in an incredibly volatile market.
The digital era is already here, so if you’re yet to adapt, the time to act is now. With reliable systems in place that leverage digital technologies you can improve processes, enhance the customer experience and boost engagement.
Improving the Customer Experience is Becoming Increasingly Important
Your target audience isn’t always going to be familiar with the technicalities of your offering. It’s for this reason that, when comparing different financial commodities, consumers will often have difficulty differentiating between divergent products.
Thus, it’s crucial that your financial services company establishes a unique point-of-difference, conveying to prospects why your offering is the ideal solution for their needs. By focusing strongly on improving the customer experience and adding new, unexpected value to the purchasing process you can do just that.
“79% of consumers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services.”
Leveraging Data to Enrich The Customer Experience
Interested in improving the customer experience, but not sure where to begin?
Collecting and analysing data is a great starting point, giving you valuable insights into how your financial services business is performing and where adjustments to your current processes are required. Data can provide your B2B marketing strategies with clear, researched direction, all the while helping you optimise your campaigns.
By defining and examining the stages that consumer’s progress through when making a purchase, you can pinpoint certain areas where individuals disengage. Once you’re aware of these, you can develop tactics to target and address barriers in the customer journey and, ultimately, reignite prospects’ interest in your brand.
Personalisation is key in modern marketing campaigns, but if you don’t know your target audience, your efforts to improve their experience with your company could be completely misguided.
This is where the effective use of data becomes all the more important.
The information you discover by analysing data can be applied to build comprehensive customer personas. These distinct groups you’ve identified can then be targeted using personalisation tactics, allowing you to tailor the buyer journey to their differing needs and priorities.
By developing a thoughtful, value-driven customer experience, financial services organisations can improve their ability to attract new leads, drive conversions and boost customer retention.
At the Lead Agency, we’re experts in B2B digital marketing, B2B lead generation, B2B content marketing and more. For more information about financial services marketing, or to start preparing your business for B2B marketing 2020 trends, get in touch with our team today.
