In this guide to digital marketing for financial services businesses, we’re delighted to introduce one of our marketing partners, Tabitha Beasley, owner of The Marketing Associates.

Tabitha will share insights from her long-standing experience of supporting financial services clients to define and deliver effective strategic marketing and we’ll look at how effective SEO for financial services enhances customer engagement to increase the power and reach of your marketing activities.

How to use digital marketing in finance?

When asked the question ‘How is marketing used in financial services?’ we typically refer to developing a strategy involving a number of different tools and platforms, most commonly including:

  • Content marketing
  • Email marketing
  • Social media marketing
  • Mobile-optimised web design
  • SEO
  • Customer reviews

Why it’s important to have search engine optimisation in your financial services marketing mix

SEO is crucial for digital marketing for financial services because it enhances online visibility and attracts targeted traffic. By optimising your content for relevant keywords, you make it easier for potential clients to find you when searching, leading to higher-quality leads. High search rankings also build credibility and trust, giving you a competitive edge in a crowded market.

SEO for financial services is a cost-effective marketing strategy compared to paid advertising, providing long-term benefits once high rankings are achieved.

Want to dominate the financial services market? We can help you enhance your online visibility and attract high-quality leads. Let’s get started – book a Free SEO Consultation.

What are the main marketing challenges for financial services businesses?

The financial sector is an incredibly dynamic and fast-changing environment, with new products and services constantly emerging. At the same time, it’s a heavily regulated industry, with lots of regulatory compliance around services offered and marketing activity.

It’s also a sector that is rapidly being changed by AI technology, with customer service platforms and self-service trading and investment platforms giving consumers more and more tools to do their own research, investing and trading.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that all of your audience wants to go solo. Many people still rely on expert advice. But it does mean that the bar is rising in terms of their customer experience expectations. And as Millennials and Gen-Z investors start to become wealthier, those tech-savvy generations are more likely to feel confident with these digital tools.

In a crowded market, digital marketing for financial services businesses needs to work hard to raise brand awareness, engage with target audiences, and persuade them to make contact.

Understanding customer needs

Your biggest priority for your digital marketing strategy, then, is to identify who your audience is. Get as personal as you can. Understanding your customer goes way beyond a simple demographic (age, location etc). You need to start thinking of your customers in a more granular way – down to who they are as individuals. What are their likes/dislikes? What do they choose to spend their money on?

People search for financial services or financial products because they have a need. Either they must resolve a challenge, or they want to achieve something. They are looking for advice, and answers. Your website needs to be informative and engaging, providing clear, valuable content that addresses their specific needs and questions. This builds trust and positions you as an authority in your field.

With the majority of users accessing websites via mobile devices, ensuring a seamless mobile experience is essential. A mobile-friendly design enhances user experience, leading to higher engagement and conversion rates. Simultaneously, an SEO-optimised website increases your visibility on search engines, making it easier for potential clients to find you and ensuring you rank higher than competitors.

The Marketing Associates often take clients through an avatar creation exercise, which helps them to see their target customers as individual people. This allows them to work out their likely challenges and aspirations, and make sure that when the potential customers find you, they get an instant sense of relief that they have found an expert who understands them.

Defining your marketing mix

Understanding who your customers are will guide your decisions about your marketing mix. Where do they go? What social media do they use? What other websites are they fans of? Do they spend time on TikTok? Facebook? Insta? Do they read certain magazines, or go to particular events?

Remember that, even if you are looking at B2B financial services marketing, your target audience have lives outside of their professional roles, and being in the right place is just as likely to capture their attention outside working hours (more likely, in some cases).

This is where you will start to get specific about which social media marketing channels you need to use, how you will approach SEO for financial services, and whether pay-per-click or other advertising is right for your brand and your budget.

Establishing empathy

This is crucial to successful digital marketing for financial services. In a market where providers of financial products (with often little to choose between them – until you get to the small print) are falling over themselves to attract customers, the last things you should be talking about are products.

First, you should discuss their problems and objectives. Show that you understand their challenges and worries. Talk about how you will help. Save any mention of specific products or services for later, when you are offering them as a solution to a problem, or the tool for achieving a goal.

Think of it as the customer being the hero, and you are the guide. Your communications – everything from your website to your ‘X’ feed are focussed on how you can help them, not on what they need to buy.

Building trust and credibility

From empathy “this financial adviser/accountant etc ‘gets’ me”, your potential customer moves on to credibility. “Are they who they say they are?”

Clearly, in such a regulated industry, highlighting your qualifications, professional memberships and accreditations is vital. But building credibility goes beyond these ‘hygiene factors’. The two elements which will really help you to show potential customers who you are:

  • Your existing clients: Short video testimonials, written testimonials and online reviews are all great ways of letting your current clients tell your market about how good you are. The actual platform that you use to gather online reviews will depend on your specific sector. If you’re not sure which is the most appropriate, have a look at what your competitors are using.
  • Your team: Ultimately, people buy people, and when you are marketing your financial services business it’s important to remember that it is a relationship-based business. Make sure that your website and social media showcase your team and allow potential clients to start getting to know them.

Personalising your marketing messages

To enhance customer engagement, you need to ensure a great customer experience. We’ve already talked about needing to show that you understand who they are and what they need. You can add to this by personalising your marketing messages, especially when thinking about aspects of your digital marketing strategy like email marketing.

When you’re sending out any form of email marketing – whether it’s your regular newsletter, campaign emails or general updates, it’s a good idea to personalise the content as much as possible. This might mean segmenting your content according to different customer groups.

If you’ve got questions about how to use digital marketing in finance, get in touch with The Marketing Associates, or for more information about how SEO for financial services can enhance your online visibility and attract high-quality leads contact us here at PinkSEO.

About The Marketing Associates

Pink SEO is proud to partner with The Marketing Associates. Founded by Director Tabitha Beasley in 2014, The Marketing Associates is dedicated to helping professional service businesses get their marketing working for them and taking it to the next level through a successful outsourced consultancy model.

Tabitha works with her clients to set business objectives and define a marketing strategy; then brings together marketing experts across all areas of the marketing mix; from SEO to copywriting, social media to web design, providing clients with the very best marketing resources to deliver their objectives.

Tabitha says: “Having spent years in marketing and advertising agencies, I wanted to break the norm and offer business owners a far more strategic and streamlined approach to marketing. The Marketing Associates does this by briefing and managing all third-party marketing services to ensure a totally aligned marketing approach, delivery and results.” Learn more about The Marketing Associates

Tabitha also said “As a Marketing Consultant, I work with PinkSEO to supply professional and expert SEO solutions. I recommend PinkSEO for all of my clients as I know they always deliver excellent service and results. Having worked with various other SEO suppliers during my 20 year career I can honestly say they are the very best in their industry.”