“Money makes the world go round.” “Cash rules everything around me.” With 64% of adults saying that money is a significant stressor in their lives, it’s safe to say that most people have money on their mind. That’s where financial service (“finserv”) companies come in.
The finserv industry has skyrocketed in recent years. By 2022, this industry is expected to reach $310 billion and continue growing past the 25,000+ startups already in the global market. Financial literacy and wealth management startups have popped up across the globe to help the average consumer take control of their monetary futures.
The modern finserv industry brings something previously deemed for the elite—money management—to the masses. Finserv brands now face a swathe of new use cases and personas, and consumers, who are presented with countless options, have heightened expectations.
Moving into 2022 and beyond, finserv brands are faced with the challenge of acquiring new customers, creating a differentiated experience, standing out amongst the crowd, and doing all of this while staying secure and trustworthy.
A lofty task, but that’s why we have four key tips for finserv marketers to focus on in 2022 to make sure their customer experience lets consumers rule the cash around them, not the other way around.
4 Marketing Tips for FinServ Success in 2022
1. Build Out—and Share—Your Content Portfolio
Perhaps the biggest issue plaguing finserv today is the financial literacy of the customer base. If only one-third of adults understand basic financial concepts, it can be hard to market the full capabilities and advantages of using your products and services.
Here is where your content marketing team can shine. Educational resources. Videos. Guides. Blogs. Podcasts. Cheat sheets. These are all excellent options to help educate your audience on (1) the different ways to use your products and services and, more importantly, (2) on the foundational concepts of your industry.
Whether you’re in credit, insurance, banking, investments, etc., there’s going to be a portion of your audience that needs help in understanding just what the heck is going on. Dealing with money is stressful enough. By giving them the resources they need—in an honest, largely product-agnostic way—you’ll make their lives easier, build their trust, and keep them coming back to learn more from you.
Lastly, share this content out through your marketing channels! Don’t sit back and wait for your audience to stumble across one blog post, think it’s great, and hope they keep exploring your library. Share it out and do so across all of your channels…
2. Create a Frictionless Cross-Channel Experience
Speaking of cross-channel marketing! Almost half of consumers (46% to be exact) only use digital channels for banking. And, as of 2019, almost $2 billion was processed daily via mobile devices. The future of finserv is mobile. Sorry, the present of finserv is mobile.
But, that doesn’t mean your other channels are moot. Email and direct mail are still crucial. Our friends at insurance agency, Policygenius, recently told us about the impact direct mail had on their customer journey.
This will probably be said at least one more time, but anything to do with money is stressful for the majority of your customers. When mapping out your customer journey, consider the different ways they interact with your brand and how consistent the transitions between channels are.
For example, many of you reading this have an app and a mobile site. There are benefits to both, but the important point is that using one or the other shouldn’t feel like the user has found themselves engaging with a completely different brand.
The same goes for your marketing channels. Email and SMS. Push notifications and in-app. All of these channels should maintain a similar tone of voice, branding, and relative cadence that individualizes the experience.
If you’re unsure what this could look like, check out our eight must-have marketing workflows. Incorporating an automated workflow into your customer experience keeps the user engaged without adding extra work or complexity for either side of the marketer-consumer equation.
3. Personalization Through Data and Automation
For marketers, data rules everything around us. Data is on our minds. For finserv marketers, data is abundant and useful for successful marketing campaigns.
Does it look like a user is saving up for a house? Have they changed their insurance policy selection after years of staying the same? Are they applying for new credit cards?
Whatever the trigger point is in your subcategory of finserv, you likely have the data to be able to identify life changes based on your users’ behavior. What you need now, is a martech stack capable of centralizing this data in a single spot for easier viewing and action.
After that, automation comes in. Iterable’s workflows are mentioned above as one option for automating the customer experience, but the goal for marketers should always be to automate, analyze, and iterate.
Finserv is under high scrutiny for secure data collection and storage. Your brand has done the due diligence. Now it’s time to give back by personalizing the experience, which can be done in any number of ways.
Local regulations can complicate matters for consumers, but not if you incorporate their location into your marketing. Let users know you’re paying attention and do so by using data they have provided. The kicker, though, is that to avoid the creepy factor, you have to add value. Here’s where further interpretation of their behavioral data—and savvy sharing of content—makes you a trusted partner more than a service provider.
4. Get Your Users Talking
If you follow the above three tips, you’ll have a marketing experience worth talking about, and boy oh boy do consumers love sharing their experiences with brands.
They also love hearing others’ experiences: 92% of consumers trust referrals from people they know.
Referrals are a huge part of finserv. Think about when you first started out saving or buying insurance or applying for credit cards. Sure, there was a research component to it, but you likely asked your friends and family for their advice and experiences.
Credibility and trust take time to develop in finserv, and with this comes a longer investment in acquiring customers. By tapping into your most loyal, active customers, you’re fostering brand advocates, which is invaluable moving forward.
I’ll reiterate: a good marketing experience is worth talking about. Sharing trustworthy, educational content, with a smooth, frictionless experience, using data to personalize said experience—that creates a good customer experience.
If you can’t get referrals quite as much, the next best thing is a good review. Consumers nowadays are seeking reviews before potentially even finding referrals. How many times have you been looking for something, found a few highly-rated reviews, and then asked around if anyone has a personal experience with that brand?
For finserv marketers in 2022, give your users a chance to speak up. Send surveys. Ask for feedback. Incentivize honest reviews with discount codes. Send referral codes. Any and every way you can build a brand advocate from a loyal customer will help with your LTV and CAC in the long run.
A Look to the Future…And Today
Finserv in 2022 is a crowded field that is only going to increase in competitiveness. Getting the foundations set early in your marketing strategy can be the edge you need to stand out and earn loyal brand advocates for customers.
Above, we looked at the finserv of tomorrow—well, a month and some change from now. Below, we have a look at the finserv of today, and how you can take the next step to enact the change you want to see in your marketing. Check out this quick look at where the finserv industry stands today, and how Iterable can help your marketing team achieve more in 2022 and beyond.
