Bank on it: Strategies to help financial partners add customers, promote services

The relationship between banks and their customers has historically been built on security, trust, and convenience. In these modern times of economic volatility—or even throughout days of relative calm—customers want to be able to depend on their bank of choice and find the support they need to manage through their toughest challenges.

However, many of today’s customers are not satisfied with their financial partners.

According to a recent report by financial marketing solutions leader Vericast, 48% of consumers are now open to switching banks. This percentage may reveal plenty, from unmet consumer needs to specific banks’ failure in solidifying support for their customers. But what’s irrefutable is that there are now a growing number of prospective customers for banking institutions to court and enlist—as long as they know the right promotional tactics to employ.

Over the years, The Martin Group has partnered with a variety of banks and financial institutions to make an impact on their bottom line. From an award-winning marketing campaign we generated for MassMutual’s The Establishment, to over 10 years of building business for Evans Bank kicked off by a rebrand, we’ve had the privilege to take on so many exciting projects in the financial space. 

Today, The Martin Group is excited to solve complex digital marketing challenges for our finance clients, whether we’re setting up end-to-end tracking or redesigning user experiences with new features like website personalization. In this post, we’ll share some of the top strategies we’ve used to help our banking friends recruit new customers, promote their products, and strengthen their ongoing purpose as supportive financial institutions consumers can believe in. 

Competitive and market research

The landscape of financial services’ products is constantly evolving. This not only includes changes in offerings, rates, and the current financial market, but also services that are solely online. It is important to research what your competitors are offering and to whom. Are they constricted to a specific footprint? What keywords or phrases are they using to identify these products? Are they appealing to “rate shoppers,” or using brand differentiators in their ad text? 

Generating leads

Lead generation can be an effective strategy for longer sales cycles that are more relationship driven, such as working with a loan officer and applying for a mortgage. Case in point: We’ve had so much success for one client that we had to turn off SEM ads since they were generating a greater lead volume than the loan officers could keep up with. Lead quality is also important to consider. At The Martin Group, we omit duplicate, test, and spammy submissions to help cut down on lower quality leads.  

Nudging and nurturing prospects

When it comes to online self-service products that can sometimes take multiple touches to get someone to buy—such as opening a new checking account or investing in a high-yield money market or CD savings account—it’s important to send a nudge to remind users of your offering. Email automations can be immensely helpful in nurturing prospects through the funnel. As you generate leads, be sure to gather email addresses for future follow up. And don’t discount a good “welcome” email! That’s often when users are most engaged. 

Tracking the entire journey

Marketing attribution is a known challenge across many industries, but it’s especially important when running advertising and marketing campaigns for financial institutions. Not being able to track back the return on your investment makes it difficult to justify the marketing dollars being spent. If you need help with tracking your marketing efforts throughout the entire user journey, The Martin Group may be able to help. We’ve assisted our clients at banks to unlock more insights on attribution, which has made all the difference in their bottom line. 

Optimizing accordingly

As time progresses, look for opportunities to test what you can in efforts to improve your results. Don’t be afraid to pivot based on what data is telling you, even if it means switching things up with your website, ad creative, or your landing page. And the research that you started with? Don’t hesitate to go back to it to see what has changed in the competitive landscape and adjust accordingly. Just like the market, your advertising should be ever evolving to take advantage of any new opportunities and stay on top of market trends. 

To learn more about The Martin Group’s extensive work with banks and financial organizations, click here.