Social media is an excellent method to let your financial brand shine above the rest. These are the top 6 things to remember.
More than 50% of offline investors start by looking online before making an investment decision.
According to RRD research, over half the consumers discovered a brand, product or service through word-of-mouth and social media last year.
These stats show that social media can be a potent mechanism for financial service brands seeking to attract customers and foster long-term growth.
However, they must use it properly.
Marketing financial services are often limited in their ability, partly because of traditional advertising methods, but primarily because of the strict regulatory compliances they must adhere to.
Financial brands can use social media advertising to stay in prospects’ minds and win new customers while remaining within regulatory guidelines.
This article will provide six tips for improving your social advertising campaigns to make a powerful marketing impact.
Financial Services Marketing: A Challenge Of Its OWN
Marketing financial services can be as tricky as marketing an apparel or makeup brand.
These products are more appealing than most financial products because they have a natural charm and appeal. Financial brands are known for selling dull products. This is why it can be challenging to convince people to purchase them.
Financial services marketing is more complex than other industries because it contains jargon.
Finance professionals are skilled in complex terminology and use industry jargon to guide their work.
Marketers and advertisers may need help translating the jargon into language that social media users can understand. Social media users are not to be offended. All of us are in an equal boat!
The financial services industry is also restricted by many compliance and regulatory formalities.
You need to look at your legal advisor to take a single step in any direction and check to see if they have given a green or red signal. These restrictions limit advertisers’ creativity and prevent them from competing on a level playing field with other brands.
People also buy value. People invest in things they feel will bring value to their lives.
It is easy to convince people to purchase a waterproof watch. All they need to do to prove worth it is take a shower with the look.
Many financial services are not waterproof watches.
They can produce tangible results over time, or they may not.
Financial advertisers face another challenge in convincing their customers to purchase their products.
Marketers and advertisers face another challenge because of the reluctance of financial marketing professionals to adopt marketing automation. They are limited to traditional marketing strategies and legacy strategies.
Finally, eCommerce relies heavily on trust, which the finance industry lost following the 2008 recession.
Although it’s been many decades since then, customers remain skeptical about financial services.
Financial services marketers face another obstacle as they build trust with their audiences and get their buying cycles moving.
Let’s now talk about the challenges in financial services marketing.
Tips for Finance Brands
Fintech companies have revolutionized the advertising and marketing scene for financial service brands.
All finance brands need to adapt to marketing changes and develop strategies to help them deliver campaigns that meet modern customer demands.
These tips will help you develop a disruptive advertising strategy for your financial brand.
1. Engage Influencers
Influencer marketing was not considered severe by many when it was first developed. It has since become a multi-billion-dollar industry, transforming how brands interact with customers.
Influencer marketing is often a concern for financial services companies as they believe that most of their target market is older.
Gen Z is responsible for more than 40% of global consumers. Interestingly, 34% are learning personal finance via TikTok or YouTube.
Social media is the best way to reach this audience, primarily through influencer marketing.
Finance brands that deal with younger and tech-savvy audiences primarily depend on influencer marketing.
Choose an influencer who is familiar with the financial industry.
As we have already stated, the finance industry is full of technical processes and jargon. Partner with an influencer to help you understand these terms.
Be sure that the target audience of influencers matches your ideal customer profile. Create more than just one-off campaigns. Trust is key.
In 2020, financial services saw a 14% rise in the trust factor. This is the highest number the industry has seen in many years.
Customers are only beginning to trust financial institutions. You want to increase this trust by selecting the right influencers, then following them for long-term campaigns.
2. Conduct In-Depth Audience Research
42% Financial service marketers say reaching the right audience should be their top concern.
Your advertising campaign’s success depends on the accuracy of your audience persona.
The audience data will influence all your decisions. You must ensure that your customer profile is built from accurate and precise data.
Social media ads require that you include information about your customers’ age and gender so that your ads are delivered to the right people.
Imagine your target audience as a 25-year-old freelance worker in New Jersey. Your audience research needed to be revised, and you chose a New York-based corporate employee 40 years old as your target audience. This is where even Facebook ads will only do a little for your brand.
Start by identifying your target-audience’s age, gender, and location. This information can be accessed via your social media accounts.
You can also learn more about their struggles and interests so that you can create messages that resonate with them.
This can be done by asking customers directly via surveys.
You can also see which competitors you are targeting and how they do it, and then find key data points.
3. Select your platform carefully
Would you market Pizza Hut to your target audience if they frequent Burger King? No.
This is also true for social media marketing.
Social advertising is expensive. You need to ensure your ad reaches the right people to generate tangible value for your brand.
You need to choose the most popular social media stage with your target audience.
Pinterest is an option if your target audience includes married millennial women. However, if you are trying to reach Gen Z you may be better off sticking with Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat.
It is not only important to determine which platform your target audience uses, but it also influences the type of content they consume on that platform. Do they use TikTok to create how-to videos or are they using it for business purposes? Are they using Instagram to find brands?
Make sure you create content that your audience will enjoy.
4. Perform Ad Optimization Tests
Have you ever cooked dinner for essential guests? You’ll know what it means to taste-test your food before you cook it. Your ads should be the same.
Advertising has a basic goal: To impact the audience once it is out there.
Before you launch them, make sure that they work properly.
14% is spent on online advertising by the financial services industry. This is how much money financial brands spend on advertising. It is essential to test your ads to ensure that every cent is well spent.
Ad testing is creating multiple versions of an ad and then testing which performs best. This gives you insight into which of your ad ideas are performing well and what should be changed.
Your ad graphics might be great, but your copy may appeal to a different audience. Before running the ad on a larger scale, you will need to tweak the document to ensure it has the right impact when sent out to a broader audience.
You should make at least three versions of the same ad to ensure you have enough data for your decision-making. You will get more insight if you only change one element in the ad. You may need clarification when attributing the results to more than one element.
If your ad variant generates a lot of clicks, but you have changed the headline copy and background graphic, you won’t be able to determine what caused the increase in click-through rate (CTR).
Change only one element in each test.
After your ads have been running for some time, you can analyze the results and use these to guide your creative decisions.
5. Stay True to Your Brand
In all industries, trust is crucial. It is essential in the financial sector.
61% of people will only use a brand new to finance.
To ensure that people recognize your business through its branding elements, you must first build it.
PayPal is what you think of. What colors would you associate PayPal with? Most likely, yes.
Payoneer has remained true to its color scheme.
Brands are more trusted than businesses by people. When creating and running social media ad-campaigns, it is crucial to stick with your brand. No one will recognize your company if your ad creatives are not consistent with your brand.
It’s more than just recognition. 33% can increase your revenue through consistent representation. This is how branding can impact your bottom line.
Make sure to identify your brand’s tone and color and be consistent when creating social media ads. This will allow you to stand out in a noisy environment where customers are scarce.
6. Prioritize quality visual content
It’s been said a few times before, but it doesn’t hurt to reiterate it: Attention on social media can be scarce.
People consume small amounts of content.
No one has time to read boring text blocks.
Our brains are more efficient at processing visual content. When creating social media ads, make sure to prioritize high-quality visual content.
More is needed to include visuals.
Sometimes, you may have only 10 seconds to make a social media ad that makes a significant impact. Make sure your visuals are easy to remember and convey your message quickly.
Conclusion
Financial brands that want to expand in the current marketing environment will need social media ads.
Despite all the challenges in financial services marketing, strategies must be developed to reach the right people and deliver the right message to generate value for your brand.
These strategies can help you get started in modern advertising and keep you competitive in the fast-paced environment of financial marketing.
But, before you start implementing all of the strategies discussed here, consider this: Always practice transparency.
Trust is already a precious commodity in financial services marketing, and you cannot afford to lose any more.
Keep your offerings transparent and educate the audience. Use a language they can understand through a medium they appreciate to communicate your message.
