Inbound Marketing for Finance Companies

After almost a decade of working with financial institutions, we've realized that this branch needs to do Inbound Marketing. We have shown year by year how content, when created for a purpose - which in this case, is increasing the number of prospects so they become customers - works for the sale or placement of banking, leasing or credit services. In this article, we want to give you the reasons why you should include Inbound Marketing in your marketing strategy.

Does it really make sense to do it?

Since the financial industry has its own rules, it makes it a complex branch for everyone to understand it, with its on big-scale challenges and complex services. Its sales processes usually takes time, since they must check the viability of clients.

To the sea of questions that the prospects will have, the contents that give clear and fast answers to clients become necessary. Adding an adequate platform for clients to find these answers will build a relationship of transparency with your potential customers, based on the path that each client wants to take, until he makes the final purchase. Helping them, accompanying them, and giving them the information that they need - and not only the one which the institution thinks is appropriate - educates them, clarifies concepts, and builds trust in your clients. This is how they will come back for more until they are ready to take the last step, to buy. In other words, with this strategy, you can generate visits on your website, generate leads and increase customers.

What are the benefits I get from applying Inbound Marketing to my strategy?

Inbound Marketing is a digital methodology that gathers all the online resources in oder to:

• Position your company as an opinion leader of your industry
• Turn your website into the best salesperson of your company

Blogs posts, videos, social networks, emails, landing pages, call-to-action buttons, statistics and follow-up, are put into work to achieve these goals.

It's not about publishing content for the sake of publishing rather, your content must be targeted to help your customers and prospects. It's positive content, it doesn't interrupt customers (it isn't intrusive) rather, it gets found by them while they search for something on Google. It isn't spam, because it contributes to they search, on the right time, with the material that most helps them in order to move forward in their buying process.

So your offer of content made with a purpose -whether it is to get a visitor or its conversion into a new or more advanced prospect- will be included in your customers' buyer journey.

It's Measurable and Scalable

Inbound Marketing creates a scalable and measurable growth strategy. Nothing that can't be measured, will be improved. Which is why the whole strategy is based on data, business intelligence and metrics, different from "old fashioned" ways, such as assumptions, last-minute inspirations, or personal/subjective tastes. As one colleague told me: "This is science and not art." This metrics provide immediate answers when it comes to finding out if:

• What we're doing is working -or not
• We are indeed improving our customer closing rates
• We are having a return on investment (ROI)

Invest in Real Prospects

Improve your lead prospecting from the very beginning, since only those who are already looking for the products or services that they actually need, arrive to your Website. This is content marketing. No resources are wasted on people who will never be your clients plus, it's easier to give your ROI a close follow-up. You don't waste your investment - either in time or money- on cold calls, spam.

Clients are Acquired Faster and Kept Longer

Another asset is that the time spent acquiring clients decreases, since the following Inbound tools help to do so:

• Content that gives an answer to those questions that each client may have
• An automation platform that actually works
• The pre-qualification of prospects
• A CRM that gives a follow-up of your clients; It provides the communication history that your company has had with its potential clients and of clients as well.

Inbound Marketing helps you build deeper and long lasting relationships with your clients.

Inbound for Finance Companies

The process of generating clients for financial services takes longer than it does for other services. There are implicit obstacles to the purchase and there's an extensive research that the institution has to run before authorizing it. Plus, customers also have make their own research in order to make the best decision and, let's face it, hardly anyone has knowledge on how finances actually work.

Considering all of the above, let's talk about some:

Ways in Which Inbound Can Help You Achieve Your Goals

1. Strategy is the basis. A good general strategy with defined goals, objectives or key performance indicators -KPIs- is the best way to start, since: it'll have everyone in the know of what they are looking for; enthusiasm is maintained; and daily tactical work will depend on it.
2. Development of your Buyer Personas, that is, of your ideal customers. You get to know them in-depth: what do they want to achieve from their work, what are their ambitions in life and their geographical situation. All this helps in order to speak to them in their own language, to attract them with helpful content.
3. Many companies have told us that they have a business blog or at least a site where they share content but ... it's practically abandoned or they only share important company news. That's why it's better to start taking it seriously and share content designed to help the ideal -and current- customer and, above all, to help them educate themselves.
4. Extensive format content. It is a publication of great value offered to clients in order to convert visitors into prospects. They are downloadable and offer great help to prospects. They exist in different formats, such as a free guide, an ebook, explanatory videos or tutorials, check lists ... in short, everything! They can be reached by a simple Google search or by a call-to-action button. They are the beginning of the conversion path.
5. Finally, we can't forget email marketing -not SPAM-. When managed within an Inbound methodology, it's always an very useful tool: for the development of special campaigns; to offer premium content; for lead nutrition.

Inbound Marketing, SEO and Financial Services

This is how, with the use of a serious process like Inbound Marketing, we focus on offering valuable information focused on customers. This has a direct impact on achieving the "best results" places on search engines, such as Google, whenever customers are looking for something online.

As a second step, it helps to generate leads and encourages them to take the necessary steps so they convert into sales. Why would this help your institution? Because it's perfect for financial services! Regardless if they are insurance, banking or credit services, it has a lot of potential for each member of the sales team.

Are you considering getting started with Inbound or need help with your strategy? Talk to a DataBrander now and learn about the options we have for your business.