The financial services sector is evolving quickly as consumer demands are moving online and are driven by products and services that are readily accessed and serviced. Consumers want efficient, digital financial services that can keep up with their fast-paced lives. As competition for these customers continues to increase, financial services companies need strong marketing to help them differentiate themselves.
Connecting with your audience in creative ways, via videos, webinars, and blogs, is now table stakes. Embracing the creative power of digital content marketing is key to educating and engaging your audience to become new customers.
The Value of Digital Content Marketing for Financial Services
Digital content marketing is the creation of materials to engage your current, or potential, audience online. For financial services companies, this means developing thought leadership that offers solutions to an audience searching for answers to their financial questions. Primarily, this audience is looking for tips, ideas, and educational materials to help them solve problems. Digital content examples include:
- Website messaging
- Webinars
- Videos
- Podcasts
- Social media posts
- eBooks
- Whitepapers
By understanding and offering a solution for your audiences’ pain points, your financial services firm develops a stronger reputation and starts to build an engaging relationship with your target market. Also, digital content aims to entice and persuade these audiences to explore your service offerings further, ultimately resulting in a purchase.
What are the goals of digital content marketing?
When a consumer wants answers to their financial questions, most of them start with an online search. It is imperative that financial services companies increase the likelihood that their website will be the one that consumers find right away. A comprehensive digital content marketing strategy accomplishes exactly this.
Ultimately, the goal of digital content marketing is to drive traffic to your website and increase qualified leads. But a digital content marketing plan does more than provide valuable content to audiences. By utilizing digital content marketing, you can also expect to see:
- More credibility of your company through valuable content
- The attraction and retention of customers by building trust
- Increased brand awareness
Digital marketing not only expands your audience and reach, it also can position your company as a thought-leader in the industry. This is key for the continued growth of your company.
4 Ways a Digital Content Marketing Strategy Can Benefit Financial Services Companies.
Industry professionals are getting more creative when it comes to engaging their audiences. Below are a few examples of financial services companies knocking content marketing out of the park:
- RIA Advisors. This financial services firm has a vast array of content on its website. Webinars, blogs, videos, and podcasts provide a variety of material for inquiries of all scopes. By providing so much content, RIA Advisors has positioned itself as an industry expert and attracted the right audience to their website.
- Paypal. Paypal maintains a thorough resource center on its website. But most notable are its Paypal Stories. The content in this section focuses on how Paypal’s services affect consumers through interviews and day-in-the-life storytelling. Empathetic, educational, and engaging, this section is a great example of digital content marketing.
By implementing a comprehensive content strategy, financial services firms, like RIAA and Paypal, are seeing amazing benefits that lead to significant business growth. Here are 4 of the top benefits for employing a digital content marketing strategy:
1. Enhance Your SEO
Valuable, relevant content is a non-promotional way to tell the world about your services. It also helps increase organic traffic to your website, which in turn increases your chance of generating organic leads.
Knowing what content your audience is looking for is key. By understanding your audience and their pain points, you can use specific keywords to create the targeted, personalized content they want.
2. Expand Your Audience
It’s not only the younger generations that are responding favorably to personalized content. Over 244.4 million people in the US alone engage in digital media and video viewing. That’s because 54% of consumers are looking to see more videos from their favorite brands or companies.
This target market is hungry for videos that show your financial services brand personality and offerings. Creating videos promoting your business or services is a great way to turn viewers into potential leads.
3. Build Trust
Financial decisions can be very stressful, particularly for people who are not well-versed in the field. However, sharing snippets of advice and expertise via content marketing is a great way to attract potential customers.
Think of bold, creative and eye-catching content, like videos or graphics, that make complex content approachable. This empowers customers to make good choices and positions you as the expert they can count on.
4. Achieve a Great ROI
Understanding ROI helps you figure out what is working in your marketing plan. The good news is that digital content marketing has a fantastic return on investment. In fact, it costs up to 62% less than outbound marketing, and can generate up to three times as many leads.
The proof is in the data. Digital content marketing works. If you are looking to expand your financial service company’s reach, now is the time to invest in a digital marketing plan.