How to Choose a Digital Marketing Agency for Financial Services

The development of digital marketing creates its importance in any industry. Companies providing financial services need quality promotion no less than any other business. For such companies, digital marketing today has become even more important than 2-3 years ago.

Let's face it: marketing financial products or services is not so simple. Perhaps this is one of the most difficult industries to promote. Why? Here, everyone instantly looks at numbers, not at interesting creatives.

In the financial services industry, it’s not enough to be a good mathematician and count numbers. Such companies should be able to contact strangers and create a system that turns them into potential customers, and then into real customers.

This means that financial services need someone who will be engaged in marketing operations. You need to find the appropriate agency. Digital marketing is too important for financial advisors.

But the question arises: how to choose the right agency that will provide a high-quality marketing strategy in the financial services market?

Do they know your industry?

The idea of marketing is that a person must create creativity, regardless of the sphere in which he works. Therefore, many agencies accept all clients and provide them with good promotion. It may be that on Monday they develop an attractive website for a restaurant, and on Tuesday they create a logo for a clothing store.

All this is acceptable for such businesses. But such marketing agencies will not be able to create an appropriate strategy for organizing professional services that focus on working with sophisticated, educated clientage. In the field of financial consulting, the client will always be aware of many things and standard marketing moves will not work on him. In this case, a unique approach is needed.

Therefore, marketing services in the field of finance require special knowledge from creators. Creation of advertising messages should contain a certain vocabulary. Even video and audio content must be created with a specific voice. This voice should be directed to rich and wealthy people.

Very few universal marketing agencies can achieve this result. Therefore, the first tip is to look for marketers who are knowledgeable in finance.

Are they experts in engaging the audience?

Content is still king. Hubspot research shows that blogging companies get 67% more leads than non-blogging companies. It’s important that the more updates occur, the better the results.

Today, a blog is truly an integral tool in any marketing strategy. But in the financial services market this issue also needs to be approached with extreme caution.

For the financial services market, it would be bad if the marketing agency employee responsible for blogging spends most of the time on cosmetic materials or, for example, in the gym. Why? He simply will not have the necessary amount of information for writing quality material related to finance.

The reader of the blog about finance is not a schoolboy or student, for example, of a medical university. Even if he is new to this area, he knows the basic tenets of the financial market. Therefore, he will quickly be able to understand whether the article is written by an expert.

The second tip is to look for experts in the financial sector who can lead an interesting blog.

Important. As a financial consultant, you can consider yourself one of the best for solving such a problem. But think about whether you want to devote several hours a day to writing such articles? Moreover, can you find the necessary time for such a task?

Most likely, you will want to hold meetings with clients, learn about their companies, prepare strategies for developing their business than look at an empty Word file and think about the content. Leave this task to people who know how to blog. But find an expert in finance.

Do they have a plan for future promotion?

Creating a website and providing SEO to attract first customers is an important stage of marketing. But developing a plan to track the behavior of these customers and build loyalty on their part is completely different. The task of any business is not just to attract a client and sell a service, but also to retain it.

With restaurants, it is quite simple. The main thing is to serve a good dish and be friendly. Of course, the visitor will go to other institutions, but he will return to this restaurant anyway.

In the financial sector, everything is different. Here it is impossible to suppose even the slightest probability that the client will go to another consultant. Long-term relationships are made in this market.

The system of constant relations with different customers keeps your name and brand at the highest level in front of potential customers, while strengthening both credibility and the main message.

Of course, this greatly depends on the quality of your services. But your marketers need to formulate a strategy that will help retain existing customers. In addition, they need to correctly explain to the potential audience why no one is leaving you.

In many ways, it is necessary to use the language of numbers and financial terminology. If the marketing agency does not have rich experience with the financial services market, then there will be no advertising of the corresponding level.

Therefore, the third tip - look for agencies that can keep customers.

Do they practice what they are talking about?

You can tell a friend as much as you like that you run in the mornings. But he will believe only when he sees confirmation (runs with you, tracks your morning activity through iWatch capabilities and so on).

Similarly, you should check the words of the agency. Suppose they said they were actively blogging. Do not look for cases. Check out their personal blog. If it was updated a week ago or more (not to mention a few months), then such an agency is lying to you.

Or they say that they are working with companies that provide financial services. Again, no need to look for cases. Why? Yes, because in this the company will definitely not lie and you will definitely find several of their customers.

In this case, check their competence. Find out what materials and resources they use to maintain their awareness of your market. What ideas do they have regarding improving the financial services market? Do they make any predictions?

Fourth tip - check out their hands-on experience. It will give answers to many questions.

What response do they get?

It's time to analyze the cases. But in this case, it is not necessary to contact financial consultants to whom the agency provided its services. Look at the reaction of the target audience of different companies.

First of all, evaluate the content itself. Is it difficult to read? Are there long paragraphs that bump the reader into a solid wall of text? Are there any videos that lack a clear structure? If you find such materials and react poorly to them, then your potential client will not like such advertising.

After that, see the reviews themselves. First, what does the target audience say about the advertisement itself? How much does it correspond to the idea and message of the company? Studies show that about 80% of readers prefer to scan pages and media content for key data, rather than absorb the whole word into word.

Fifth tip - a good marketer will provide an inextricable link between the advertising message and the activities of the company. A bad agency will make a template “creative” and probably will not even test the reaction of the target audience.

Look for agencies that create content that a web user will actually read.

Do they analyze data?

Marketing should be reasonable, regardless of business. Modern technology makes it easy to use massive amounts of data to make smart decisions. The sixth tip is to beware of a marketing agency that relies too heavily on talented creators. It may disappear in a month and is difficult to replace.

Instead, look for a digital marketing agency that relies on data analysis. The best agencies today track all incoming information throughout their interaction with the audience. They can tell you which keywords or videos generated the most leads, how long a specific advertising message remained relevant on the network, and where the audience is most likely to lose interest. Based on all this information, they can set up a marketing strategy.

Of course, sometimes you can rely on approaches that are based on intuition. But, firstly, they are unstable. There is no guarantee that tomorrow they will give the same result as today. Secondly, such approaches are not suitable for the financial services sector. The reason is the same: the target audience is very educated and constantly think.

Can they build on success?

One of the first things you do when looking for a digital marketing agency is a meeting. Whether you like it or not, a good marketer will ask about your business, or rather, about your successes. Why? Without this information, he will not be able to understand what you need and what your goals are, and therefore he will not be able to pick up ideas for promotion.

This is the seventh tip. Ignore agencies that don’t talk to you about your services.

A good agency always has approaches to compare your current performance with potential opportunities.

In addition, self-confident digital agencies are not afraid to tell a few ideas for promotion at the first meeting. Why? They know that having the idea itself is not enough. You need to know the ways of its implementation. You pay the marketer for the implementation of the idea, not for its availability.

A digital marketing agency that analyzes your achievements and suggests development paths can increase your success. An agency that relies only on cliches and cases is more likely to provide less performance.

How did they work before?

The eighth tip you could think of from the start. Analyze their previous customers. If possible, contact them. Perhaps one of these clients is even your competitor. In this case, it will be much simpler to formulate an assessment of a marketing agency.

If a firm has been promoting financial services, it should help you get in touch with your customers. What is the help? In the banal response of the client on the website of the marketing agency. Through this review you will find out specifically who you can contact to get a more detailed assessment.

What does the process of their work consist of?

There are no two agencies that have the same creatives. Just like there are no two financial consultants who select the same recommendations. But the process itself will have some similarities.

So, many marketing agencies rely on using LinkedIn as the main source of promotion through social networks. Why? This platform is more business oriented than end-user oriented. Financial services, obviously, are also focused on business than on ordinary users.

The ninth tip is to make sure that you understand this process. In this case, it is not necessary to evaluate its quality. The main thing is that it suits you personally. Why? If you don’t like the agency’s approach, then you won’t reach an agreement.

Get ready to search for an agency

As mentioned above, a good marketer will talk with you about your services. To achieve the maximum result from the meeting and create effective cooperation, you yourself must be ready for the meeting.

Define your goals. It’s not enough to just say “I want more customers.” Why? This is the desire of any financial advisor. Moreover, this is the goal of any company, regardless of industry. With this answer you will not say anything to the marketing agency.

Think about which customers you want to capture? What market are your financial services focused on? How do you want to grow your business? By answering these questions, you will help the marketing agency to formulate the right strategy.

Think about the way you work. Do you want to transfer all the promotion work to the agency? Or would you like to work together? Perhaps you already have a marketing department and a similar agency - is this a way to expand the marketing team?

Each of these approaches has pros and cons. Ultimately, it's about how you want to manage your relationship with a digital marketing agency.

Require transparency

After all the meetings and dialogs, it comes down to pricing. In this regard, digital marketing can vary significantly, depending on the tools used. Your customers always want transparency in your business. You must demand the same from a digital marketing agency.

For example, if it uses third-party companies to achieve certain goals (for example, creating a logo), ask them to indicate what commission they pay for such a service.

Having achieved transparency in pricing and the provision of services, you will understand the capabilities of the agency. In addition, this will ensure full responsibility on the part of the agency, since they will no longer be able to justify certain disadvantages (if there is any).

Key points

Finding the right digital marketing agency for a financial services company is a difficult task. It’s not enough just to find marketers who create good creatives: you need people who understand a niche.

Know your own market and be fully prepared to meet with an agency representative. So you can quickly make contact, discuss key issues and get started quickly. Indeed, in marketing it is very important to start as early as possible. Otherwise, you will be beaten by a competitor.