Financial services marketing doesn’t have to be hard

If you’re a financial services marketer, you have one of the hardest marketing jobs in the world, according to a survey.

The reality is that marketing financial services doesn’t have to be a hard job. Yes, financial products – whether a mortgage, savings, investments or loans – can be complicated for consumers to get to grips with. Financial marketers also have some way to go to address the lack of consumer confidence caused by the banking crisis, and help re-build trust in the sector.

However, it’s a sector that is always going to be in demand. What’s more, most genuine prospects will want to talk to your firm directly about a purchase. This makes the humble telephone the most important communication channel for you.

Staying ahead of the competition

The focus on marketing for B2C financial services is huge. With more competition than ever before, and relative newcomers like Virgin Money, Atom Bank and Metro Bank shaking up the industry, financial marketers are under increasing pressure to achieve much, much more with their budgets.

The finance sector accounts for 13.7% of all online ad spend. With large budgets spent on television and print advertising in addition to this, accurately tracking your campaign performance is mission critical.

The key to weathering these challenging times is to stay ahead of the game. The only way to do this is to know which of your marketing campaigns are contributing directly to your bottom line.

If you’re not measuring telephone response, how do you know whether you’re achieving this effectively?

How effective is your spend?

Careful monitoring of your leads allows you to identify which of your marketing campaigns are working – and which aren’t. Most marketers monitor web leads, such as form fills, using tools like Google Analytics or AdWords. However, whether your campaigns are online or offline, they’ll be generating valuable telephone leads. Finding out which marketing campaign produced those inbound phone leads requires call tracking.

Don’t rely on guesswork

Call tracking provides you with granular information about your inbound and outbound telephone activity. Response rates for PPC ads, keywords, email marketing, website activity, direct mail and offline advertising can all be measured.

Continuous improvement

When you start to measure and compare results, you can begin to focus your efforts on the areas that are proving to generate greater returns, helping increase leads and conversions.

Measuring will also highlight any pitfalls in your marketing campaigns: Your latest television advert may be funny and engaging, but is it targeted effectively? Or perhaps your PPC costs are high, but the traffic that your ads are bringing in isn’t converting. Accurately tracking how your campaigns are performing in real time enables you to tweak them on an ongoing basis. Continually refining your campaigns allows you to ensure that you are directly influencing your campaign goals and overall strategic objectives.

As a financial services marketer, what kind of challenges do you face when trying to measure the effectiveness of your marketing spend? Get in touch with us or let us know in the comments.