In the web marketing space, there is certainly no shortage of inbound marketing wisdom, but as far as the financial sector goes there’s not a lot of insight. This is largely because leveraging the core of inbound marketing – building a platform where customers bang down your door- is not so concrete. You’re not selling software, or sporting apparel or food. You’re selling financial services, and implementing an inbound marketing strategy for the financial sector requires a very specific strategy to meet the needs of your very specific customers.
In this post, I will talk through five key areas of the financial sector that truly benefit from inbound marketing tools and practices.
1. Develop a strategy
This is where you determine the purpose of your inbound marketing strategy. It’s in this phase of the inbound marketing process that you clearly define your goals, specific challenges up ahead, your ideal/target customers and what your ROI will look like after investing time, money and resources into your marketing plan. This is where your inbound marketing strategy starts to take shape.
Mortgage Financing Success Story : AmeriFirst Home Mortgage
2. Design or Re-design a dynamic website
Odds are you already have a website in place, and it may even look great. But is it specifically designed to attract customers? That is, is it easy for your customers to visit your website and find the products and services they need? For instance, if you own a mortgage company, is it difficult for site visitors to locate and download loan applications and other marketing collateral related to your specific mortgage programs?
The big idea is not to have just a “great-looking” website, but a website that makes life easy for your potential customers.
Local Banking Consultant Sees 430% Growth in Leads
3. Generate traffic
Now the trick is to actually get people to this user centric website that you have spent a lot of time re-thinking and designing. How do you do this? Well, there’s no real magic bullet, but there are several tried and true methods for driving traffic.
One of the most popular methods is blogging. Posting regular, relevant posts on financial subjects, positions you as a thought leader in your industry. If you can manage to stay on the cutting edge of your industry, and give practical, helpful tips to your customers they will want to know what you’re all about.
This should work hand-in-hand with a dynamic social media strategy. Blog posts should be shared across multiple social media channels so your users can participate in your conversation on industry-specific topics. It positions you as a conversation starter. Don’t miss this opportunity to engage with a large audience.
4. Turn that traffic into quality leads
Your site content should be peppered with little calls to action that move potential customers further down the conversion funnel as quickly as possible. This is not always easy, and not every best practice works for every organisation. But the big idea is to create blog posts, landing pages and other types of content that encourage site visitors to take action.
5. Work towards conversion
Finally, all of this is done in an effort to increase conversions. In many instances, especially within the financial sector, this translates to increased sale. The only way to know how to move your leads down the conversion process is through sophisticated data. This means that you must track every aspect of your website with a quality analytics and marketing software like Hubspot.
Conclusion
obviously, when it comes to implementing the right inbound marketing strategy there is some time and effort are required to make it a success. When you’re starting out it’s best to start simply and work your way into more complex strategies as they start to make sense for your organisation.
No two companies are the same, so it will probably take some time to find out what works and what doesn’t. But as you understand your audience and your own goals through hard data, the pieces will begin to fall into place.
Now it’s your turn
What are your biggest marketing challenges in the financial sector? Please let us know in the comments below.