What is Financial Marketing? Everything You Need to Know

Marketing is a crucial way to grow your business if you are in the financial services industry. 

However, you must know how to use it effectively to avoid wasting money on acquiring leads that you could have converted into customers and raving advocates of your products and services. To succeed, take a close look at your internal marketing resources and strategies and figure out what gaps need to be filled to get the return on investment you want – for example, by incorporating direct mail marketing into your workflow or revisiting the strategy for a marketing channel that’s not serving your anymore.

We know that running financial services marketing campaigns is no easy task, so we’ve built  Postalytics to streamline, integrate and track your direct mail marketing materials. You see, direct mail marketing reports the strongest return on investment in the marketing mix nowadays. These returns get even more impressive once you pair the digital and direct mail channels to work hand-in-hand on generating more leads for your business.

If you are looking for a way to step up your marketing and direct mail game, our automated marketing solutions are ideal for your financial services marketing campaigns. With the ability to send bulk mailings and re-target cold leads from your CRM, you can create and manage successful direct mail campaigns that complement your digital marketing campaigns without needing additional resources from a marketing agency, designers, or printing partners.

What is Financial Marketing?

Financial services marketing involves using various marketing strategies and techniques to raise awareness of financial products and convert leads into customers through ongoing communication. As a financial services marketing specialist, you will be responsible for developing and implementing marketing strategies that help drive a financial services company’s investment, growth, and profit.

Marketing a financial product or service starts with creating customer awareness and interest, acquiring leads, and finally converting them into loyal customers. So, let us take a look at how you can achieve this with the help of direct mail automation solutions like Postalytics.

What are the Types Of Financial Marketing?

Inbound marketing is about getting your message in front of your target audience. It’s about creating interesting and relevant content and ensuring the right people see it.

On the other hand, outbound marketing is about contacting your target audience. This includes cold calling, seminar marketing, direct mail, and creating more touchpoints to stay top of mind with your customers.

Financial services companies have different marketing needs depending on their size and customer base. For example, a network will seek to recruit members from across the country, while a financial advisor working with individual clients will only need to advertise in their local area. Even though their needs are different, both will benefit from outbound marketing by using direct mail marketing as part of their marketing strategy.

Postalytics offers automated direct mail marketing solutions that can help you benefit from some of the following types of financial marketing:

• Product launches
• Lead generation campaigns
• Customer satisfaction surveys and retention campaigns
• Rebranding
• Corporate vision
• B2B marketing

What are the Functions of Financial Marketing?

Financial marketing helps financial services companies build their brand, communicate their unique value proposition, and drive growth. However, to stand out from the crowd, financial services brands must take a dynamic approach to marketing. With hundreds of financial technology companies entering the market yearly, competition is fierce. And the way customers consume is also changing rapidly.

So it’s no surprise that many financial services companies are looking for ways to use innovative and personalized customer service strategies to retain customers and attract new ones. By providing an exceptional customer experience, they can differentiate themselves in a competitive market.

The Key to Doing Financial Marketing Effectively

Two things make the task of financial services marketing particularly challenging and unique: first, the industry is highly regulated, and second, it revolves around establishing and maintaining trust. Financial services marketing with a strong focus on customer development, relationship nurturing, and retention is the best way for a financial firm to build trust with its customers.

Since there are so many ways to reach customers, your financial services company needs to have a multi-channel marketing strategy. This way, you can ensure that your message reaches your target audience via their preferred communication method (or multiple methods). Consistent touchpoints across multiple channels can help turn your prospects into customers.

Direct mail remains the most effective channel for financial institutions to reach customers – especially when used as part of a multi-channel approach that includes digital marketing. Your financial marketing can have an even more holistic effect by timing the two channels to deliver as part of a triggered campaign. In addition, including direct mail in your campaign workflow can increase the likelihood that your brand or offer will be noticed, as postcards, letters, and flyers have a more personal touch and are more likely to be read than an email. 

Below are three ways you can optimize your direct mail for the financial services you market:

1. Use direct mail to improve digital performance

Combining direct mail and email has many advantages when reaching out to existing customers. Not only does it increase the likelihood that your message will be seen, but it can also lead to higher response rates.

Statista states that only 18% of marketing emails are typically opened, while 90% of direct mail is opened. When these two channels are combined, response rates have been shown to increase by 35%. This is an important consideration for financial services marketers who want to effectively communicate information to their non-digital customers or use retargeting strategies to generate even more leads.

2. Benefit from the superior accuracy of direct mail

With direct mail as part of your marketing strategy, you can reach new potential customers in a more targeted way than with digital-only campaigns. Suppose you know who is your target audience based on demographic and behavioral data. In that case, you can rent or buy a mailing list with the names and addresses of people who match those criteria and use it directly from your Postalytics account.

3. Personalize and test behavioral triggers

In a world where personalized digital communications are the norm, financial services businesses must find ways to stand out from the crowd. The dynamic and variable printing capabilities offered by Postalytics give you the power to create personalized direct mail that speaks to customers on a personal level.

By referencing past interactions and existing customer relationships, you can send material with financial products you know are relevant to a specific customer. Postaltytics’ tools make it easy to send personalized direct mail triggered when a customer or prospect visits your website, fills out a form, or reads an email. Based on their search behavior or query, you can use our direct mail templates to customize them. For example, you can include references to the customer’s industry or images more closely related to the target audience to make the customer experience unique. You don’t need a designer to do this  – our digital tools make customizing material an intuitive and easy experience.

How to Generate Leads for Financial Services

Direct mail marketing has a 4.4% response rate, compared to just 0.12% for email. Higher response rates lead to higher conversion rates and more qualified leads making their way into your sales pipeline.

Financial advisors, in particular, rely on lead generation to attract new clients and grow their businesses. There are many ways to generate leads, but the most important thing is getting people interested in what you offer. Once you have gained the customer’s attention, you can get them to take a specific action, such as setting up an appointment. The goal is to build relationships with potential customers so that they eventually do business with you.

If you want to succeed in financial services marketing, do not make the mistake of using cold emails or generic advertising. Instead, take a more targeted and personal approach. That’s how you’ll attract quality leads and qualified prospects.

Here are three ways Postalytics can help you generate leads.

Personalized postcards, letters, and flyers

When planning a marketing campaign, financial services providers should consider various elements such as budget and goals. For example, designing a postcard or flyer could be a solid approach if the goal is to attract new customers with a free consultation. On the other hand, sending direct mail letters to relevant potential customers may be a better solution if the goal is to attract new customers through referrals. You can design all mail material easily with our free templates.

Triggered mail and email promotions

You can’t just distribute your content – you need to look for ways to connect with potential customers actively. One way to do this is to create personalized URLs and QR codes that you integrate into your lead generation campaigns. With Postalytics’ editing tools and triggered campaigns, you can further improve the effectiveness of your direct mail campaigns. 

CRM integrations and triggered promotion

Postalytics takes all the data you’ve received from your marketing campaigns and converts it into personalized postcards and letters that can be sent directly from Salesforce (or a CRM of your choice) with one click. You can also schedule messages via email to create another touchpoint for your leads, prospects, and customers. This allows you to track the performance of your direct mail campaigns in Salesforce more quickly and efficiently. 

We offer multiple CRM integrations to direct mail on our platform.

Examples Of Financial Services Marketing Campaigns

Innovative financial services marketing campaigns can be used to overcome challenges that other industries don’t face. Member Closing Center (MCC), an automotive refinance client, has seen great success with Postalytics’ automated direct mail service. This case study illustrates how the Postalytics system has made MCC’s direct marketing efforts easy and efficient, delivering excellent results.

The Postalytics Pro plan that MCC uses includes Salesforce integration and offers some of the lowest rates per mail piece. It is an excellent option for companies like MCC that send thousands of postcards and letters monthly.

The integration with Salesforce allows the team to use the same platform to manage leads and customer service. This integration has allowed them to improve service quality and sales efficiency. Having all this information in one place has led to happier customers and a healthier business.

Final Thoughts

Direct mail for financial services can be an excellent marketing solution for savvy financial advisors and businesses to reach potential clients with their products, advice, or services. By carefully measuring your return on investment, you can maximize your results and stay ahead of your competition. 

Postalytics direct mail automation tools let you save money and time while delivering growth and stability for your business.