For the Financial Services sector, the inbound methodology provides a really interesting way of thinking about marketing. It’s about educating and informing. It’s about retention. It is not about overt selling. All of which fits entirely with the ethics, rules and regulations governing the financial services industry.

How does Inbound Marketing help financial services marketing ?

The industry is made up of quite different organisations – accountants, auditors, membership-based networks, client facing advisers, brokers, intermediaries and more. Each have their own marketing needs and ways of going to market.

Whether you are a client-facing financial adviser marketing yourself in a defined geography, targeting particular types of consumer or business, or a network looking to recruit and retain members across the country, your marketing needs can be similar:

• Social media and blogging to raise awareness
• Marketing assets to convert strangers into prospects
• Emails to nurture prospects or inform clients and members
• Analytics to monitor and measure success

(Short on time? Click here to download our eBook: A guide to Inbound Marketing for Financial Services Marketers.)

One of the top concerns for marketers in the financial services industry is that they think their products or services are not interesting enough to warrant blog posts, videos, eBooks, tweets or eye-catching photos. Alongside that is a concern about maintaining compliance and staying within the strict industry guidelines on anything that might be considered promotional work.

Let’s think about that.

• Doesn’t finance touch every human being on the planet?
• Aren’t there new products, services and even regulations that swamp the man in the street or business owner?
• And could yours be just the company they need help from?
• Do your customers ever have unanswered questions about your services?
• Do they have a need for information in order to select the right person to advise them?

Yes, yes, yes!

So the key is to publish content that the RIGHT people are looking for.

That means making sure your website is at the top of the list when it comes to searches made by people in your target market.

That’s not just a technical challenge.  

Where you rank when people search on the internet has a lot to do with the words on your website and the amount of traffic that you drive to it.

If that is not enough reason, ongoing research shows that the financial services industry is seeing an increasing level of demand for engagement over the Internet. And we’re not just talking about formal customer service.

Back in 2013, Forbes revealed that millennials are looking for more online engagement from financial advisors and banks. They want advisors to connect with them using online tools instead of having face-to-face conversations, which older generations expect. 61% want video meetings with advisors and 57% will change to financial advisors that offer services via digital platforms. Since then. adding chat bots to your website, providing useful online guides and developing video explainers has become the norm.

Dialogtech reported that of all the people in their survey searching on line for accountants, just over half did not have one company in mind. They were genuinely looking for a new accountant.

In other words, if you are an accountancy firm, you need to dominate page 1 of Google for your target market.  An inbound marketing approach can help you win that space organically (without paying for ads)!

To find out how Inbound Marketing works and the results that some of your colleagues in the Financial Services sector are achieving, download our eBook: A guide to Inbound Marketing for Financial Services Marketers.