Client expectations of the financial industry have dramatically changed over the past few years. Previously, these industries were merely tools for managing transactions or providing products such as loans, 401(k)s, or life insurance policies. Now, the financial industry must help clients navigate the complexities of their financial lives using financial education before selling them products.
Meeting client expectations lies in how the organization delivers them when marketing its services to the public. Marketing professionals are responsible for demonstrating how the organization and its advisors aim to improve a client’s financial wellness. Financial wellness must include how finances impact the client physically and mentally and how investment strategies, such as climate-based ESG funds, align with their values and goals while ‘doing good.’ Furthermore, finance industry organizations must provide tools to help their customers become more educated and show them how to take proactive steps toward improving their circumstances.
“Customer expectations should determine how organizations market to their customers and prospects. But, when organizations are not set up to meet those expectations using digital tools, customer retention and acquisition can lag. Delivering financial education via marketing technology like Fresh Finance makes it easy to meet those expectations and show value,” says Teresa Leno, CEO and Founder of Fresh Finance.
Leno says that when talking about digital marketing technology (Martech), digital lead-gen ads are off the table because they often try to sell a product. Instead, a digital marketing strategy should consider MarTech, which provides web-based client newsletters full of helpful financial articles, website blogs, and social media articles that address customers’ financial wellness problems. It’s essential to show how your organization and advisors help solve the complex problems people experience today.
“To take financial services marketing to the next level, organizations must direct their marketing budgets toward innovative marketing technologies, their employees’ experience- for marketing, compliance, and advisors, the process, and the people you’re delivering value to; the customers,” adds Leno.
Self-service platforms like Fresh Finance ensure the organization’s people and customers have access to an array of resources with them in mind:
For customers, customized newsletters with a selection of financial articles where the customer determines their relevance when they select an article that pertains to their situation.
For advisors, a secured portal to access finance content that automates posting to their website’s blog based on their business model and customer demographics. Or a selection of approved third-party articles to post to their social media profile.
For marketing professionals, a self-service content creation portal filled with finance articles that they can select, edit to make their own, draft an entirely new article, or select third-party articles from industry publishers.
Whatever the use case, the MarTech must consider all users across the entire value chain and the value it provides to each.
“Our software is designed with the people it touches in mind so that marketing professionals can help their advisors, who help their customers make better financial decisions. That’s the real ‘win-win’ that our MarTech can help organizations achieve,” says Leno.
