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For banks, offering great financial services is no longer enough. More than ever, personalized customer experience is what makes a bank successful. Here’s how inbound marketing services can help.
Personalization and tailored customer solutions are standard practice in other industries. But banks struggle to understand their customers and their needs.
They will need more than a digital-first approach to stay relevant. They need a customer-centric inbound bank marketing approach.
They need to leverage what they know about customers. They need to use it to increase awareness, engagement, and loyalty.
Inbound marketing helps banks take an integrated approach to customer engagement. Banks can leverage data to attract and convert customers. They can build on those relationships and drive brand loyalty as well.
We’ll review the inbound process. We’ll also review how inbound marketing solutions can help your business succeed.
What is Inbound Marketing?
Modern consumers want empowerment. They don’t want to know about your company. They want to know what value you can offer them the moment they interact with your brand.
Inbound marketing strategy helps you build trust and authority with customers. You can discard the “interruption” tactics typical to modern advertisers. Focus on driving value for your customers instead.
Information about your potential customers is growing at an accelerated rate. You can take advantage of that data to engage with customers. You can build relationships by focusing on finding personalized solutions as well.
Customers will not choose to bank with you if they feel pressured. You can cultivate relationships to build long-term loyalty and advocacy instead.
How Does Inbound Marketing Work?
The inbound method focuses on value rather than selling. You must guide customers from the attraction stage to the closing stage. Then you want to delight your customers to turn them into brand advocates.
You need to get to know your customers. Build buyer personas that create clear pictures of who you should be targeting. Are you targeting enterprise CFOs or homemakers?
Customers need to realize value before they engage with your brand. In the early stages, content is your greatest driver for value.
That doesn’t mean traditional advertising. It means helpful blog posts, infographics, and videos that have value themselves.
Some potential customers will find value in your content. You can drive customers forward with compelling calls to action and landing pages. Then your direct marketing efforts focus on closing deals.
The strategy doesn’t end there. You need to continue to delight customers with valuable tools, benefits, and assets.
This stage helps you convert customers into advocates. Those customers will promote your brand themselves.
Companies choose inbound marketing services to get the most value of their strategy. Most successful inbound campaigns incorporate dozens of elements. These services help banks identify tools that increase the value of their efforts.
5 Ways Banks Benefit from Inbound Marketing Services
The Forbes Agency Council says, “You’re looking to stay relevant and competitive… Inbound marketing reverses content from an unwelcome push to a relevant pull. [This] entices viewers organically to check out your brand.”
The following five benefits detail how inbound marketing work in this way for financial companies. We’ll discuss how inbound marketing services can transform your business as well.
Get to Know Your Customers
How are you managing your customer data? If you feel like you’re not getting enough value from customer data, you’re probably right.
That’s because most banks focus on demographics alone. Inbound services help you leverage behavioral data that tells you more about consumers. Which among them are your ideal banking customers?
You can build successful buyer personas and content strategies around these insights. Then, engage with those ideal customers and guide them through the experience. Learn more about customers and refine your strategy as you go.
Engaging Content Solutions
Content is the most important asset in your inbound marketing strategy. Content can inform and empower customers. It can turn customers away as well.
Producing great content is labor-intensive. You may not have the internal resources for a broad content marketing strategy. Inbound marketing services can help.
You can partner with a team that speaks directly to your audience. These are niche articles made specifically to empower your customers.
Your content strategy demonstrates business value to the customers who need it most. Marketing services will help you keep that strategy going as you succeed.
Social Campaign Management
Every business knows they need a social media marketing strategy. Most companies don’t know how to implement one. Measuring its success is an ongoing challenge as well.
Social channels are not like others. The right services help you establish a social media presence. They help you engage with users in an appropriate way.
Social content should be part of your content strategy. Service providers can integrate your social accounts into an automated system. This takes the legwork out of managing social.
What does social media mean for banks? It means solving real-world problems for customers.
SEO Services
Eighty-five percent of consumers use the Internet to find local businesses. But banks often underestimate the importance of search engine optimization (SEO). Imagine all those lost customers who cannot find your website.
Your internal team can take steps to optimize your website. But the best forms of optimization are a detailed process. Fortunately, services can provide lasting value in a short period of time.
Experts will consult with your team to establish your business goals. They’ll create a strategy and ensure on-page SEO meets those goals and those of your customers.
The best inbound marketing services provide local SEO as well. This ensures searchers local to your area can easily find your services. This will be a distinguishing factor versus all other banks.
Building Loyalty and Brand Advocacy
Assume your inbound marketing strategy is successful. Continue to focus on the far end of your inbound strategy. But don’t expect your newest customers to simply settle in.
You need to cultivate your relationships with existing customers. You have more access to their data than anyone else’s. Leverage that data to learn what they want and deliver on it as often as you can.
Your business depends on acquisitions and retention. Get the services you need to keep both balls in the air.
Get Started with Inbound
Are you building your inbound strategy from the ground up? You’re in for a struggle without a lot of initial payoffs. There’s another way.
Inbound marketing services get your strategy off the ground in a short time. They help you identify your customers and find the right solutions for them. And they help with the labor-intensive stages, freeing up the time for your staff.
Interested in a results-driven inbound marketing plan from HONE Digital Marketing? Request a free consultation today. We provide tailored inbound and digital marketing solutions for banks just like yours. Let’s get your company on a growth curve in 2020! Our team provides a combined 30 years of experience specializing in professional SEO plans, PPC advertising plans, and digital marketing consultations.