Financial Institution Marketing & Web Design
As a financial institution, it is your goal to bring in individuals who are looking for savings accounts and investment opportunities, those that want to start a small business or need mortgages. Your key demographic can vary rather significantly based on the kind of financial assistance you provide. However, the one constant amongst all of your customers is they are looking for banking and financing. In order to connect with these individuals it is up to you to properly market your business and to establish your facility as one that not only provides a competitive advantage above other service providers in the area but one that is knowledgeable and there to go the extra mile for your customers. This is where Simplemachine comes in. With the marketing assistance of the Simplemachine team, you’ll have access to marketing experts who know how to put you in front of the right audience while maximizing your advertising budget.
Local SEO
As a local business, your institution needs to focus not only on search engine optimization but localized SEO. A local financial institution will need to compete directly with other local banks. There is no need to compete with banks from another state or different area of the country (unless you are an Internet-only financial institution, in which case you will have greater competition for customers). So while performing well on any search engine search is desirable, what is most important is outperforming those in the area. If you’re located in Dallas and run a Dallas-oriented bank, you don’t need to worry about what service providers in New York or Chicago are doing. You only need to perform well against other Dallas area banks. The best way to do this is through localized SEO.
There are a number of ways you can improve your local SEO. Some basics include featuring your bank’s address on all website pages. You’ll want to claim your business on Google as well. However, localized SEO doesn’t end there. There are a number of key variables you’ll need to pump up in order to take your regional bank and outperform other banks and financial institutions in the area. Simplemachine can help you with this.
Simplemachine will perform a complete website audit in order to identify ways to boost both SEO and local SEO. This is everything from improving load time speed to connecting with local review services (such as Yelp and Google). By taking advantage of what Simplemachine has to offer you’ll see your local SEO ranking improve, which in turn will bring more traffic to your bank’s website.
Segregate Marketing
Even if you focus on one give area or region with your financial institution services, chances are you’ll have a number of key demographics. Some are customers looking to buy their first home while others might be looking to purchase a third home. There will be those who want a small business loan or college students looking for their first credit card. The fact of the matter is with a financial institution you have more potential demographics than other kinds of businesses. This is great news as it means you have a number of ways to bring in new customers to your bank. However, the one thing you want to avoid is using one generalized marketing approach.
A single marketing approach will either focus on one target audience and not connect with the rest, or it will be a bland, blanket marketing approach that might cover everyone, but it will not connect anyone. Instead, it is important to target different demographics with different forms of marketing. The kind of marketing material you need to connect with retired aged individuals is different from what you’d use with young professionals. Simplemachine will help you customize varying marketing material to ensure you not only target different demographics but connect with them as well. It takes some extra work, but it will also help bring in more customers as well.
Highlighting What Makes Your Bank Different
There are all kinds of banks and financial institutions out there. Many of these banks will provide similar services and similar fees. A customer might just use the same bank their parents used. Or they might go with the bank around the corner because it is closer. You need to highlight what makes your financial institution different.
Perhaps your facility can claim lower interest rates on loans and higher interest rates on savings accounts. That is one area you’ll want to highlight. After all, it means customers will save more money and earn more money. However, there are other ways you can establish your bank as something different from the competition. One way to do this is to showcase your digital applications and online services. Perhaps a customer doesn’t need to head over to the bank to make a deposit, but instead, they can snap a picture of their check and deposit it from their home. Customers are more tech-savvy than ever before. If you have these digital applications available, make sure to let customers know about it.
Put A Face On Your Bank
Far too many banks and financial institutions come across as faceless giants. There is nothing personal about the facilities or the services provided. However, many customers want a bank willing to answer questions and that comes across as a local service provider. There are a number of ways you can demonstrate a friendly, local bank, which will instantly help set you apart from the competition.
First, you can provide answers through a blog. Whether this is how to save up for a home loan, ways to cut expenses, and methods for parents to put money away for college, these blogs do a number for your business. You can even create a video-based blog on YouTube. This way, it’s a helpful individual educating viewers on what they can do to improve their financial standing. Maintaining a blog and even a video blog doesn’t just educate potential customers on how to improve their finances (while establishing your bank as a credible source for knowledge), but it also helps generate additional links back to the website. Additional links will help boost your search engine optimization (both standard SEO and localized SEO).
This is one step in the marketing process that will help elevate your bank above the competition. You don’t need to work harder for your customers and to bring in new members. You just need to work smarter. With the help of Simplemachine, that’s exactly what your new marketing approach will be able to do.
Your New Marketing Approach Is a Phone Call Away
It doesn’t matter what kind of financial assistance you provide customers or where you are located, Simplemachine is here to help. So whether you’re an online-only financial service provider or you have brick and mortar facilities and want to help locals in your town, the team at Simplemachine is here to help. From improving your advertising to fine-tuning your marketing approach, the company is here to take your financial institution to the next level. So if you’re ready to give your marketing approach a shot in the arm, now is the perfect time to reach out and discover what exactly Simplemachine can do for you.
