Acquisition Marketing for Your Financial Institution

There’s been a lot of talk centered on the concept of trust in the finance industry. And for good reason. Consumer confidence is important in a sector that’s so personal—whether it's trusting the customer service of a bank, the recommendations of a financial adviser, or the ability of a car insurance company to provide honest, transparent coverage.

Whether you’re a credit union, community bank, brokerage firm, or insurance company, trust also plays a huge role in customer acquisition. And because customer acquisition costs (CAC) have increased by nearly 50 percent over the last five years, it’s more important than ever to focus on your customer acquisition strategies.

Digital marketing can improve your acquisition marketing strategy.

The cost of customer acquisition is an important measurement of the effectiveness of your organization. The idea behind customer acquisition is fairly simple. It refers to the process of gaining new consumers, with the overarching goal of creating a sustainable, scalable strategy.

Customer acquisition is linked to an organization’s sales and marketing funnel. When we break down the funnel, lead generation happens at the top, lead acquisition in the middle, and lead conversion at the bottom. So, in this context, customer acquisition represents the funnel as a whole.

According to HubSpot, a simple way to determine your CAC is by comparing the marketing costs of a specific campaign with the number of customers generated by that campaign:

CAC = MC / CA

• CAC: customer acquisition cost
• MC: marketing costs
• CA: customers acquired

This formula is admittedly oversimplified. (Rather than delve too deep into the nuances of calculating this metric, I’ll leave you with a link to this guide). However, it does illustrate that there are ways to lower your CAC.

How content marketing can improve acquisition marketing.

According to some reports, content marketing is maturing the same way that paid search did several years prior. While it’s true that paid search CAC is currently better than content marketing, the latter is quickly closing that gap. And because of its compounding nature, some claim that the CAC of content as almost 30 percent better than paid.

Although it can be argued that we’ve reached a point of content saturation, the truth is that nearly half of buyers still interact with three to four pieces of content before they engage with a sales rep. While there’s more content than ever before, its ROI is still high.

So, what does this mean for your financial institution? That engaging, relevant content can capture the attention of your audience and guide them to relevant pages on your website. And knowing the differences between B2C(business to consumer) and B2B (business to business) buying activities and selling cycles can help financial teams refine their marketing efforts.

Aligning your acquisition marketing strategies.

It’s important for companies to use the right marketing messaging to reach the right buyers. And B2C and B2B marketing requires different techniques and types of content. However, reviewing the nuances between the two types of customer acquisition strategies helps your organization learn from both.

B2C Financial Marketing

B2C sales generally involves individual buyers and one-on-one interactions between prospects and companies. In financial services marketing, this can mean individuals or families who are shopping around for loans, checking and savings accounts, or insurance policies.

Because these products often affect their quality of life, B2C buyers tend to let their emotions drive purchases. That’s why it’s important to establish a connection with prospects. For example, generating awareness through videos and other visual content builds rapport with customers out of the gate. And creating engaging blogs and infographics that answer specific questions can help attract the attention of qualified prospects.

B2B Financial Marketing

Perhaps even more so than its consumer-facing counterpart, B2B marketing requires trust. These buyers are buying products to improve the profitability, growth, and well-being of their company. And they’re looking for proof. Because more is at stake with these purchases, the B2B buying cycle generally takes much longer than B2C. According to the 2018 B2B Buyers Survey Report, 31 percent of B2B buyers said the length of the cycle increased from 2017 to 2018. And 45 percent said they’re spending more time researching before making a purchase.

Products and services must be marketed so that buyers see a direct benefit to their business. It’s essential to create content that bridges the gap between the awareness, consideration, and interest stages. From case studies to testimonials, and webinars and personalized landing pages, B2B buyers want to know how your products have benefited other clients. And they want content at all points of their buying process.

Ultimately, content marketing builds trust—which, if you can recall—should be a central tenant of your acquisition marketing process. Effective content creation is just one component in a strong SEO strategy. For more information on aligning your acquisition marketing with SEO, contact Workshop Digital for a free SEO audit.