Mastering Marketing in Financial Services

Dianomi Financial Marketing 2020

Rupert Hodson

Chief Executive Officer - Co-Founder

Dianomi

Over the past five years, financial marketing has undergone massive transformation in the digital tools they use to market to their customers and prospects. Today’s marketers are moving away from programmatic display and are refocusing their efforts on content marketing and techniques that drive leads and retain customers.
In our inaugural survey of 100 financial marketers…

26% of financial marketers said their top priority for 2020 was to acquire new customers

A close second to 28% who said they will prioritize branding for 2020

To support this focus, marketers plan to make relationship and staff changes in 2020. Nearly 60% of financial marketers agreed that they would take more of the workload in-house in 2020 and 36% saying they would consolidate more work with one-stop shops. One marketer who is building an internal content team is Tammy Cash of Horizons ETFs. Cash explained that she is increasingly hiring from the journalism world so that they can serve the right content to their customers quickly.
Another reason for the consolidation is budgets. While those surveyed, on average, expected to increase their budgets by 10% in 2020, they still feel that it’s hard to accomplish everything they want to within budget.
The need to do more with the same – or incrementally more – is likely the reason why financial marketers want to move more of the work in-house. Another reason is transparency. Most marketers we surveyed (82%) said they had a hard time getting accurate campaign data to evaluate the success of their programs, with nearly 50% of respondents saying that performance transparency and reporting was their biggest digital marketing challenge.
Marketers we spoke with said that their marketing wasn’t driven just by their business needs but also by changes in consumer behaviour. Not a single respondent felt that having a brick-and-mortar presence was a top priority for their customers. Rather, 65% said that customer experience was what customers valued the most, followed by trust at 60%. Andrew Goldman of TIAA sees a unique trend with consumers and that is: a do-it-yourself culture. Consumers seeking financial information and guidance on their own, rather than asking a company or expert for advice.
Finally, we were surprised by the large role culture plays in financial marketing. Thirty-seven percent of financial marketers cited company culture as o ne of their biggest obstacles. Bank of America’s Wendy Marcone told us that hiring people who represent the brand accurately goes along way in protecting it. “Internal marketing has almost become more important than anything else in certain ways,” she said.
To download the full report, please download the PDF version via the button on the top right of this page. Contents includes:
• 2020 Budgets
• Marketer Snapshot: Tammy Cash, Horizons ETFs: For Horizons ETFs, all marketing is content
• Customer Expectations
• Marketer Snapshot: Andrew Goldman, TIAA: Marketing in a “do-it-yourself” culture
• Agency Relationships
• 2020 Obstacles
• Marketer Snapshot: Wendy Marcone, Bank of America: The importance of internal marketing to protect brand integrity
The Financial Services Forum would like to thank Dianomi for releasing the report to Members and their continued support of our community.
You can view all the material on our Knowledge Centre, free of charge. Simply register for Online Membership of The Financial Services Forum for full access.

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