Marketing — especially educational marketing — is critical for financial businesses to succeed. Your organization needs to be top of mind during your target market's day-to-day activities and be at the top of the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) when consumers start looking for solutions.  

This applies to everyone from bankers to financial advisors; your target market won't know who you are or how your services will help them without consistent marketing efforts. Whether you're starting a marketing campaign for the first time or you want to strengthen your results, incorporate these five tips into your financial business marketing efforts. 

1. Begin by Defining an Ideal Client Persona

First, you need to know who your marketing campaign should be focused on. Not every business is a good fit for every consumer (and vice versa). Even if your business applies to a vast portion of the market, you can increase your ROI by identifying your most lucrative market or what type of customer you want to focus on for a given campaign.  

Do this by defining a client persona: a hypothetical ideal buyer. You'll need to research the characteristics of this ideal buyer to identify where they spend their time and attention (where you should advertise), what their interests are (what hooks you should use in your marketing efforts), and what problems they have (how you should present your services). Client personas can be as straightforward or as detailed as you need to create successful advertisements.  

You can also craft multiple personas to cover everyone in your target market. This will help you organize the branding and messaging so they aren't jumbled or too generalized.

2. Build Trust With Your Audience

Trust is important in every industry, but you can't do business without it in the financial world. Your customers need to have complete confidence in your business. This includes trust that their information will be secure, your services fit their financial needs, and they'll have their money when they need it. The slightest miscue can break their trust, so market your services carefully. 

Define your values throughout your marketing campaign and ensure every advertisement underlines your organization's core values. Not only will that help customers connect with your brand, but the consistency and customer-focused approach implicitly build trust.

3. Hone Your Messaging

Now that you know what audience you're speaking to and what core concepts you want to communicate your messaging as clear as possible. Craft specific wording and images so every ad, blog post, social media post, or other marketing asset has clear, consistent messages that suit the target market's needs. Your marketing materials won't get their attention or persuade them that your services fit their unique needs if you're too generalized.  

As your marketing efforts become more refined, consider creating a style guide with recommendations and requirements for each buyer persona. This will help you and your team make specific messaging practices and ideal wording for each audience.

4. Optimize Your Website

You also need a solid website that functions as a marketing platform, a destination for your click-throughs, and a high-performing portal where customers can do business or take the next steps.  

You can take many different steps to optimize your website, especially if you want to use it for more than marketing. However, start with the basics by assessing how much traffic your website receives. Do you get a lot of visitors? How long do they stay? What do they do on your website, and what's the last thing they do before leaving?  

As you answer these questions, you can make your traffic and retention stronger by developing on-site content, such as a blog and detailed service pages. You can also strengthen the backend or technical side of your website by optimizing it for mobile traffic. 

Another way to optimize your website's showing in search engine results pages (SERPs) is by building up profiles off of your site. Create a Google My Business profile, profiles on local business directories, and more.

5. Communicate With Email Marketing

A sizable portion of customers in the financial industry are returning and current customers. Continually market to them through email marketing campaigns that give them details about new promotions, new services, and the additional value you can provide. This helps customers stay engaged and keeps your business top of mind.  

Bonus Tip: Find an Expert Marketing Team 

All of these tips require time and effort, but that doesn't mean you have to sacrifice your current projects and to-do list to start strengthening your business's marketing presence. Working with a media partner can gain more insight into market trends, benefit from a personalized strategic approach, and streamline your advertising for more conversions faster.