Branding « Slata

The Cornerstone of Marketing: The Customer Experience

We’ve come a long way since 1960, when E. Jerome McCarthy heralded the four Ps of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion. Indeed, McCarthy couldn’t have envisioned the roles that technology and globalization would come to play in marketing’s evolution.

Today, the global marketplace influences product design and pricing strategy. The combination of globalization and the internet has overridden traditional concepts of place, replacing deep inventories with just-in-time manufacturing and moving market coverage from physical space to cyberspace.

But perhaps the most significant evolution in McCarthy’s four Ps is in the realm of promotion. Today, a brand isn’t able to wholly define itself. Over the past decade, consumers have come to increasingly rely on each other to recommend brands and products. Social media platforms allow networks of extended family and friends to share impressions, experiences, and information. Review sites provide the groundwork for individual consumers to become reputation makers-or-breakers. And online marketplaces (we’re looking at you, Amazon) have trained consumers to gauge the consensus of strangers before tapping the “Add to Cart” button.

As the relationship between brands and consumers has shifted, companies have had to focus on differentiating themselves from their competition and redouble their efforts to touch customers in valuable, reliable, and memorable ways. In virtually every case, this begins with a company’s public face – its website. Allocating a portion of the ever-increasing customer acquisition budget to a useful, clean, and efficient user experience is an investment that delivers returns. Offering and maintaining a solid customer experience – first online and then in real life – lays the foundation for success.

Although some marketing gurus would have you believe that creating brand messaging that touches the customer and infuses the organization’s culture results from pure inspiration, the truth is that it’s 99 percent perspiration.

Effective client experience: is the result of collecting and analyzing data, making informed decisions, and setting benchmarks. This approach benefits companies in a number of ways, including:

Customer retention: Companies that are invested in customers’ well-being communicate that in ways large and small. The result? Customer brand loyalty.

Cost savings: investing in the customer experience is a profitable engagement strategy. Data shows that 12 positive experiences are needed to compensate for a single negative experience.

Word-of-mouth recommendations: Customers who feel well cared for recommend companies and services to their friends and family members.

In any battle of the brands, the winner will be the one that maintains or increases its investment in the customer experience. That was true in 1960, when McCarthy posited the four Ps, and it holds true today, in an era that encompasses both the depersonalization that is an outgrowth of globalism and the hyper-customization made possible by technology.

Not true: Top marketing myths

Content Marketing is just a “nice to have for the long run”

According to the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing costs 62% less than outbound marketing, and generates more than three times as many leads.

It is simple: when you prove that you understand the challenges and solutions of your potential clients, you begin to earn trust. And trust is after all, one of the most common hurdle to jump for financial services in their customer acquisition journey.

High quality content helps demonstrate your expertise and can give you the authority that other types of marketing wouldn’t achieve.

Industry white papers, financial calculators, long-form guides, and industry reports are all examples of content that can build your authority in the industry and attract highly qualified leads.

Financial services cannot reach clients with online advertising

I know you think otherwise, but your client also browses Facebook and Instagram!

Most financial service companies have a very specific target. Online channels offer ultra-targeting capabilities that can benefit just about any advertiser.

On LinkedIn, reach users by profession, education, company, and seniority. On Facebook and Instagram you can target users in specific ZIP codes and create powerful similar audiences that could align with your actual target audience.

These are only some examples that can be used to target financial services clients. The possibilities to personalize your targeting are endless.

Marketers can take care of your campaigns regardless of the industry

“Oh, you are a lawyer. You should handle my tax case”.
“Sir, I am a divorce lawyer”.
“But…you are still a lawyer”.

Lawyers are not the only ones that have to deal with this scenario. Marketers experience this all the time.

That’s why clients tend to achieve better results with agencies that specialize in a certain sector.

Financial services, for instance, is a very complex industry. Your marketing team must know how to accurately talk to your client’s needs.

Plus: Anyone can do marketing — even a robot.

Marketing automation has been many marketers best friend, but it has also resulted in people believing that robots are capable of doing marketers’ jobs. From sending mass emails to pushing advertisements out, people witness technology doing the tasks marketers used to manage. Marketing Week even wrote an article entitled “Rise of the machines: Are robots after your job?”

The short answer: No. Marketing automation tools just make it possible for businesses to replicate their efforts more efficiently.

And the truth is that automation doesn’t really work without smart human input.

A website redesign will automatically increase leads

Why did you redesign your website?

If your site is not responsive or user-friendly, or if you have researched that your industry standard visitor to lead conversion rate is 5%, and you are at 1%, it was a good decision to redesign. But, if you just had a “hunch” that you need a redesign then you don’t really know what to benchmark once the new website is out.

Improving the traffic-to-lead conversion ratio means much more than redesigning your website.

You need to improve the quality of the traffic you are receiving, make your web copy and value proposition more compelling, or perhaps what you offer prospects in exchange of their email is just not good enough.

Do not redesign your website for the sake of it. But do it to solve a specific issue you identified.

Influencer marketing won’t work for my financial brand

Brands often believe their product isn’t right for influencer marketing if it doesn’t come across as well-suited for glam photos and traditional lifestyle copy. It may seem that influencer marketing might not be the best vehicle for financial services. However, the truth is, a real voice that’s used to communicate a brand’s benefits can be effective even for topics companies are unsure have a fit in influencer marketing.

Look for influencers who can craft an honest story and you will likely find that consumers will be more engaged and pleased to join the conversation.

How to create a Content Marketing Strategy without breaking the bank (or your back)

As we have discussed once and again, a thought leadership strategy is key for financial services companies and professionals to differentiate themselves in the marketplace. Here we just want to share the simple steps to follow to create and maintain a strategy without losing yourself in the process.

Step 1: What are your business goals and objectives?

The first step is to carefully consider the business outcomes you are setting out to achieve. What does success look like, and does everyone agree on that vision of success? Are you looking to gain exposure, create leads or educate your prospect on your offering? Be clear on what your objective is before embarking in any content development or channel creation.

Step 2: Competitive audit

Create a list of your competitors and do some detective work. Where do they publish content? What kinds of content do they prefer? Look at their publishing frequency and what topics they cover. See if they focus on long-form content with lots of value. Know what you’re up against but also use it to inspire your content, either by imitation or by differentiation.

Step 3: Content audit

Take a complete inventory of the content assets you currently own. Include details for each piece of content including what type of media and its intended marketing channel and audience persona. Evaluate what content is performing, what needs to be updated, and what can be put on the back burner. If you haven’t done any content marketing, review the content you have developed for marketing purposes, which should inspire some of your content verticals that you will develop later.

Step 4: Customer Personas and Content Verticals

Develop a complete persona of each type of existing or potential customer you want to reach and their main pain points. What are their desires, fears, and interests? What keeps them up at night?

Then, based on each persona, develop a content strategy on what will be discussed for them. Think of the main questions they have when thinking about the problem and define the content vertical. For example, if one of your targets is investors planning for their succession, the content vertical for that target will be practical tips and discussions on wills, succession strategies, investment planning, etc.

Step 5: Brand Voice

Your brand voice is your communication style. Define how you want to communicate. Will you be serious and research oriented? Will you be more informal and establish a closer connection with the customer?

Step 6: Content distribution plan

Determine how you will get your content in front of your intended audience. Find out where they are already discovering content—for example, social media, email, video sharing sites—and what type of content they prefer. Research which channels are the best fit, and constantly update and refine your approach. Then, think of your pieces of content as they feed into the distribution channel, and adapt to each of the channels depending on their style.

Step 7: Measurement

How will you measure success? What are your most important KPIs, and what are the smaller KPIs that ladder up to helping you achieve the objectives you set from the beginning?

Step 8: Toolbox

What tools will you use to create content? For example, does your company already use a Content Management System (CMS) such as WordPress? Figure out if you will use your own writing staff or utilize vendors. You’ll also need good analytics software to track and measure

How you sound vs. How you want to sound

Does your market know who YOU are, as a person? If you are the face of your company, such as a consultant, coach or author, it’s a given that people will associate your brand with you.

However, if you’re a business where your product or service is the brand, it’s a little more difficult for your market to recognize you. And in either case, if you don’t have a clear brand voice, it’s unlikely that anyone will recognize you without a name, logo, or face.

And it’s almost impossible for customers to form a true connection with someone who has no personality.

Having a defined personality changes all that. It makes you stand out from everyone else in your market. And when the voice of your brand is consistent in all your content, people start believing they can have a true relationship.

But your brand personality consists of not just the words you use, but also how you put them all together – through the tone of voice you express in all your content, including visuals and multimedia. It also consists of the way you relate to others, including how you take care of clients, how they experience your service or even how you pick up the phone.

So, the main question you need to answer is…

If your brand was a person, how would you describe her (or him)?

If you met your brand at a social event and had a conversation for an hour, how would you describe it afterwards? What personality traits does it exhibit? Where would you find your brand? How does it behave in its spare time? What brands does your brand wear, drive and consume?

And on the flip side, how do you want your customers to describe you after they’ve had a chance to get to know you a little? How do you want them to feel about you?

Your brand needs to have a personality in order to make a connection with your customers. People remember your character traits and the voice you speak with, but they don’t remember a faceless entity that speaks in a generic, flat tone.

Your product won’t push your growth, your brand will

A valuable brand is way more important today than in the past, mainly because of a crowded marketplace that bombards consumers with products and information. How do buyers differentiate and choose? Mostly by trust and branding.

The best branding today is based on a strong idea and an impeccable customer experience. The best brands have remarkable creativity in advertising to help them break through people’s wall of indifference to create brand heat and product lust.

No branding, no differentiation. No differentiation, no long-term profitability. People don’t have relationships with products, they are loyal to brands. In a movement strategy, brands have a purpose that people can get behind. Brands can inspire millions of people to join a community. Brands can rally people for or against something. Products are one dimensional in a social media-enabled world, brands are Russian dolls, with many layers and beliefs that can create great followings of people who find them relevant. Brands can activate a passionate group of people to do something like changing the world. Products can’t really do that.

In today’s world, branding is more important than ever. But you can’t simply build a brand like they did in the old days. You need a cultural movement strategy to achieve kinetic growth for your brand. With that, the sky’s the limit.

I have long advised financial services companies that if you don’t control your messaging somebody else will and your potential customers will form impressions of you shaped by somebody else or by nobody at all.

But this process doesn’t have to be complicated. Just establish your key values and communicate them often and simply. Each time you do, you are building your brand.

Be real – authenticity goes a long way

Today’s financial services companies need to stop selling and start engaging on customers’ terms. Presenting yourself as “a 360 planner” without disclosing your interests in the products you are selling will not cut it anymore.

Hence, we have been working to drive our clients to authenticity — meaning real, genuine, of verifiable origin. Traits that are simply at odds with the perception of the role of marketing.

Can financial services firms make an authentic consumer connection?

Don’t say you are authentic — be authentic. “Straight-talking” and “plugged-in” are both better word choices to personify your brand. Your communication, the way you present your product and your client’s experience should be sufficiently simple to drive differentiation in a way that will foster a real client connection, which will drive business growth through referrals.

Embrace content marketing as a core communications strategy: The value in having real people advocate for brands by inspiring, informing and entertaining audiences across social, content and video is real. Serving up the content your audience wants on their terms and in their language from people they trust works well.

Finally, knowing and communicating your organization’s values gives you a solid base to build your business around. It will give your customers something to rally behind, not just a product to buy.

The marketing traits of highly successful financial services firms

For boutique financial services, stand-alone marketing is counterproductive

By Alejandra Slatapolsky
Slata Financial Marketing

Financial institutions have been selling to customers the same way they did half a century ago. This is especially true of boutique asset managers, family offices and wealth management firms that target ultra high-net-worth clientele. However, it’s no news that consumers, including older generations, have different views of how they should be served by their bankers. Consider, for example, that one-quarter of U.S. adults who go online would consider banking with a firm with no physical branches, according to Forrester research.

I used to head the marketing and communications department of a burgeoning boutique investment bank. In several opportunities, we overheard our competitors trumping their services in comparison to ours and wondering out loud why our name was more recognized in the target markets than theirs, when their offering was truly superior. Perhaps the answer was that their marketing and sales processes needed to be updated to compete in a commoditized market. In a world where almost any firm can offer access to the world’s markets, the boutique offering had to become much more than just access or advisory.

Consumers have long stopped responding to in-your-face marketing. Recommendations from friends and trusted peers, word-of-mouth and online reviews are factors that hold maximum sway over their buying decisions. People want fast, efficient, personalized help when they’re making a purchasing decision. Not surprisingly, long sales pitches and marketing brochures with less quality stuff just don’t cut it anymore.

The firms that excel at marketing and gaining and keeping loyal clients have six key traits that we can all learn from.

They believe a great brand breeds from within

It is very common to find private bankers or brokers that come and go from one firm to the other with their book of clients. These types of team members may bring in some much-needed short-term inflow of business, but they are not contributing to their firm’s long-term brand building.

This is the reason why internal communications for boutique, specialized financial services firms has a whole new meaning when most of the interactions with prospects are in person.

Firms that succeed in building a trusted, lasting brand in the eyes of their clients have dedicated as much effort to their internal communications as they do to their external communications. Getting authentic buy-in from their team means that all the messages coming from the organization will fall in line with one consistent brand story, that will be built one team member, one interaction at a time.

They integrate marketing into their processes.
The marketing department should not be an isolated team sending out invitations to the next event. Marketing efforts are part of a business’s everyday operational flow.

A great marketing flow includes a thorough examination of all the touch points along the customer’s journey, producing a consistent brand experience. This should include everything from phone greetings, to statements, to email protocols and onboarding documents.

Design is consistent
A brand story is not only verbal but also visual. Great brands have consistency throughout their efforts and have a strong hand at the materials that front end team members provide to their customers and prospects.

Selling is integrating and cross-selling
Today, bankers not only require a solid understanding of consumers and their behaviors, but they also need to deliver services in the way a client prefers.

Unfortunately, financial services firms tend to have always worked in silos. In a world where the cost of acquisition of a new client keeps escalating as margins keep shrinking, looking inwards to find cross-selling opportunities is not only a great practice, but should be a given. And a key factor in this process is creating a culture of ultra-focus on the needs of the client. This means that all efforts should be on getting to know each and every one of the clients to be able to anticipate their needs.

They deliver an experience
The dynamic between customers and banks is changing. Customers no longer want their banking relationship to be solely transactional; they want advice-driven banking that is personalized to their needs. Great financial brands focus on human-centered design that ensures the needs, wants and limitations of customers are prioritized on each of the interactions they have with their brand.

They know there is no silver bullet
Great brands are built one touch point at a time, one client at a time, over time. Throwing money at just one marketing tool isn’t enough. Successful brands integrate their marketing efforts and brand story into everything they do, and let the process work for them in the long term.

In sum, great financial services brands have a marketing machine that constantly feed into the building of their brand.