Last year’s pandemic has made the banking and financial services industry realize that the most effective way of providing uninterrupted services to their clients is through online banking and mobile banking. The industry also found that the online route is highly cost-efficient, and it can be the way forward even during the post-pandemic era. But the banking and financial industry is required to infuse trust in their clients about the safety of online financial services. Onboarding clients is easier using email marketing as they are always trusted as the official correspondence channel. Compared to other communication channels, email marketing infuses more trust and is a preferred medium of communication. Today, I will share the top 5 email marketing strategies for the BFSI sector, so let’s get started.
#1 Unbundle Customer Database For Conversion Rate Optimization Rate
One of the biggest advantages the Banking and Finance industry has over most other sectors is that they are custodians to enormous customer data amounts. You can analyze these datasets to identify your customer base’s evolving needs for running email marketing campaigns to offer relevant financial products based on segmentation and predictive analysis. This includes financial services such as savings/spending, wealth management, payment platforms, cryptocurrency wallet, and lending/risk-based lending. All these campaigns are comparable to in-person marketing done by your sales representatives, and they should be mimicked in the same way. You can use the readily available free HTML email templates from the Internet as per campaign goals. Below is one such example from Simple:
#2 Include Data Security And Privacy In List Building
Running a marketing campaign for the Banking and Financial sector is a unique situation for marketers since people are generally skeptical about discussing finances with new parties. This makes conversion eccentrically tricky. Email marketers have to be very careful when running list-building campaigns on social media or third-party websites as they need to thoroughly maintain branding consistency and assure prospects about data security and privacy convincingly. Reassure them about data security and privacy with every marketing material. Next, your opt-in form and your free HTML email templates need to have provisions for reassuring your leads. You may also go ahead with custom templates for the welcome emails.
#3 Leverage Social Proof Generously
Seasoned sales associates will tell you that selling financial instruments is more about trust than figures. When dealing with money matters, people tend to be risk-averse; they find numbers deceptive at times. When you are preparing an email marketing campaign for financial products, it is recommended to use social proof rather than a lengthy copy. People believe in the social proof as much as personal advice from their kin. Always use verifiable social proof and avoid any shortcuts/malpractices as it will damage your reputation significantly for any future efforts. You can ask your existing customers to share their referrals for building user-generated content resources. Use a suitable hero image and color palette. Have a look at one of my favorite HTML email templates that complements the social proof and overall copy wonderfully:
Refine Your Lead’s Buyer Journey
Expectedly it’s difficult for common people to stay abreast with changing technology and evolving new avenues in the banking and finance industry. As you are marketing a financial product, you will need to declutter all the information using a drip email campaign. Your drip email marketing campaign should be designed in such a way that most of your leads can easily digest all the information. Sending multiple topics or too much information can be overwhelming for some of your leads, so limit yourself to one topic at a time. Images play an important role in imparting financial knowledge, so most institutions prepare separate versions for both mobile and computer. These images can be rendered flawlessly on both by responsive HTML email templates. Have a look at below examples:
Never Skip Legally Required Information
In the banking and financial sector, skipping legal disclaimers/disclosures can be a costly affair. You are dealing with people’s money and data. Therefore it is important for you to explicitly state all the legally required information in your email, preferably near the footer of your responsive HTML email templates. It will reflect your authenticity as people expect to see such lengthy pieces of terms and conditions at the end of marketing materials for financial instruments. These legal disclaimers/disclosures should include but are not limited to the term of service, general terms, privacy terms, payment terms, and user rights management data. Here is an example of terms update:
Wrap Up
Building an email marketing strategy for financial instruments is substantially different than typical email marketing, but it is not very complex. The potential of email marketing is underutilized in the BFSI sector and presents a vast opportunity for email marketers. To start with, unbundling data and utilizing it to promote your financial products is low-hanging fruit. Data security and privacy is paramount in this sector, and it’s also important to state legal terms.
Author Bio: Kevin, the Head of Marketing at Email Uplers – one of the fastest growing custom email design and coding companies, specializes in crafting beautiful email templates, PSD to HTML email conversion and free HTML Email Templates. He loves gadgets, bikes, jazz, and breathes email marketing. He is a brand magician who loves to engage & share insights with fellow marketers.
