The economic outlook changes from year to year and financial institutions have to adapt in order to find new clients and grow their business. Marketing automation for financial services is a powerful tool that helps agents and brands succeed no matter the outlook.
Financial institutions encounter unique challenges in their marketing efforts. These challenges include personalized communication at scale, lead generation, cross-selling, upselling, and accurate campaign tracking.
The good thing is, automation is there to solve these exact issues. Read on to learn how automation streamlines marketing tasks and improves the customer experience.
How to get started with marketing automation for financial services
To automate campaigns, you’ll need a marketing automation platform or all-in-one CRM, like Brevo. As of 2022, 42% of financial institutions already use marketing automation.
From your account dashboard, you can navigate to your automations tab. Most platforms will give you some premade automation recipes to start you off.
Pre-made marketing automation workflows in Brevo.
You can also build custom automation workflows. Start simple, or build complex automations with a drag-and-drop builder. That way, you can nurture leads in the best way for your marketing strategy.
Example welcome automation workflow in Brevo
Further reading: Marketing Automation Software: 10 Best Tools for 2024
Marketing automation for financial services: use cases
Any task you need can be automated, from follow-up emails to campaign analysis. Let’s look at some use cases to show you how to use marketing automation tools to boost your business.
1. Automate lead generation
Marketing tools like landing pages and signup forms streamline lead capture at important touchpoints in the customer journey. Put signup forms in high-traffic areas on your website, or share them on your social media pages.
Using QR codes at events and physical locations is another way to get new subscribers into nurturing automated flows.
Use these tools to help you find out what your customers are interested in.
Landing page for home mortgage loans by Wells Fargo
For example, when someone clicks the CTA on this landing page, Wells Fargo knows this visitor wants information on mortgages.
Once a lead opts in to receive your content, they enter your customer database for further nurturing.
Pro tip: Use double-opt-in to get higher-quality leads and comply with GDPR.
2. Segment your contacts for better targeting
Businesses store contact information in a CRM database, or customer data platform (CDP) for enterprise-sized companies. These databases allow you to automatically filter contacts into groups using customer segmentation.
Group contacts based on behavior, like “engaged subscribers”, demographics (age, income), or firmographics, like company size and industry. Then send them automated campaigns that match their needs.
Common nurturing content includes newsletters, onboarding emails with steps for new users, information about your services, or promotional offers.
Targeted campaign example
Venmo financial services email marketing campaign
Here’s an example by Venmo of using segmentation to target parents. Contacts in the “Parent” segment receive relevant content as part of a lead nurturing automation workflow. In this example, Venmo suggests opening an account for their teens.
With segmented contact lists, creating relevant marketing content is a breeze.
3. Launch email marketing campaigns
Email marketing automation is one of the most popular ways to turn contacts into customers.
You can automate:
- email newsletters with industry insights
- limited-time offers on your services
- updates when your interest rates change
- onboarding and re-engagement
- monthly statements and personalized reporting
- referral programs
Email marketing campaign example
Fidelity financial services email marketing campaign
This example by Fidelity shows how marketing automation for financial services enables cross-selling. You can also use a series of automated emails that slowly encourage leads to buy.
Further reading: The Complete Guide to Email Marketing for Financial Services
Email marketing automation case study
Island Federal Credit Union, a Long Island-based credit union, uses Brevo for its email marketing automation. With automated welcome and follow-up email sequences, Island Federal boosted customer engagement and now has 80% open rates.
"The ability for us to make aesthetically pleasing, functional emails in a short amount of time with limited coding and HTML experience is incredible. We can create a great, targeted, ready-to-roll-out email in 60-90 minutes, saving us a lot of time."
Chris Murray, VP of Marketing at Island Federal. Read the full success story.
4. Stay in touch with WhatsApp, SMS, and push notifications
Mobile notifications have high open rates, making them great for driving customer engagement. And 65% of customers who get a push notification convert within 30 days.
Reach contacts right in their pockets with automated messages including
- Promotional offers
- Meeting reminders
- Communications triggered by specific actions (e.g. balance changes)
- Transaction alerts
- Account updates
- News alerts
Further reading: WhatsApp Marketing: Definition, Tips, and Examples
5. Grow your reach with social media
Financial institutions are among the top three industries that pay for online ads. Include Facebook Ads in your marketing automation workflows to discover new customers, or retarget existing ones.
6. Streamline management with CRM automation
Marketing automation for financial services also helps with backend tasks. With a CRM, you can see all of your tasks on shared dashboards for easy management. Automate and keep track of your business processes in one place.
- Follow each lead’s progress with a lead scoring model.
- Build and manage your automation workflows.
- Automatically assign tasks and notifications to your team members.
- Carry out time-consuming tasks like updating customer profiles.
Example deal pipeline in Brevo
7. Automate campaign analytics
With automated campaign reports, getting insight from your campaigns doesn’t take hours to do. Track clicks, views, and engagement and improve campaigns right from your email marketing CRM.
Email campaign analytics in Brevo
Data-driven metrics give you the power to make each campaign better than the last.
Further reading: 7 Marketing Automation Practices to Maximize Your Results
Benefits of marketing automation for financial services
Improve lead generation and nurturing
Marketing automation is key for building personalized campaigns and following leads through the customer journey.
- Lead scoring models help you find your most qualified leads and track their progress toward a conversion.
- Lead nurturing campaigns and automation workflows make converting leads a science. Create tailored campaigns for your most important customer segments and deliver a personalized experience.
Understand your audience
Marketing automation software enables financial services to gather valuable insights into their audience in real time.
By tracking first-party data and generating reports, automation helps financial service providers better understand customer needs and behavior. Marketing teams then have everything they need to make compelling campaigns.
Improve your brand awareness
Deliver relevant messaging to prospects and customers with automation. Consistent and helpful messages are key to earning trust and credibility.
What’s more, online ad automation increases visibility and engagement. Use an omnichannel marketing strategy to strengthen your brand recognition across channels.
Provide better customer service
Marketing automation helps financial services better support customers with timely and personalized communications.
Automated responses to inquiries, proactive notifications, and personalized follow-ups make sure that customers receive the support they need when they need it.
Marketing automation for financial services: Case study
Fintech tax service provider, Tributi, uses reminder notifications for users and potential customers. When certain deadlines approach, users get a notification to complete a task. This personalized automation workflow earns Tributi 5% more conversion rates. Read the whole success story.
In short, automation tools enable institutions to track customer interactions and preferences, anticipate needs, and deliver tailored solutions to boost your ROI.
The best CRM with marketing automation for financial services
Ready to start automating your business and delivering seamless customer experiences? The Brevo CRM has all the features you need to collect data, personalize campaigns, and nurture leads.
