Financial companies are part of a fiercely competitive financial services industry. The best way you can gain the trust of prospective clients is by creating compelling financial services branding. This includes establishing an effective financial brand identity, as well as following through on your companies mission and vision. In this guide, you will learn about ways that financial services companies can invest their time and money into creating a finance brand that reflects the company and is easily recalled by their target audience.
How Do You Brand Financial Services?
To develop a successful finance brand, you will need a brand strategy that clearly defines how you want your financial brand to be perceived by your audience in terms of its identity and value proposition. Focus on delivering the most powerful value proposition and authentic identity possible so that you stand out from your competition.
1. Define Your Vision & Mission
A Mission Statement defines your financial services business and helps to lay the foundation of your brand identity. It defines the goals of the company and lays out an approach to reach those goals. A Vision Statement is a summary of what you want your business to look like in the future. It's not about where you are currently, but rather what will happen after all of your hard work pays off. It’s important to define a clear vision and mission as it will inform your strategy and keep you on track to achieving your goals.
2. Understand Target Audience
Defining and understanding your target audience is key to establishing branding for financial services that attracts and retains clients. The benefit of defining a specific target audience using gender, age, location and occupation/income is that your company’s message will directly appeal to that demographic and their needs, giving your financial brand focus - instead of a generic message that attempts to appeal to everyone but engages to no one.
In order to understand your target audience, ask yourself the following questions:
1. What are their greatest difficulties, problems, or desires?
2. How do they research information?
3. Why should they choose your service?
The third point leads us nicely onto the next section, understanding your value proposition.
3. Clarify Your Value Proposition
The best way to differentiate your finance brand is through your value proposition. Why should your audience choose your company over your competitors?
Your value proposition must be achievable as you will need to deliver this service to your target audience. It should also touch on your vision and goals, inspiring your ideal client to choose you.
In order to help you define your value proposition, ask yourself the following questions:
1. How does your service directly benefit your client?
2. What differentiates you from competitors?
3. Why do your long-term clients stay with you?
Design Your Logo & Financial Branding
Your logo is the first impression prospective clients have of your financial brand. It’s a symbol that represents the branding of your financial service; and, it needs to be unique because you don’t want to confuse prospective clients with another financial services firm. A well-designed logo should reflect the values of your brand, which are usually established by your value and mission statement and should appeal to your ideal client.
1. Build Trust With A Logo
First impressions count. It takes around 0.5 seconds for your audience to form an opinion of your finance brand. That’s why it’s essential to have a creative and professional-looking logo so that prospective clients can establish trust with your brand the first time they come into contact with it. There are many different types of logos, so the key is to choose one that represents your company and its values. The best way to create a great-looking logo for any type of business is by working with a professional who understands how to authentically design a logo that reflects your financial services firm. If you would like help then call or email Bectre today to book your initial consult.
2. Create A Consistent Brand Identity
A consistent brand identity is more likely to be trusted by your audience than one that isn’t. However, it can be difficult to manage your finance brand consistency across all of your marketing materials. With a brand strategy in place, you can ensure that each piece of content marketing you create will consistently resonate with your audience. This helps build trust with potential and existing clients. A consistent visual identity for your business makes an impact on the reader by creating a memorable customer experience. It also helps them understand what you do without having to read much copy at all! While consistency doesn’t guarantee success, it does set up the right foundation for building trust among readers and allows them to quickly identify which messages are most important from one piece of content to another. At Bectre, we will ensure the branding of your financial service is consistent across all of your brand assets, from business cards to letterheads, we’re got you covered.
Implement a Digital Marketing Strategy
A digital marketing strategy is an essential part of any successful financial services brand. Regardless of your niche, the primary purpose of a financial services company should be to generate revenue. In order for you to generate revenue successfully using a digital marketing strategy, you must first understand what it entails and why it’s important.
1. Design A Website That Is Build To Convert
With your logo and financial branding now completed, you are now ready to create the perfect website for your business. Make it easy for your audience to find your company and service offerings but creating a website that answers their questions and positions you as an authority in the industry. For a lot of companies, their website is an afterthought. It's something that they hope will generate clients, but they haven’t really thought about how the website will achieve this. The problem with this approach is that if don’t design your website in line with your brand, tailoring it specifically to convert your audience, then you’re missing out on prospective clients. Designing an engaging website that touches on your audience's pain points and compels them to contact you is hard work, that’s why we started Bectre - to design engaging websites that help grow financial firms. If you are interested in reaching more clients, we’d love to talk to you.
2. Find New Clients Using Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Now you have a website, the next step is to increase your online visibility so your target audience can find it. In order to achieve this, we need to use financial SEO. The problem is that achieving measurable results takes a focused strategy; from keyword research to on-page optimisation, to content marketing, you need to set aside time to consistently work on your online visibility so that your audience can find you. At Bectre, we specialise in helping financial firms get found online. Our SEO strategy is based on a combination of financial SEO best practices and our experience ranking financial service companies. If you would like to increase your visibility on google and help clients find out about your services then contact us today.
3. Create Brand Awareness Using Social Media
Social media is one of the best ways to spread brand awareness. By leveraging social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, financial service companies are able to reach prospective clients in a cost-effective manner. if you are able to create valuable content it may be shared by your network to their friends, which will further increase your reach. You can also pay to target content marketing directly to your target audience, which also increases your reach beyond your social network.
How do I brand myself as a financial advisor?
As a financial advisor, it's important to set yourself apart with unique financial advisor branding. You've got to be able to give clients something that your competitors don't offer. Part of this is having a unique brand identity, so people know who they're talking with when they call up asking about investing their savings or getting advice on how much life insurance is needed. We recommend all financial advisors consider the following financial advisor branding guidelines:
Focus on your ideal client and how you can help them
Create an authentic message and brand identity
Create short and long-term goals based on your vision and mission statements
Establish a consistent marketing strategy and review it periodically to ensure you are on track
Branding For Financial Services
The importance of a successful financial brand cannot be emphasised enough in today's competitive market. A strong finance brand can help differentiate your business from competitors and also increase client loyalty. Creating an established name for yourself involves more than just slapping on a company logo or tagline onto marketing material - it takes serious work! You'll need to establish an effective brand identity that matches both your company's vision, mission and appeals to your target audience. Bectre is an experienced financial services branding agency that helps financial advisors, financial planners and wealth managers establish compelling financial brands. If you would like help establishing your financial services brand, then get in touch to book a free, no-commitment consultation or call us on 0432 412 024.
