Content Marketing for Banks: Make Impressions That Become Relationships

In every industry, one principle stands out: before people can trust you, they first need to know you — and marketing creates that connection. Financial companies and institutions have a greater burden of proof: You have to convince your audience that their money and assets are safe with you. 

You’re not alone. The bank marketplace is fluid, with competitors of all sizes coming and going and vying for the same customers with the same general message. You’re even using the same channels and fighting against common industry perceptions: faceless management, lack of personalized attention, not enough guidance. 

Traditional general marketing tactics won’t help you overcome those obstacles. A clever ad campaign doesn’t prove your value and build trust in your bank and brand – your people and story do. And that’s where content marketing for banks makes the critical link between who you are and why your clients need you. 

Content marketing for banks – leverage your strengths to tell your story

Content is anything you can use to convincingly tell your story across digital and print channels. Through content marketing, you can leverage your strengths — your professionals, data, and insight — to engage, educate, and inform a diverse audience.

Although content comes in many forms, its purpose remains the same: to make your brand both reliable and relatable. It’s how you set yourself apart from the competition and distance yourself from the industry perceptions. 

Reliable

Your bank, at every level, is built on thought leaders. People driving ideas and decisions based on years of industry experience and real-time, frontline market insight. As a result, customer confidence and trust strengthen when insights come directly from your bank’s professionals.

Relatable

Content marketing lets you directly speak to people and work to dispel the negative bank perceptions. Providing accessible educational tools and content, and general interest stories at the intersection of finance and health and leisure, show you understand the link between their financial and personal needs and care about their wellbeing beyond the numbers. Walking in their shoes and talking to them as people, not numbers, increases their emotional connection with your bank and brand.

What does content marketing for banks look like?

With 77% of consumers using mobile apps or computers to manage their banking, digital marketing for financial services is the key tool for developing and distributing content marketing.  

Brand and message integration are critical to your content marketing strategy. Customers should read a 100-character social media post or a 10-page report and identify you as the source. Content siloing can reduce marketing effectiveness and erode brand integrity. Therefore, it’s essential to maintain a clear strategy and ensure all teams are aligned on development.  

Your bank’s products and services aren’t front and center for your content marketing. You use it to showcase your story and provide customers with the information, tools, and confidence to write their own – and cement your place as their banking partner.  

Thought leadership

• Whitepapers providing deep dives into one or more subjects. While traditionally technical in nature, this content can be adapted into more accessible articles for broader audiences. 
• Market forecasts and commentary that offer insight into current conditions and future trends. 
• Special reports on banking trends that can impact customer behavior. 
• Videos and podcasts presented or hosted by thought leaders covering a range of topics. Short videos are ideal for posting on social media, enhancing the personal connection between thought leaders and viewers.  

Client-centric

• Success stories and testimonials of existing customers (written or video) that show the real-life, human difference your bank makes. 
• Finance-adjacent and general interest articles on the intersection of finance and life, including health and wellness, travel and other topics. 
• Social media content either related to finance topics or events and holidays that humanize you.  

Education

• Articles, blogs, fact sheets, and videos that offer graphically engaging, clear language insights into your range of products and services, as well as related finance and investment subjects. 

Tools

• User-friendly calculators and worksheets that allow customers to get a high-level, no-sales-strings-or-pressure, look into how their assets are used, investment strategies, etc.  

Developing a content marketing strategy

Before you begin your content marketing strategy, it’s important to understand three things: your organization, your customers, and your competition. Once you know what you want to accomplish, what your customers need, and what your competition is doing, you have the foundation for a powerful strategy. 

Stage 1

Understand Customers

1. The process begins by understanding your goals. You need to decide your focus: lead generation for your bank, revenue growth, customer retention and more. 

2. Creating and executing a content marketing strategy leans into people across your organization. You’ll have to identify individuals and teams with the right skills and experience to develop and distribute your content. 

3. Content often begins at home. Take time to audit what you’ve already developed for content that can be used as is, repurposed, or removed. Similarly, assess your digital marketing footprint to understand which channels are performing or underperforming and which content types have generated the most or least impact. 

4. Content costs money. Calculate how much the people, processes, channels, systems and more will cost to achieve your goals, and use that to set a sustainable content marketing strategy budget. 

Stage 2

1. Your goals should align with your customers’ needs. However, you must first understand who they are. Collect and analyze customer data to develop personas you can use to understand who you are targeting – their wants, problems, pain points and expectations. That data will work overtime: It’s what you’ll use to create your content. 

2. Marketing only works when it hits the target. You also need to study data on customer content consumption and behavior: Which channels do they favor for educational content, news, communications, etc.?

Stage 3

Understand Competitors

1. Knowing what your competitors are saying makes it easier to differentiate yourself. Studying your competitors’ playbook lets you see their weaknesses and strengths – and, more importantly, your own. You can use that to tailor your game plan to exploit gaps in their messaging and improve your own.   

2. In addition, understanding how and where your competitors communicate may be even more important. You’re not alone in the digital marketing financial services field. Take time to learn where your competitors are and you aren’t and what kind of content they’re sharing with customers. 

Stage 4

Build and Execute 

1. The kind of content you want to create and distribution channels go hand in hand. Video content can be shared on your website and across social media. In contrast, reports can be published on your site, linked on social platforms, and sent directly by email. You’ll need to decide which content best satisfies your goals and answers your customers’ needs – and the channels through which it will be shared. 

2. In addition, deciding how and when your content will be distributed is crucial. Setting a cadence for your content ensures you’re striking the right balance of customer touches without under- or overshooting the mark. A content calendar will give you a living document that lets you see development deadlines and publish dates, and, most importantly, helps you keep your busy digital life organized.  

Stage 5

Track and Analyze

1. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are the digital tracking devices you’ll use to measure how your strategy is working across all channels. These include web traffic, lead generation, engagement, and conversion rates. Monitoring these data points will give you the real-time insight you need to maintain or adjust your strategy and keep it aligned with your – and your customers’ – goals. 

Get and stay on track with your content marketing strategy

Content marketing strategy performance starts with data – and data starts with Altrata. We can help you identify, gather, and understand the strategy-critical customer information that drives your strategy’s success. 

Altrata’s data collection, analysis and modeling lets you: 

• Access verified high net and ultra high net worth profiles with wealth data, professional history, lifestyle traits and philanthropic interests 
• Create prospect lists with advanced search 
• Segment your audience with verified data 
• Develop CRM-integrated workflows   

Our experts are always here to help. Schedule a meeting with our team for advice on how you can adopt a data-driven, strategic content marketing approach today.