Email Marketing
Email marketing is a powerful and cost-effective tool that enables financial services companies to market their services and products while keeping clients updated on news and relevant financial content, educating them on the company’s brand values, and encouraging client loyalty and engagement.
According to Hubspot, ‘The most effective strategies for email marketing campaigns are subscriber segmentation (78%), message personalisation (72%), and email automation campaigns (71%)’.
Email marketing is one of the most influential and popular tools for growing your brand and promoting your services and products. This article will detail how you can use email marketing and promotional emails to help grow your financial services company. We also provide helpful tips for creating a successful email marketing campaign.
What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is a vital form of direct and digital marketing that uses email to promote your services or products. It lets you inform clients of your latest offerings and financial content while incorporating your email lists into automated marketing campaigns.
Emails will play an essential role in your email marketing strategy by:
- Generating financial leads
- Increasing brand awareness
- Forming relationships
- Engaging with clients through various types of emails
- Creating new business opportunities
Advantages of email marketing
Email marketing provides valuable client feedback, allows you to measure engagement levels and track performance against your defined goals.
Email marketing advantages for your marketing strategy include:
- Sending targeted messages that can be personalised for your target audience
- Build long-lasting relationships
- Driver higher volumes of website traffic
- Email marketing is low-cost and has a high return on investment (ROI)
- Segment your emails mailing lists for targeted campaigns
- Ability to track the effectiveness of each email campaign
- Provides both a national and global reach
- Instant delivery time
- More reliable than other forms of communication
- Generates more quality financial leads
- Increasing further brand awareness for your proposition
Disadvantages of Email marketing
Email size
The size of an email also needs to be considered when sending out mass emails. If the file size is too large, it may not be able to be downloaded by some users with limited storage space on their devices. To ensure the successful delivery of messages, keep the size of attachments within recommended limits and provide links instead of attachments where possible.
Email spam
Spam is a significant concern, it can block your emails from spam filters and delete them without ever being read. If your emails are flagged as spam too often, this can damage your reputation and the deliverability of all future emails, leading to a decrease in ROI. To avoid this issue, ensure that all emails sent out follow relevant marketing regulations and anti-spam laws.
Costs
Although email marketing can be relatively inexpensive compared to more traditional forms of advertising, there are still costs associated with setting up an effective email marketing strategy, such as hiring a professional designer or investing in an automated solution like MailChimp.
Competition
There is increased competition for inbox space due to the sheer number of financial services companies now utilising email marketing techniques and campaigns. You must ensure your emails stand out from other companies to increase open rates and conversions.
Segmenting your emails by creating unique subject lines or personalising each client is vital. Additionally, using tools such as A/B testing can help you identify what works best for your target audience and what generates the most engagement with clients.
Engagement
Many people have hundreds of emails in their inboxes, a large portion of them being promotional or marketing emails. It can be hard to stand out among all the other financial services companies promoting their services and products.
Some email service providers may filter out certain types of messages, which could lead to subscribers not seeing your emails.
To help increase engagement, you should create engaging subject lines and content that resonates with your target audience. You should tailor your messages to each segmented email group and create customised landing pages for each email campaign.
Email design
The design and layout of your emails are also important factors to consider when emailing clients.
As mentioned before, many people have hundreds of emails in their inboxes, so yours must stand out from the rest. Keep the design simple but eye-catching; use plenty of white space, visuals and relevant images.
Also, ensure that your message is clear and concise, leaving recipients with a manageable amount of information at once.
How to check email marketing campaign performance
It is best to utilise analytics tools alongside email campaigns to track progress and measure email metrics effectively. Tracking includes monitoring open rates, Click-Through Rates (CTRs) and unsubscribe rates.
Email marketing tools and analytics will provide valuable insight into what messages work best for your email segment lists. This insight allows you to refine your campaigns over time to maximise overall effectiveness.
Learn more about Email Marketing metrics.
Email Marketing examples
There are numerous marketing strategies for financial services companies, from email newsletters to promotions and surveys; each type of email marketing has unique benefits and approaches to engaging with your clients.
Adopting various strategies will allow you to create an effective campaign to attract more clients and generate more revenue. Let’s look at some of the most popular types of email marketing for financial services companies.
Welcome emails
Welcome emails are a great way to start any marketing campaign. Send it to someone who has just subscribed to your list, and let them know what they can expect from further communication.
Welcome emails should include an introduction to what the audience can look forward to, what services and products you offer, what content they will receive, and how often they will receive emails.
Welcome emails should also include a call-to-action (CTA) that encourages the reader to take action immediately. These CTAs include following your social media accounts, visiting your website, or signing up for additional services.
Focus on creating engagement with your brand as soon as possible for more lasting attention.
Newsletter emails
Newsletters are another type of email used in marketing campaigns. These are typically sent out regularly, such as weekly or monthly, and contain updates about recent news, market commentary, promotions, regulatory and tax changes or information on services and products you provide. Emails Newsletter should provide readers with valuable information that is relevant and interesting.
When creating an email newsletter, it’s essential to keep them visually appealing and easy to read; using plenty of white space and images throughout the body copy helps keep readers engaged without overwhelming them with text blocks.
Adding personalisation elements like addressing the reader directly by using their name or including dynamic content will help make each message feel unique and tailored towards each subscriber’s interests.
For best results, we recommend that you segment your email subscribers into different groups based on their services or products and interests so that you can tailor messages more specifically towards different audiences within your user base.
Doing this allows you to send out email newsletters more likely to drive conversions while also building brand loyalty by providing content catered towards each group’s needs or interests.
Lead nurturing emails
Lead nurturing emails are targeted emails sent out to prospective clients that have expressed an interest in your services and products. Your Lead nurturing campaigns should focus on providing helpful information and resources to the recipient so they can make informed decisions about your offerings.
Tailor each user’s needs, interests, and financial and lifestyle goals within your lead-nurturing emails. Use different types of financial content, such as videos, images, case studies, blog posts or industry news, to keep their interest. Ensure to include a CTA at the end of each email, prompting them to take the next step to become clients.
Confirmation emails
Send confirmation emails after a subscriber completes an action, such as signing up for an email newsletter or downloading a guide or factsheet.
Thank your subscribers for their engagement with your company and provide any additional information they may need regarding what they signed up for. This type of email helps build trust between the brand and client while reiterating the value you bring to your clients through your services or products.
It is essential not to overlook confirmation emails as they are often one of the most read emails by prospective clients interested in what you offer.
To ensure that these messages stand out from other emails, you should use dynamic content such as name personalisation, product recommendations or seasonal offers.
Survey emails
Survey emails are a valuable way to obtain client feedback, improving your client relations and the services and products you offer.
These emails should include a concise and straightforward question or set of questions related to your offer so that clients understand what type of information you’re seeking.
For survey emails to be successful, it is vital to keep them visually appealing and easy to read by using plenty of white space and images throughout the body copy.
Seasonal Marketing mails
Seasonal marketing emails are a highly effective way to reach prospective clients during seasonal events such as a new Budget Statement or End of Year Tax Planning while increasing sales over time by offering discounts and promotions on select services and products.
Ensure to add plenty of visual elements like high-quality images or videos throughout the body copy to maintain reader engagement without overwhelming them with text blocks.
Finally, use a CTA at the end of each email, prompting readers on what action to take next to drive conversions efficiently over time.
Promotional emails
Promotional emails are great ways to increase sales by offering discounts or promotions on select services and products over time.
These emails should focus on what makes your financial services company stand out from your competitors while highlighting any benefits prospective and existing clients can attain by taking advantage of any offers available during that period.
To ensure successful promotional campaigns, tracking performance metrics such as CTRs, open rates, and unsubscribe rates is vital to gauge how well your messages perform over time and what areas may need further optimisation.
Doing this will enable you to send out campaigns specifically catered towards different audiences within your client and prospect database, increasing conversions while also helping build brand loyalty by providing helpful content relevant to their needs or interests.
Tips for growing your Email list
Leverage social media: Use platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to attract prospective clients and get them to sign up for your list.
Make it simple: Make the sign-up process as user-friendly as possible by keeping it straightforward.
Offer an incentive: Give something away, like a complimentary initial first meeting or some educational content, in exchange for signing up for your email list.
Use popup forms: Encourage your website visitors to subscribe by making it easy for them to join with a popup form on your website or blog.
Use email automation: Consider using an autoresponder tool to deliver welcome emails or other follow-ups after someone subscribes to your list.
The bottom line
With the right email marketing strategy in place and by implementing the tips outlined above, emails can be an effective way for financial services companies to drive conversions while also building brand loyalty. Start creating marketing campaigns today so that you can start benefiting from email marketing.
For more information about how Goldmine Media can help your firm, talk to a member of our Business Team at 0845 686 0055 or email: findoutmore@goldminemedia.co.uk.
Tobias Fenton, Marketing Analyst, Goldmine Media
