Digital Marketing Services For Banks

We often joke about how the world would be without any currency. We do not have to think deep enough if we are not looking for any philosophical answers. All we need to do, is flip through our history textbooks and read about the barter system; when goods were traded for goods. Agreed that the system sure seemed very simple and easy,if we were to analyse it systematically, there would be no logical explanation for having to trade 2 cows for 1 horse. Thankfully the people back then realized it and invented money or else it would have been impossible and almost non-sensical to carry out business in todays’ world. We cannot even begin to calculate the complexities there would have been in global export business had there been no money.The biggest advantage money gives us, is assigning a value to any product we use which can be measured in a single unit. There is no doubt that from the time when money was invented till today, the nature, types and size of business has changed vastly and in order to keep a track of the currency in use in different places, banks and financial institutions were developed. The reason why so much of emphasis is laid on improving the banking sector for any economy, is that these institutions keep a check on the flow of the currency, ensuring that there is not too much or too less, and they also facilitate credit for business as well as domestic life events. Furthermore, the process of banking has also changed over time all thanks to the digitization of the modern world. Paper currencies have been taken over by digital money and cheque books have been replaced by debit and credit cards. Core banking systems (CBS), RTGS, NEFT, digital bank accounts are a few examples of how the finance sector has adapted to this evolution. However, one of the biggest miss out has been in the case of digital marketing. Despite going paperless in terms of transactions, banks and financial institutions rely greatly on the traditional methods of marketing to grab customer share in the market, without realizing what they are losing. Let us read on to find out why the banking sector should adopt digital marketing as a one stop solution for all marketing needs, the possible challenges it can face and what can be done to ensure maximum efficiency of their digital marketingplans.

Why banks should adopt Digital Marketing

Without further ado, let us straight delve in to know the advantages of DM and what scope it has in terms of helping gain market share- 1) It delivers conversion: The success of any business is not measured by the traffic coming on its website but by the percentage of that traffic which is converted into sales. There is no point in investing money if we do not get a return on it. 2) Cost Effective: According to Gartner’s report, 40% respondents from a test group claimed to have earned a considerable amount of savings upon using digital marketing methods. In a recent survey, 72% marketers were of the belief that by end of 2017, digital marketing is what will help companies to generate 30% higher revenues. 3) Brand Value: Digital marketing helps businesses to stay in touch with their target audience and a major part of this is carried out through social media. Creating a social media page, strategic placement of ads, relatable content for the masses, helps in maintaining a quality relation by providing real time marketing, between new and existing customers.

 Scope for Digital Marketing in Banking sector

As per a report, thenumber of mobile phone users in the world will increase up to 5.07 billion by 2019. Mobile banking is already a huge hit with the audience. Imagine being able to place ads strategically which induces people to opt for your services. Moreover, a huge chunk of the market, precisely 84% relies on reviews and feedbacks on social media before using the services of any financial institution to carry out a transaction. Digital marketing as mentioned above, helps build a strong online presence and ensures 24*7 reach for the audience. You cannot just ignore 600 million users on Instagram alone while planning to implement DM in your marketing strategies.

Possible Challenge(s) for DM in Banking Sector

As of now, the only issue for digital marketing in the finance sector would be managing the real-time results and generating reports from it for future use. The reason for this, is that the level of operations carried out by a single bank branch numbers in the thousands. To measure which transaction resulted due to which ad campaign is a crazy task and would require a lot of tracking and supervision. However, this problem too can be solved in the future by setting parameters for tracking with the help of AI. Chatbots are also currently in play with a lot of banks using them for customer interactions.

Tips to increase efficiency of DM plans:

These areas should be the highlight for any banking company if they want to attain maximum results from their DM campaigns: 1) Informative Content: As a financial institution you do not always have to be selling your services or inducing customers to open accounts but also aim at educating them. For example, you can post about the current trends in the share market or what types of investments can be made for higher gains in the future. More than 60% users have confirmed they feel confident about a site which provides them information as well. 2) Mobile Optimized: Google has started rolling out its ‘mobile first’ policy in which it gives preference to those sites which can be easily optimized to fit a phone’s screen. Optimizing your website for mobiles will not help boost transactions through phones but also ensure that your ads end up in the top 10 search results which increases your chances of achieving better results through ad campaigns.