Written by: Roman Shvydun
Email marketing has dominated the spotlight for its incredible ability to retain and build brand value.
The data speaks for itself when we see more than four billion people using email and more than 306 billion emails exchanged daily, on a global level.
So what makes this tool exceedingly popular?
The answer is simple: it’s fast, it’s direct, and when used to its fullest potential, it can be one of the most economical marketing tools available. If you are searching for ways to reinvent your email strategies and make them more time- and cost-effective, then we have all the right tips for you.
How Banks and Financial Advisors Benefit from Email Marketing
With an influx of competition and ever-evolving customer needs, it has become important for banks and financial advisors to change the way they interact with their users.
Through email marketing, they stay in constant touch with current demands and also maintain engagement that increases their brand recall value.
Here are a few other benefits associated with email marketing for banks and financial advisors.
- Personalization. Emails are a direct way of communicating. Leverage this to create a personalized experience for your customers so they can trust you more.
Let’s illustrate this with an example:
- Say there is a change in the government’s financial policy.
- This information might be dry, monotonous, and hard to understand.
- You can plug in a set template, place your text coherently in the form of an infographic or short pointers, and share the same over emails.
- Start the email with the client’s name, and make it sound like you’re talking to them directly.
- This way, they will feel more involved in the process of reading, therefore leading to better engagement.
Financial institutions thrive on trust and value creation, and email marketing does both in an impactful fashion.
- Economical. With the right strategy by your side, email marketing can fetch you results similar to a high-budget marketing campaign.
Here’s how you can achieve that:
- Start with cleaning up your email list, and segment your target audience.
- Do your research on what kind of content resonates better with your audience.
- Leverage visual mediums or infographics to break down heavy information into smaller sections for easy understanding.
- Add necessary links to redirect your clients to your website/platform/service section.
- Use a unified mailbox, and have all emails in one place to track responses and feedback effectively.
These tips will help you save resources, as well as time, and make the flow of your email marketing campaigns twice as efficient. This contributes towards increasing your conversions, which brings us to our next point.
- Nurture your leads. While email marketing is an effective way of staying in touch with your existing clients, it is equally impactful in helping you convert more leads.
Let’s show you how:
- A well-designed email has better visibility and more chances of getting shared across different platforms.
- Email newsletters with customer testimonials are effective in letting prospects know that your offering is reliable and trustworthy.
- Sending personalized messages to prospective customers goes a long way in showing that you genuinely care about your customers, which means more lead materialization.
A good way to start this is by getting yourself acquainted with email marketing terms, design trends, and techniques, so you know exactly what to say in your emails.
Now that we have these essential benefits covered, let’s get further into the conversation to understand how email marketing saves time and resources.
What Makes Email Marketing Time-Efficient?
To increase the ROI of your email marketing strategy in a short timeframe, begin with segmenting your market and determining the best marketing tool for your business.
This will help you identify the gaps in your strategy and spot the right target audience, to direct your time and effort in the right direction.
Here are a few other ways in which email marketing comes in handy for efficient time management.
1. Identifying Viable Leads
Email marketing gives you an in-depth analysis of your audience, by showing you exactly how many people are interested in reading your emails.
This will save you from the hassle of drafting repeated emails for customers who will probably never convert while helping you concentrate on viable leads that have a higher chance of conversion.
With this information, you can identify the segment where you should be directing your resources.
2. Smoother Sales Cycles
Targeted emails bridge the gap between reaching out and the final stage of sales, which is known as conversion.
So you work for a bank that has come up with a new policy for home loans. How do you ensure that you get the maximum number of people to sign up for this service?
- Segment your email list, and identify people who have enquired about such a service.
- Create an impactful newsletter with necessary information and a link to sign up.
- Use positive customer testimonials from people who have already signed up for a similar service in the past to create trust.
- Use email automation to create instant responses and keep the conversation going.
These steps offer a time-saving yet effective way of getting more people to use this service, thus helping you direct your time efficiently for each conversion stage.
3. Quick Conversions
With a good knowledge of your target audience and a better sales cycle, you get faster conversions.
You know your emails are adding value for the people who are reading them. You also know the gaps in your content you can work on to create more impactful strategies in the future.
It’s not just your time at stake; good email marketing strategies help you optimize your monetary resources as well. Let’s find out more.
What Makes Email Marketing Cost-Efficient?
Businesses across the globe are in constant competition to get more digital visibility and yield a high RIO, at the lowest cost possible.
Email marketing helps you track high-paying leads and gives you in-depth marketing analysis that lets you achieve these goals within a budget.
But that’s not how it helps you save on costs.
1. Readjusting Marketing Strategies
Email marketing offers a convenient way of communicating with your clients. Therefore, you can redirect your efforts to make this your go-to strategy to retain and get more clients.
You might have to put in a little more effort in identifying what email format suits your business well, but it will save you from costly promotions that reap almost similar results.
2. Optimizing Efforts
When you redirect your efforts in a single direction, towards building an effective email strategy, it helps you concentrate on other aspects of your business that might need more attention.
For instance, you can use email marketing to create automated responses for feedback collection and use that feedback to polish your services. This helps in two ways:
- Less time drafting repetitive messages
- Better services mean more consumers and more sales, therefore more profit
3. Easy to Understand
It is a lot easier to learn tricks of the trade for email marketing than other ways of digital marketing, say social media marketing or search engine optimization techniques.
You already know how to draft an email, and there are multiple templates and email tools you can choose from. For instance, Google Docs offers great-looking templates that can be easily customized to suit your preference.
Also, it takes little to no effort to train more people in email marketing, helping you save on the essential training costs incurred by businesses.
The initial cost of investment in email marketing is lower than most mediums, like social media marketing, which makes it a preferred tool for getting maximum benefits at a low cost.
In a Nutshell
Emails have evolved massively over time and are becoming so much more interactive. There are multiple plugins — like video, GIFs, interactive links, and social media buttons — you can leverage to create engaging emails.
Take your time to understand and segment your market, know your target audience, allocate a budget, and figure out a calendar to direct your efforts in the right direction. Once you have the perfect mix of these ingredients, you’ll know just how powerful email marketing can be for your business.
Related: How Financial Advisors Can Improve Their Ranking on Search Engines
Roman Shvydun writes informative articles mainly about everything related to marketing, business, productivity, workplace culture, etc. His articles focus on balancing information with SEO needs, but never at the expense of providing an entertaining read. See a few more examples of Roman’s articles by visiting his Twitter.