Banks and financial companies (insurance brokers, tax advisors, and money exchanges) may be the ones that have all the money; however all of these companies need marketing support.
Many financial companies do have internal resources to look after their marketing; however many do use an external marketing resource. This may be for crucial areas such as website maintenance and development or strategic advise as an external 'think-tank'.
Whether you are a major bank such as TSB or a small mortgage broker in Chesterfield; all financial businesses need marketing of some sort (whether this be website design, company brochures, PR or any other area of marketing).
Financial companies need to ensure that they get a good return for their marketing spend, that their marketing campaigns work and that money invested into the campaigns is fruitful.
As there are many marketing companies around the UK it does make good practical sense for a business involved in the financial industry to work with a marketing agency that has a background in the financial sector. This gives them experience in tackling issues of communication to your audience but also lessens the learning curve that there is in understanding your business.
The financial industry is an interesting sector as it is partly B2B but also partly B2C. With banks and mortgage companies, they work with consumers, but also work with businesses. With financial advisors they tend to work with consumers.
PR For Banks
A big part of financial marketing is public relations and getting a PR agency with financial experience to support your campaign is important. A PR agency with financial experience can handle the communication and image in a much better way than a PR agency that has no experience. Especially in the current climate the financial sector is getting a bad media image; having the right PR agency is important to balance out the good and bad press.
Marketing For Banks
Banks will use almost all areas of marketing: website design, design for print, PR, mailing. Many would use internal sources for the many marketing projects they have going on but most do use external marketing companies to support one off projects. Banks also have sales teams within their branches and do require sales training to ensure their teams deal with clients in the most responsible way.
Telemarketing For Banks
Many banks also use telemarketing (both inbound and outbound telemarketing) to handle customer queries and day to day customer support. Any time you call up a freephone number on a banking site, it is very unlikely this goes to a bank, but to a telemarketing company that is employed by the bank to handle customer calls, technical issues, security issues, loans, overdrafts etc.
These days, telemarketing for banks is highly in demand, as customers are wanting more control over their money and money is in higher demand.
Website Design For Banks
All banks (these days) need websites set up; secure websites that are clean, accessible, look good and work well (high internet security). There are lots of experienced website designers for banks and financial companies, but shopping around is needed in order to find them.
Internet Marketing and PPC
PPC (Pay Per Click) is becoming a very big area of marketing for the financial sector in attracting new clients and customers. Most financial businesses will use an external PPC company to set up and manage their PPC campaigns.
The banking and financial sector is highly competitive and therefore banks and financial institutions are vying for new customers and the industry is highly competitive.
Other financial institutes going from the investment banks, through high street banks, mortgage lenders, brokers all use marketing services across the board and do need support from financial marketing companies.
Many banks would be advised to use PPC advertising for banks to manager their PPC marketing campaigns, agencies that do know the banking sector and do have experience in managing PPC campaigns for banks.