Mastering Success in Finance: 4 Essential Marketing Tips for Financial Businesses

Customer and consumer behavior is constantly evolving. While this is a good thing in terms of customer demand and engagement as people seek out new businesses and products, it can be challenging to know how to attract or maintain customers. When combining the now ever-present, globally based marketplace, it can become a stressful task to keep up not only with competitors but customers as well.

While much of this profitable mentality holds more to the traditional business model of offering products for a consumeristic demand, that does not mean that such marketing strategies don’t transfer to other business models. As a result, there is plenty that can be learned and adapted as a way to market as an accounting or finance institution. Still, one of the best and most foundational principles in marketing and communications degrees is to know your audience.

Here are 4 marketing tips to advertise your Colorado-based financial business.

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1. Allocating a budget

While this may not be the most fun, exciting or creative process of a solid marketing strategy it is one of the most important. Quite simply, if a business doesn’t know how much it can spend then it runs the dual risk of overspending beyond its means or underdelivering on an investment that can generate great potential.

Taking the time to establish a consistent marketing budget is a great way to not only invest in the growth of a business but also a sound way of tracking how and when certain campaigns generate successful results and an increase in attention or customer engagement. Depending on the age of a business, companies are encouraged to dedicate more or less money towards an annual budget.

Newer businesses (1-5 years) may want to put greater percentages of their revenue towards marketing campaigns, but typically 20% of revenue with strategic planning generates good results.

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Marketing by age groups

It should not be a surprise that various generations maintain drastically different liquidity to use. But there is actually an emerging growth in the younger generations ability and interest to save, invest and spend money.

Much of this simply has to do with seasons of life: Baby Boomers invest less because they are nearer and in more need of money for upcoming retirement; Gen Z and Millennials are confident and tend to use a wide range of tools to diversify their income; Gen X invest less and put more of their money into living expenses.

Depending on who the target audience is will determine how to market a financial business.

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Choosing between Digital or Traditional Marketing

This is one of the first times in history that three-to-four generations are alive and well simultaneously while all having their own impact on the economy. While this is a wonderful fact to celebrate in terms of human wellness, it can become another complicated factor when determining where and how to reach customers.

Having narrowed down the demographics will help tremendously in this respect, being that younger generations are much more tech-savvy and connected. Since both traditional and modern digital marketing methods have pros and cons, most advertisers recommend a mix of old and new marketing strategies. Utilize design thinking and put yourself in the shoes of your consumers to help come up with the ideal marketing strategy for your product or service.

Implementing a plan

While this is less of a strategy than a step, it is an important factor to remember when developing and launching a marketing campaign. Having seen the other steps of budgeting, demographic studies and marketing styles, the next thing to do really is just to start with this idea in mind: only time will tell.

Even the cleverest campaigns on paper may not take place in real life so making sure that there are systems and tools in place to measure and track results is a step that cannot be overlooked. Without it, that well-earned revenue may be wanted on a marketing strategy that is a flop.

On the other hand, having these tools in place always leads to a greater understanding and ability to make smarter, more well informed decisions in the future.

Andrew Deen has been a consultant for startups in a number of industries from retail to medical devices and everything in between. He implements lean methodology and is currently writing a book about scaling up business.