How to Market Financial Services in Uncertain Economic Times

Nearly everyone in America, from Generation Z to the Silent Generation, has experienced what it’s like to live through a recession or depression. Thus, it’s not surprising that when the economy begins to falter, consumers may become more protective over their money and financial decisions. But, with every ebb and flow of the economy, there is an equal adjustment you can make to your marketing strategy to attract and retain clients.

Use the following tips for marketing financial services regardless of the economic condition.

Don’t Get Paralyzed

When the economy shows signs of weakness, the marketing budget is often the first expenditure to be slashed. Unfortunately, this can do more harm than good for your business. Without marketing financial services, your business could lose relevancy and recognition, both of which help bring customers through the door.

Rather than halting your marketing outreach, extend your strategy. Perform customer research to reexamine your customers’ changing needs and realign with their expectations. For instance, rather than focusing on stocks and investment funds, you may discover your clients are looking for credit repair help.

Hold a steady pace, but redirect your vision. Rather than eliminating marketing efforts, take a step back to see how a changing market affects consumer behavior. Then, realign your messaging to stay relevant.

Help as Consumers Rebuild

Many Americans are still rebuilding from the 2008 recession. During that dark period of American economic history, eight million jobs were lost, unemployment skyrocketed beyond 10%, and the Dow and S&P 500 lost half their value.

Businesses were ruined, and families lost their retirement savings, homes, and sense of self-worth.

Regardless of the current economic outlook, no one wants to go through that pain again and credit repair specialists have an obligation to help repair and re-educate their community so that they are better prepared for an economic downturn. Craft your credit repair company’s brand messaging to position yourself as a leader and a resource for weary consumers.

By continuing to help consumers rebuild and preventing them from experiencing financial hardship from poor financial decisions, you’ll be providing an invaluable service.

Don’t Put All Clients in the Same Bucket

Each client experiences the effects of an economic change uniquely. Rather than creating a marketing message to cater to a mass market, develop and refine personas for more precise messaging.

Personas are a component of digital marketing for financial services that enable you to define your customers based on market research and data from existing customers. Consider these fictional examples:

• Frozen Fred: Might represent the group most vulnerable to economic hardships. In this example, Fred may be very meticulous about where his money is going. To land Fred as a client, he may need to know that your financial services can help him rebuild his credit and straighten out his finances so he’s less affected by the financial changes.
• Dented Denise: This segment of clients may be impacted by the downturn, but not paralyzed. Denise can carry on with some aspects of her life, though she’ll need to pull back on others. Denise may need occasional comforts and reminders of how to stay strong and prepared in the changing climate.
• Comfortable Curt: He feels about the same today as he did before the downturn. However Curt acted before, he will likely continue the same routines. Using the marketing message that’s worked for you in the past could still work well with Curt.
• Living it up Liv: She may not feel the impact of the economic downturn, and may even notice gains in her personal bottom line. Not only might she still comfortable and confident in financial institutions, but she’s also ready to take advantage of opportunities that may have appeared due to the downturn.

The aforementioned personas are not based on market research. For you to build more specific representations, get to know each of your clients, conduct market research and draft personas to help revitalize your marketing efforts for more effective outreach.

Customizing marketing messaging to reach each type of your consumer will help you maximize your reach and your services. Build personas to help you maintain consistent and effective marketing messages.

Continue to Show Great Results

Customers who see the positive results of your services will continue to spend their money to employ you regardless of what the economy looks like. Better yet, customers who see results are likely to spread the good word to friends and family, too.

According to a Nielsen study, 92% of consumers say recommendations about a product or service from friends or family do more to persuade them than advertising. When it comes to matters of finance, referrals are especially important. Consumers want to know their money is in good hands, and by hearing it from someone they trust, they can feel more confident in choosing to work with you.

The best marketing tool a credit repair company can have are the referrals from loyal clients. No matter how the market looks, quality service will prevail. Continue to provide great work and the pipeline of clients will be endless.

Financial services professionals have a unique opportunity to help clients regardless of the economic environment. During uncertain economic times, financial service professionals should continue to have a strong marketing presence by redefining clients and identifying new customer behaviors in order to keep a full pipeline and high conversion rates.

Learn how you can add more products, including credit repair, to your financial services business so you can help your clients regardless of economic trends.