Marketing partners are one of the most valuable, yet underused marketing strategies in banking. Affiliate marketers can help businesses to understand their audiences more, help to engage a wider audience and push for more conversions, as well as build up brand reputation and trust. They are unparalleled in their efficiency, and implementing processes which reward affiliates for conversions and active growth can ensure a much more reliable and cost-effective marketing solution. Financial brands and banks should invest in partners who can boost their credibility and image, as well as provide insights and information about customer patterns and trends.
Do More With Less
Brands are under increasing pressure to optimise budgets and deliver more efficient marketing campaigns for less. Although the prices of pay-per-click marketing campaigns are always on the rise, there is no guarantee of conversions, and in fact, there are more businesses than ever all competing for the same traffic with the same keywords and exposure.
However, if banks choose to work with affiliate partners it can help them to reach higher-intent audiences much more efficiently. This is especially true as many partner marketers are paid per conversion or by some other results-based strategy. This is significantly more efficient than just paying per click, as it motivates affiliates to encourage traffic to make sales or turn a casual visitor into an active client.
Marketing partners are often affiliates and influencers who have strategically grown their own audiences and can help to boost your business engagement and reputation, building conversions and brand loyalty. What would take your business months to achieve in a self-run marketing campaign, is already established when you start a partnership with affiliates. Choosing partners with a good audience relationship will help to boost your credibility and trust, which is essential for banks.
Keep up with trends
Banking is an extremely changeable industry, and as such, it can be difficult to keep up with all of the latest trends, market changes and rising competitors. Teaming up with marketing partners can help your business to share its story and to stay up to date. Affiliates will be able to effectively convey the value of your business to a wider audience, particularly the extras offered by banks beyond simply explaining fees and rates.
Widen your market reach
Financial institutions that are taking a new focus on technology to expand their marketing reach are looking to break into market segments where they may be less known. Whether you are launching a new product or simply looking to widen your reach, marketing partners can be extremely useful in helping banks and other financial institutions to break into newer markets and grow their brand image and integrity. Affiliates can help not just to reach a new audience but also help to build brand trust and customer loyalty.
A cost-effective solution
The most important aspect of any marketing strategy is cost-effective growth. Working with affiliates and influencers can really implement cost-effective growth, as the strategies implemented are highly-targeted and conversion-driven. Audiences engaging with marketing partners are often already researching purchase decisions and are looking to be driven in one direction or another, opening up your business to tactics such as brand and product comparisons and reviews.
As your business is growing and you are identifying new market segments you wish to target, implementing a Cost Per Action (CPA) model where partners are paid for conversions means you will have the budget available to expand and partner with more marketing partners in the future.
Prepare a marketing strategy
Before you get started with partner marketing, you should take some time to prepare a strategy. Understand your customer journey and be sure to tweak your strategies accordingly. Where possible, invest in technologies that allow your customers to convert fully online to increase accessibility. Think about what you are willing to pay for customer conversions, and see how this stacks up compared to other market rates.
Picking the right partner is a really important step in building a brand image. Opt for affiliates with an audience with shared values and align with your brand. Once you’ve worked out your target audience, invest in partners who have a loyal following in your segments to improve your trust and ensure you are attracting engaging and active customers.
All in all, it would be hugely beneficial for banks to make use of partner marketing to attract more customers, increase brand loyalty and expand their reach. Marketing partners such as affiliates and influencers can provide a highly cost-effective marketing strategy which will help banks to improve credibility and reputation, as well as increase conversions on a cost per action basis, saving businesses money in the long run.
If you want to learn even more about how to implement affiliate marketing into your business, come along to the Elevate Summit this June!
