In honor of “Listicles” which attract 2X more engagement than any other blog post format [1]

Digital marketing can be a powerful new-business tool but many financial services marketers are still not exploiting its full potential.

61% of marketers say generating traffic & leads is their top challenge[1]

Today, face-to-face meetings have been replaced by virtual ones and “going digital” is no longer about optimizing your communications—it is essential to the survival of your business. While some may assume that digital tools are best suited for transactions, rather than cultivating client relationships, in truth, digital engagement can drive leads to high value prospects and start the conversation.

With technology and tools consistently evolving, marketers face an onslaught of “upgrade to the latest version” notifications and it can be a challenge to keep up with the breadth of capabilities each marketing tool can offer. Consider these five pointers, developed by Carpenter Group:

• Point 1: Make your content discoverable. Most thought leadership content is produced by subject matter experts, not digital marketers. That said, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools and digital marketing experts can help identify search terms within the content that will make it easier to find and maximize its reach online.

  Particularly notable is that only one in four companies have increased content production, of 4,500 US companies who were surveyed at the onset of the pandemic.

  Interestingly, 28% of respondents found a decrease in website traffic, while 27% of responds experienced the opposite. Companies who experienced more traffic increased visits by an average of 25% since March of this year.[2]

• Point 2: Promote what you post. In today’s world, the “if you post it, they will read” model doesn’t work. That’s because only a small percentage of the followers of a Facebook or LinkedIn business pages will see organically posted content. Use targeted advertising as a cost-effective way to promote your content and get it in front the audience that aligns with your business strategy.

  Despite the significant impact COVID-19 has had on businesses, eMarketer estimates that US B2B Digital Ad Spending is up 22.6% from 2019, totaling $8.14 billion on digital ads this year.[3]

• Point 3: Deliver more of what people want. Generic or irrelevant content reflects badly on your brand. Once a user clicks on your content—an article about tax policy, for example—follow up with related content to increase frequency of engagement. User data can also provide intelligence to the relationship team. Use cookies and pixels on your website to market content to those who have been there before.

• Point 4: Provide an incentive to share information. Fears of being spammed may deter people from disclosing their contact details. The solution: Offer something in exchange, such as a free white paper or research report, which they can download once they key in their information.

• Point 5: Deliver only “qualified” leads to business leaders. The best way to kill a lead generation program is to flood relationship marketing executives with unusable leads. Vet contact information before you send. Create an evaluation process for curating leads and culling the dead ones. Then make sure the “live” ones go to the proper sales executive.

  According to MarketingSherpa, only 27% of B2B leads are sales-ready when first generated. Nurturing leads with strong, relevant content throughout the prospecting cycle will greatly improve conversion rates.

Final thought: Keeping these five points in mind, you can use digital marketing to generate leads and maximize the effectiveness of all your marketing activities, something essential to your bottom line in today’s economic environment.

Most important, perhaps, you’ll build stronger client relationships—right from the start.

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[1] Source: Hubspot 2020

[2] Source: Search Engine Watch 2020

[3] Source: eMarketer 2020