For any business in the financial sector, you’ll want to make sure to pay especially close attention to point #3 below. It’s often one of the most overlooked online marketing strategies, one of the least employed, and because of this… one of the best opportunities for you to grow your brand on the web and drive high quality, profitable traffic to your website!
When it comes to effective online marketing strategies, in most cases the number one objective is to build web traffic and exposure for your website. Right? I mean, what business out there who’s planning on launching, or who has just launched, a business website doesn’t want to increase traffic, exposure, and awareness for that website? After all, if you launch a website for your business and it doesn’t generate any traffic, then what exactly was your purpose for launching that website in the first place?
Website Strategies your financial business website
But just building a website and generating traffic isn’t necessarily where it ends either. Let’s say you run a business that operates in the financial sector – i.e. financial planning, financial advisement, finance and loans, etc… – then before you launched your website, you probably sat down with your team to talk about and answer the question: what is the most valuable type of traffic for our website?
That’s a critically important question to answer, because again if you are a business in the financial sector with a newly launched website, you don’t just want any type of random traffic, but you want traffic that actually converts into paying clients.
So that begs the question… what are some strategies you can employ, as a business in the financial sector, that can generate targeted traffic to your website – traffic that is particularly interested in your type of financial products or service and traffic that actually converts into paying customers for your financial business?
Below are three online marketing strategies to consider for driving traffic to your financial business’ website:
#1: Google Adwords / Pay per click marketing
I’m going to mention this one because in all honesty it’s the easiest one to talk about. What I mean by pay per click marketing (Google Adwords for example) is you simply setup an Adwords campaign, identify a list of targeted keyword phrases such as “student loans”, “home equity loans”, “financial advisors in atlanta ga”, set your maximum cost per click you’d be willing to pay to generate traffic from people who are searching these keyword phrases, and then launch your campaign.
This is a viable online marketing strategy for millions of businesses in the financial sector because, as you can imagine, this can send highly targeted traffic to your website where you are selling your financial products and services. The only downside here (and this should be obvious) is that it can get very expensive in very short order. And if you don’t have a budget for a steady Adwords campaign, then this option will dry up quickly.
Which leads me to option #2, building an email list and send out updates.
#2: Build an email list / send out updates
The second online marketing strategy to consider for your new financial business website is to build an email list and send out regular updates to your growing list of subscribers. This is the “tried and true”, sometimes considered old school, method for generating traffic and marketing your business website. The objective here is to simply integrate a “Subscribe To Our Free Updates” form on your new website and start building your list.
Notice I used the term “Free Updates” – this is typically the most effective way to build an email list because, after all, very few people would be inclined to join your email list if the option wasn’t free. And you want people to free join your email list because that means these subscribers were willing to take the time to join your list and they more than likely are looking forward to seeing updates from you.
Email list building can prove to be extremely valuable for your financial business because as you build your list, you’ll then be able to send out updates and notifications about new financial products and financial services, promotions on your financial products or services, or other key updates regarding your financial business. And with an email list of subscribers that are people who voluntarily joined your list, this is what I’d call a “high quality list” of prospective clients for your business. Again, why would somebody join your email list if they weren’t interested in receiving updates from you? And if the email subscription form is on your financial business website, then people subscribing to your form are more than likely people interested in your financial products and services. I say all of this to show you how your email list can because a very valuable asset in your long term online marketing strategy.
But building an email list of highly targeted subscribers implies that you have a lot of highly targeted traffic visiting your website. After all, building an email list is a numbers game – in order to build a large list of subscribers, you need an even large volume of traffic hitting your website because, as I’m sure you realize, not everyone who visits your website is going to subscribe to receive regular updates from you.
So that leads me to strategy #3 which is what I believe to be the most effective form of online marketing and targeted traffic generation for website, not just a financial business website, and that is blogging – or as I like to refer to it… publishing.
#3: Turn your website into a publication
As I said at the very beginning of this article, this is the most important, and most effective, form of online advertising for any website or business. What I’m talking about here is what most people commonly refer to as blogging. This is the where you produce content, or articles, that are built around a common topic related to your business.
In most cases, these articles will generate the most traffic for your website when they offer free tips, strategies, or other sound advice for your targeted customers. For example, let’s say you are a financial advisor who specializes in helping families with their long term financial planning. You might want to consider writing (or paying to have written) articles that offer valuable free tips on ways that families can go about effectively planning for their financial future.
The magic happens when you produce valuable content about ways a family can effectively plan for their financial future, your article generates traffic from people who are interested in and searching on Google for ways to effectively plan for their financial future, and they all of sudden end up on your financial planning website where they are now reading your valuable (and free) advice from your article.
Now as you can imagine, visitors like this coming to your website is something that you want to develop. This type of visitor makes up what you’d consider the most profitable prospect for your business – a parent who’s looking for ways to building a better financial future for their family. And it just so happens that the article being read is on your financial planning business website.
And right next to the article is a form where this reader can subscribe to receive more free updates from you whenever you share more valuable tips teaching people how they can plan for their families financial future.
Becoming a publication
I don’t always like to think of this process as the process of “blogging”. Blogging, in my mind, paints a picture of a starving artist who’s just writing about their personal adventure down this road called life. I could be way off the mark here, and probably over thinking this whole “blogging” thing, but perception is, in a lot of cases, reality.
But when you think of your website, and the content you are producing on your financial website as now a publication, you are more apt to have a much higher standard for the quality of content you produce on your website. After all, you are no longer just blogging and sharing tips about financial planning, or blogging about your financial products and services – you are now running an online publication where your business is now the brand that sponsors this publication and you are building a real audience of readers that just so happen to also be your most valuable prospective clients.
You see the difference here between being a “publisher” and a “blogger”?
I have found that when I started thinking about my website as a publication, and not just a blog, I started to take on a totally different mindset with the content I produced. I suddenly found myself paying closer attention to grammatical errors, re-reading the articles to make sure they flowed in a manner that was easy to read and comprehend, and making sure ultimately that the article provided value to the reader.
Some business website owners, or people who are “blogging” for business, believe they shouldn’t give away too much of the valuable information regarding their services or their expertise. However, you’ll find over and over again the most popular websites on the web are the ones that freely provide high quality content. And what defines high quality content from a reader or a visitor perspective?
How valuable was the article I just read? And that’s it…
So I propose that if you desire to drive more traffic to your financial website, build your financial business brand, and ultimately generate more prospects and sales for your financial business, then launching a publication is one of the most valuable and productive steps to take.
