Key benefits of marketing automation for financial services

Digitalization has changed the way people and companies manage their finances. Financial customer experience models are evolving at breakneck speed to meet the demands of today’s tech-savvy customers. 

If you are a financial institution, your customers expect fast and reliable customer service 24/7 and want to feel like you understand their needs and what matters to them as individuals. To meet these demands, you need a way to streamline your customer communication process and make it interactive. Using marketing automation for financial services includes having a more personal connection with your customers through automated responses and messaging. 

Marketers worldwide can testify to the many benefits of using marketing automation: 

And teaming up with a cloud omnichannel communication solutions provider with a trusted and compliant platform paves the way for digital transformation. 

Here we highlight how marketing automation can help brands in the financial services industry automate and personalize customer interactions to foster loyalty and brand growth, followed by real life examples and tools that can help you get started.

Digitalization has transformed the Banking, Financial Services, & Insurance (BFSI) sector – moving from a product-centric to a customer-centric business model. A recent report suggests that the global digital banking platform market size is expected to grow by 70% by 2026. 

And now with the introduction of conversational and generative AI chatbot models, traditional retail banks and financial institutions are struggling to keep up with the fast, innovative experiences that digital banks provide. 

So where does marketing automation fit on the path to digital transformation?

But as a BFSI brand wanting to undergo finance digital transformation, you need to understand your customers to provide a better experience. And one of the key pieces to the marketing automation puzzle is personalization. In addition to automating marketing communication, today’s tools enable brands to get to know their customers like never before so they can personalize their messaging, and make data-driven decisions about products, pricing, and promotions.  

Offering personalized advice and relevant information, and engaging on your customers’ preferred channel, is imperative to boost engagement, build trust, and create meaningful customer relationships. Sending relevant messages, at the right time, on the channel they prefer, including SMS, email, WhatsApp, Messenger, Viber, voice, video, and more, makes customers more likely to read, respond, and interact with your brand. 

Automation, on the other hand, enhances customer experience by making communication more interactive and efficient. Personalized CX is achieved through trigger-based communication, chatbot interactions with agent takeover, and automated campaigns. Before automating, it’s important to define your goals and select a solution that aligns with them. Overall, automation saves time and improves customer engagement on various channels. 

Using marketing automation across various channels at different stages of the customer journey gives you a vast amount of data to drive other marketing and sales activities. Leveraging customer data can help you create personalized, automated flows, provide always-on customer support, and set up omnichannel engagement to: 

In essence, combining the power of automation with personalized communication and customized offers spells out the recipe for long-term brand loyalty. 

Personalized communication is vital in the financial sector as clients have diverse needs and preferences. Marketing automation allows companies to segment their audience based on demographics, behaviors, and interests. This segmentation enables personalized messaging and offers, leading to higher engagement and conversion rates. 

Compliance is a critical aspect of marketing in the financial sector due to strict regulations. Marketing automation platforms can help ensure compliance by maintaining accurate records, providing audit trails, and implementing permission-based marketing practices. This reduces the risk of non-compliance and potential legal issues.

Marketing automation systems collect data on customer interactions, behaviors, and preferences. By analyzing this data, financial services companies can gain valuable insights into their audience, campaign performance, and ROI. These insights enable informed decision-making and optimized marketing strategies for better results. 

Marketing automation allows financial services companies to identify opportunities for cross-selling and upselling based on customer behavior and preferences. Automated workflows can deliver targeted offers and recommendations to clients at the right time, increasing the likelihood of additional sales and revenue. 

Providing a seamless and personalized customer experience is essential for financial services companies to build trust and loyalty. Marketing automation enables companies to deliver timely and relevant content, respond quickly to inquiries, and provide ongoing support throughout the customer journey, leading to higher satisfaction and retention rates. 

Lead generation: Set up targeted online ads, landing pages, and content offers to attract potential customers. Marketing automation tools can capture leads from these sources and automatically add them to segmented email lists for further nurturing. 

Lead nurturing: Set up automated email workflows to nurture leads over time with personalized content based on their interests, behaviors, and stage in the buying cycle. For example, sending educational content, financial tips, or case studies to prospects to build trust and credibility.

Customer onboarding: Facilitate the onboarding process for new customers by sending welcome emails, guiding them through account setup, and providing relevant resources or tutorials. This helps to establish a positive first impression and foster long-term relationships. 

Cross-selling and upselling: Analyze customer data and behavior to identify opportunities for cross-selling or upselling additional products or services. Set up automated campaigns to deliver targeted offers and recommendations to existing customers based on their financial needs and preferences. 

Event promotion: Banks often host events such as seminars, webinars, or workshops to educate clients on financial topics. Marketing automation can help promote these events through email invitations, reminders, and follow-up communications to maximize attendance and engagement.

Customer engagement: Keep customers engaged with automated email campaigns that share relevant content, updates, and promotions. For example, sending personalized birthday greetings, financial tips, or news updates based on customer preferences and behaviors.

Feedback and surveys: Send customers automated feedback and survey forms to gather insights into their satisfaction levels, preferences, and areas for improvement. This feedback can fuel future marketing strategies and product or service enhancements.

Reactivation campaigns: Re-engage dormant customers by sending targeted messages with offers to encourage them to return to your bank or use its services again. For example, offering a special promotion or highlighting new features may entice inactive customers to take action.

Segmentation and personalization: Segment your audience based on various criteria such as demographics, behavior, or lifecycle stage to highly personalize communication and offers, leading to increased relevance and effectiveness. For example, if you have a list of first-time homeowners who took out loans, you can send them promotions on low-interest home insurance. Or if you have customers with children, you can send them student loan options or credit card promotions for teenagers.

Compliance and reporting: Marketing automation platforms can help ensure compliance with regulatory requirements by maintaining accurate records, providing audit trails, and implementing permission-based marketing practices. Additionally, these tools offer robust reporting and analytics capabilities to track campaign performance, ROI, and other key metrics.

Overall, marketing automation offers financial services and banks a powerful way to streamline marketing processes, enhance customer engagement, drive sales, and improve overall efficiency and effectiveness in reaching their target audience. 

Finance digital transformation and marketing automation is imperative for banks and financial institutions to stay ahead in today’s digital-first world. Personalized customer journeys, automation, and omnichannel engagement are critical factors to enhance customer experience. 

Using an omnichannel customer engagement solution can give you access to:

When choosing a platform, there are a few features and functionalities to take into consideration. The platforms that will give you the best ROI will have: 

To take it one step further, use a global provider to gain access to secure high deliverability rates, new marketing and opportunities, and compliance wherever you operate. 

BFSI brands face challenges with new technologies, cyber threats, proprietary solutions, and vendor management. Financial institutions can benefit from implementing a secure digital platform by building customer trust, reducing the risk of fraud, and improving overall brand reputation leading to enhanced customer experience.   

Infobip’s omnichannel solutions over Azure ensure data protection, compliance, safe integrations for payments, and logistics. So, you can have peace of mind while: 

The future of marketing automation for financial services is bright with much room for further development. Here’s what we can expect to see over the next few years: 

In essence, marketing automation enables financial services companies to efficiently manage their marketing efforts, personalize communications, comply with regulations, generate and nurture leads, gain insights, drive sales, and enhance the overall customer experience.