Financial Services Firms Online Marketing Not Up to Par

A new article at MarketingVOX based on surveys from MarketBridge and SourceMedia reveals that financial services firms lag in digital marketing.  The survey found that financial services firms have been slow to embrace key new online marketing strategies such as Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, and Social Media.

The results show that financial services marketers are certainly aware of digital media, with half of those surveyed expecting digital marketing "to be an integral part of the marketing mix within the next two years."  However, even with this anticipation, the shift of their marketing resources to digital mediums has been slow and hesitant.  A  MarketBridge Senior VP summed it up by saying:

"These findings show that the foundation is in place for marketers, but they are not shifting budgets fast enough to fully understand the value and impact of these new tools and platforms"

These results are extremely surprising to me, as I view digital marketing to be a key step for financial services firms.  More and more financial services are moving online, meaning that people are seeking out vendors from that medium more often than ever before.  Think about it - when was the last time you waited for your bank statement to come in the mail rather than just looking it up online?  Or when you were searching for a good interest rate, you most likely Googled for different rates and banks interest policies.

When an industry is naturally trending to a medium, it only makes sense that it's marketing should follow suit.  One of the first rules of marketing: be where your customers are.  The financial services needs to catch up and get to where their customers are - search engines, social media, and online in general.

We were lucky enough recently to design a financial services website for a new firm in Charlotte, NC.  The firm, XBS Global, has a focus on electronic payment services.  They understand that many of their clients will find them online - so they prioritized a website as one of their first marketing expenses and are now launching an aggressive Search Engine Marketing campaign.  From SEO to PPC, they're working to get where their clients will find them.  We've helped them with their SEO and are currently building landing pages for their PPC campaign. 

We're definitely lucky to have XBS as a client and it's great to see them outfoxing their industry - I'm just surprised that so many other financial services firms haven't figured it out yet.  Thoughts on why they haven't or other industries that have some catching up to do?