Boundless Opportunities for Creativity in Financial Services Marketing

Written By: Armita Alikhani, Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer, BlueShore Financial

As with many industries, it’s increasingly difficult to stand out in the financial services space. New entrants are crowding the marketplace; the big banks remain a formidable presence and some fintechs are effectively capturing share of voice.

In parallel, the transformation in marketing is creating immense opportunities. The HubSpot State of Marketing 2024 report reveals the increased use of AI and automation, yet the value of human creativity remains paramount. A delicate balance of digital converging with deep human connection is key. At BlueShore Financial, we’ve been referring to this as our high-tech high-touch approach and for the past 15 years, this has been at the core of building the brand.

Before we dive into that, let’s take a broader view. Over the years, I’ve worked in a number of industries and a key lesson I’ve learned is to build a brand successfully, you need a clearly-defined core purpose. When I worked on PR for Microsoft Canada long ago, it was about empowering people through great software - any time, any place, and on any device. In my current role at BlueShore Financial, it’s about passionately improving our clients’ financial well-being in an interconnected digital world. Equally important is having a solid value proposition (aka your brand promise). This has to be championed by your entire organization, who remain unapologetically true to it and consistently deliver on it.

Now, how does a mid-sized boutique player with a modest marketing budget and a lean but highly capable team hold its own in a competitive landscape of big banks with deep pockets?

It is about forging a deep emotional connection with your target audience. Here are my two cents on some essentials. I will use what we have done at BlueShore to illustrate the points, but these learnings can apply to almost any industry or organization.

Customer Experience (CX) and UX are always the answer

Identifying your target segments and investing time and resources to deeply understand their needs is imperative. That solid value proposition I mentioned above, the brand promise to your clients, is based on this. You’ll need to deliver on it boldly and meticulously all the time.

Whether it’s face to face in retail branches, in a meeting with financial advisors, or on the website, banking app, solution centre, promotions or community presence, it needs to be a consistent omni-channel experience. This consistency in brand experience helps build and maintain trust - your biggest brand asset.

Many brands utilize their Retail presence as experience centres, in the way that Apple does. At BlueShore, we’ve taken a similar approach by transforming the traditional banking branch into what has been coined as the Financial Spa, complete with elegant surroundings, a peaceful atmosphere and a concierge to welcome you. Our employees are essential to delivering on this experience. And curated ongoing training is in place. The advisors, experts in their fields, anticipate client needs and conduct proactive outreach with the best interest of clients in mind. This has been foundational to fostering deep relationships.

On other aspects of customer experience, understanding what your clients value most is critical. Through research, we know that many of our clients are busy professionals or business owners who are time-starved, so we ensure they are connected with a solution centre representative within 45 seconds of calling – yes, seconds! Not the 45 minute or more hold times with elevator music in the background. Your client digital experience needs to match the human interactions with your brand. Your website as a key channel needs to be optimized on an ongoing basis with content personalization, SEO, and UX including accessibility, navigation and search in mind. Client communications are also vital in a cohesive brand experience. At BlueShore all client communications are crafted by our team of experts and delivered in a highly personalized fashion efficiently using Business Intelligence (BI), a customer relationship management (CRM) system, and marketing automation.

Think outside the bank for products and services

If it isn’t broken, take it to the next level. While ongoing innovation in banking products is key, there’s room for creativity for solutions that go beyond traditional banking products. The pending onset of open banking presents more opportunities to build partnership ecosystems. As an example, recognizing that health and wealth go hand in hand, and based on client research, we partnered with Telus, to pilot the first premium chequing bundle offering Telus Health and Cybersecurity. This gave access to services that are not available direct to consumer with preferred pricing for BlueShore clients. We learned a great deal from this pilot, which will help us refine and apply to future offers creating enhanced value for clients. Giving your team the freedom to get creative with product innovation, can open up many doors for your organization and your customers.

Even the best of brands need evolution

As marketers, we need to take a step back and evaluate our brands with fresh eyes. Iconic brands like Apple, Microsoft and Lego have all gone through reinvention.

Operationalize customer feedback mechanisms, revisit target segments and assess relevance, evaluate new markets and demographics, and measure effectiveness of existing efforts. Data and research are your best friends. Using data to inform your creative decisions allows you to maximize return on investment across effort and spend.

Dove did an outstanding job of brand evolution with their Real Beauty campaign to challenge toxic beauty standards and create a more inclusive definition of beauty. According to the Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns, the campaign drove huge buzz with Dove receiving free media exposure worth 30 times their initial spend and the campaign’s website drew 1.5 million visitors. The campaign contributed to Dove increasing revenues by 10% in one year. While it’s estimated that by 2025, 90% of online content is predicted to be AI-generated, Dove is renewing its commitment to never use digital distortion or AI-generated content.

All brands need to evolve. From personal experience, at BlueShore we have leveraged data to evolve our brand. This has been a key focus for marketing as we seek to serve younger segments, particularly in the 35-45 age range, diverse communities and different life styles and aspirations, reflecting our changing society and the communities we serve.

We evolved our creative with the objective to re-imagine what “wealthy” is. For most people, it’s not about money. It could mean having the financial freedom to pursue your passions, ensuring a legacy is passed on to your children or grandchildren, being able to spend funds on a special experience or setting up financial goals to retire early. It goes back to anticipating our clients’ needs and goals and forging a deep emotional connection.

We had fun creating campaigns that catch the eye. With the What’s Your Wealthy campaign we juxtaposed uniquely West Coast scenes with the diversity of clients and communities we serve. A dramatic Persian dancer majestically swirls deep in a North Shore forest scene. A trumpeter and cello player jam on the iconic sandy Ambleside beach lining the Pacific ocean. A young graduate is elated with joy as her parents watch on a mountainside dock. The images are unexpected, authentic and uniquely BlueShore. The messaging speaks to the aspirations of our segments as conveyed to us in research.

Developing a memorable brand is not easy, but it’s hugely rewarding. A delicate balance of digital converging with deep human connection is key. It can be achieved by tapping into technology and human creativity. When you create an environment where input is welcome, innovation is encouraged and ideas are embraced, you unlock creativity and care, which contributes to delivering consistently at every touchpoint – this will help your brand stand out to your target audience amongst the noise.