Financial services firms leave no stone unturned when it comes to enhancing their brand image. Whether it’s luxury office spaces, architect-designed boardrooms or lavish event sponsorships, FS brands understand the importance of projecting trust and quality. However, a clear paradox has emerged. Whilst investment in crafting a physical image that exudes quality is clear, the digital reflection of that grandeur often falls short.
Is your hospitality up to scratch?
In today’s internet era, a brand’s digital hospitality stretches far beyond their website incorporating everything from videos and podcasts, to webinars and online meetings, yet all too often these experiences fail to deliver the same impeccable impressions created across the rest of their business.
Are we really offering the same high-quality, consistent experience when clients and prospects engage with our digital assets?
Is a 90’s style content hub befitting of a forward thinking financial services brand? Does an investor meeting on Zoom or Teams deliver an experience worthy of your brand? As one client recently expressed to me “It’s akin to hosting an investor meeting in a café – our clients deserve better.”
"It's akin to hosting an investor meeting in a café - our clients deserve better."
Sleepwalking into brand mediocrity
During the pandemic, brands rushed to digitise their engagement channels, often reaching for what worked best in the time available. Doing business on Zoom and Microsoft Teams or using legacy webinar software was practical, quick and got the job done.
But two years on, things have changed with audience expectations now much higher.
Studies actually show the human brain is hard-wired to trust video as a modality where we can actually see the speaker above simply audio or text. So if that’s how your guests engage best, how can you differentiate from everyone else?
Sending people to different 3rd party sites to attend your different sessions is pretty poor form, and ultimately means the experience, and branding opportunity is limited, and inconsistent.
The Problem of 'Franken-engagement'
It’s not just an over-reliance on Zoom and Teams that’s the problem – it’s also the way our Martech has developed over time.
Brand consistency has a direct impact on growth; a study by Marq (Formerly Lucidpress) calculated that brands with channel inconsistency make up to 33% less revenue. So it begs the question – why have we allowed it to prevail across our digital assets?
As brands rapidly implemented and then switched up their engagement tools during and post pandemic, a haphazard stitching of multiple martech platforms on top of one another has occurred. Different departments across the organisation are using different software to engage a single customer – it’s a ‘Franken-engagement’ secenario. The risk of your brand experience becoming monstrously distorted is real.
And the side effects keep coming.
Every time we ask clients to complete another form to register for an investor meeting, trading update or webinar, to download a report, register for the client area, or remember a password for a community, we’re introducing friction and confusion that’s entirely unnecessary. We only need their details once.
Rethinking Engagement: The Command-and-Control Centre
Imagine if you could have one platform that “stage-manages” all of our multimedia content – , allowing you to create and host investor meetings, trading updates, webinars, videos, podcasts, meetings, courses and digitally enabled face-to-face conferences, – not only could you track engagement data across every touchpoint, you could guarantee impeccable brand consistency.
Moving forwards, this will be the measure of any audience engagement platform and marketers should be assessing whether their platform or platforms were purpose-built to deliver comprehensive branding, a common UI across any media or event format and a comprehensive view of their user’s engagement journey.
A 5 Point plan to up your digital hospitality
Practical tips to help build trust and loyalty with your audience throughout the buyer journey
Swap the antiquated website resource centres for an all-encompassing ‘Digital Audience Home’. This unified hub will serve as a library of curated blogs, videos, podcasts, and live events. By providing the right content to the right audience at the right time, you create an engaging online community, mirroring your firm’s physical stature.
To elevate your firm’s digital presence, adopt a holistic content approach akin to a media company. Research reveals a significant preference for video content, underscoring the need to diversify. A multimedia library with a Netflix-esque appeal can transform your firm into a go-to learning destination.
Traditional lead-centric funnels yield a meagre conversion rate of less than 1%. By adopting a client-centric approach, you grant clients unrestricted access to content across their journey. This balance between education and data capture fortifies trust and offers a comprehensive suite of exclusive content.
Scattered content and repetitive forms can deter potential clients. By consolidating all content into a single digital residence with a seamless, personalised experience, you minimise friction, building stronger client trust.
Technology provides an opportunity to understand your clients better. By tracking their digital footprint, you can tailor communication and offer exclusive content based on their individual interests, amplifying their connection with your brand.
Redefining Digital Hospitality
It’s crucial to engage clients where they are, but equally important is providing a digital destination that mirrors the physical stature of your brand. This holistic approach has the power to redefine financial services marketing, making it more engaging, impactful, and conducive to growth.
Recall the famous words of Jeff Bezos:
"Your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room."
The next time you’re in a virtual meeting or event, ponder over what your clients might say about your digital hospitality.
