Chart of the Day: Key Financial Services Industry Marketing Trends

There were 347 million mobile payments made via banking apps in 2015. This is a rise of 54% compared with 2014. In addition to 417 million payments made via internet banking in 2015, a modest 2% rise from 2014. The chart comes from a report by BBA, which is the UK's largest trade association for the banking sector. The report found: With 40,000 financial app downloads a day in 2015, this is a 25% increase on 2015. The question for the beginning of 2017 is, what will 2016 show? There were also 4.3 million mobile banking logins in 2015 and 11 million app logins a day. There were 15 million Contactless cards issued in 2015 and 250% annual rise in spending using Contactless cards. There were just 71 bank branch visits a day in 2015. Source:…

Chart of the day: Case studies, best practice advice and how to guides are the most effective types of content.

A recent survey of over 600 B2B marketing professionals reveals what types of content they found to be the most effective. The report makes for interesting reading, and as the chart below clearly shows, case studies stand out as the most effective content type for B2B marketers. Best practice advice was extremely close behind, whilst how to guides and market trends were also judged to be effective. Other types of content were found to be useful by less than a quarter of B2B content marketers. This shows that the 'hard sell' and listing product features is no longer effective, and providing information such as case studies and guides is now the superior tactic. Source: B2B Content Marketing Report Sample:…

Content marketing best practices and examples for financial services

It’s important to review how content can be used effectively in your specific sector. In this article I will review content marketing approaches for financial services, a sector I'm involved with. Each industry sector has its own unique traits and idiosyncrasies and financial services is certainly no different. In fact, due to the complex nature of many financial products, the challenges of creating engaging content and an increased focus on compliance and regulation, one can argue that content marketing for financial services companies is a particularly tricky discipline to master. Nevertheless, despite the challenges that exist within financial services there are also considerable opportunities that content marketing can exploit if planned and executed effectively. I would suggest that the steps for establishing a content marketing process is very much the same as it is for any other…

These big trends will have a major impact on how we conduct social media marketing in the coming year

We are now in a social media dominated world, and marketers and businesses are taking full advantage of it. However, this means that trends and the way brands should best communicate with their customers are constantly changing. Brands need to ensure they keep up with the latest trends to ensure they can achieve their goals, whether that is to increase conversions or improve ROI. The popularity of social media continues to rise, and 2016 was no exception. Facebook was the clear stand out social media platform and reached 1.79 billion monthly active users in the third quarter of 2016. This was followed by YouTube, which has 1.3 billion users. It is clear social media is here to stay, and businesses need to know what to do to capitalise on it and use the various…

Chart of the day: In a recent study on customer sentiments on virtual reality, by Ipsos MORI, they find that over 3 in 10 don't care about VR at all, and many think VR is just for gamers

VR devices are currently too expensive according to 66% of respondents and the majority (86%) would like to try VR before buying. The key findings as shown in the chart above include: Over half have an underground of what VR is and just under half are interested in experiencing it 6 in 10 believe VR experiences are made just for gamers Most find the devices are too expensive even though there are cheaper options available The research also found that over 6 in 10 (63%) of 16-24 year olds are positive of the technology, compared to just over 3 in 10 (33%) of those aged 55-75. Over half of…

Optimising your content journey is critical to content marketing success

A unique collaboration... 14 incredibly talented Dribbble designers... 52 original illustrations… the content journey never looked more appealing… We thought to try something completely different. We wanted to create a piece of content like no other. A piece of content that is engaging and fun as much as it is informative and insightful. Inside: The impact of quality content Strategizing content pre-writing The three golden rules of content: context, data, examples The importance of titles Post-writing distribution Extending your content shelf life Personalized content recommendations So here it is - The Content Journey, from creation to conversion, in 52 amazing illustrations. A one-of-a-kind guide for how to make the most of every piece of content you create. …

The latest research reveals the current growth of the ecommerce market

Online retail is a huge and booming industry as the latest retail growth figures show, with sales expected to reach an astounding 1,115 billion dollars this year. From research conducted with SimilarWeb and JBH Marketing we have identified 3 big trends multichannel retailers are acting on this year: Mobile, Millenials and In-store Beacons. Although overall growth is continuing, interestingly Black Friday, Cyber Monday and other big days for ecommerce purchases were all down on the year before, despite the fact overall ecommerce sales were up considerably. Consumers are increasingly less impressed by these date specific offers so it' s better to have a strategy which isn't over-reliant on these days. Year-on-year e-retail sales continue to grow with online sales up to 10% in January 2016 according to the Custora Pulse Ecommerce benchmark. That's still a lower growth rate than in previous…

Chart of the Day: Transaction rates are higher among customers who receive multiple abandon cart emails

One of the first things you learn when you begin email marketing, is that email frequency is vital to your campaign. And abandon cart emails are no exception. Experian Marketing Services (EMS), analysed over half a million abandon cart emails sent by several brands in July 2016. EMS found that those customers who received multiple emails (4.6%) doubled their transaction rate. Compared with those who received the one email (1.9%). Transaction rates are defined as the overall percentage of transactions as related to delivered messages (transactions/received) over the time period. EMS also looked at the brands business rules and found that those subscribers who had a 24 hour suppression rule and who received two or more abandon cart emails within 7 days,…

Compelling visuals are key to creating content capable of cutting through the noise

The direction of the internet will forever determine the direction of the business world. And as the internet becomes increasingly visual, businesses are being forced to turn to visualizations in everything they do. Instead of pushing against the grain, it’s time that you fully invest in visualization this year.

The Visual Nature of the Internet

If you study the history of branding, media, and the internet, you’ll notice that they’ve followed a similar path. Text and written content once served as the backbone for these specialities. Now it’s visuals – images, videos, and graphics. Back in the spring of 2010, entrepreneur Bill Dalessandro wrote an article about the amazing transformation media had undergone from the 1950s…

Creating Pricing Strategies for Different Objectives

How much does it cost? This is one of the first questions that customers have when they see something they like, whether 'on the high street' or in an e-commerce store. That is why if there is a key decision a business has to make, it is pricing strategy. Price will define a great proportion of your attractiveness in the eyes of the customers, your revenue, and eventually your profits.

As with other marketing areas, pricing strategies have developed considerably lately. In this article we are going to give you an overview about them and in addition, some valuable insights for applying them to accomplish your objectives.

What to think about when making pricing decisions?

As an essential marketing decision, pricing affects…