Reading Time: 7 minutes
The Importance of Lead Generation Marketing for the Finance Sector

The Importance of Lead Generation Marketing for the Finance Sector

15 Oct 2024 | Digital Marketing, Finance

Reading Time: 7 minutes

The UK is a global financial hub with London at the epicentre.

While this is excellent news for professionals who are passionate about all things finance, it also poses some pretty serious competition for businesses in the financial sector.

There are countless bookkeepers, accountants, financial advisors, and independent banks up and running, making it challenging for new or smaller businesses to stand out. Add to this the current demands for digital transformation and evolving customer expectations, and you’ve got a lot of hurdles to overcome.

The answer to succeeding in such a competitive industry? Lead generation marketing.

In this article, we’re going to dive into what exactly lead generation marketing is, why marketing for the finance sector is so crucial, and the best strategies for financial institutions to employ.

What Is Lead Generation Marketing?

Lead generation is the opposite of waiting for your target audience to come to you. Instead, you take action by identifying and engaging potential customers (your leads) through a series of marketing strategies designed to boost interest in your business.

In the finance sector, there are a few unique aspects of lead generation that it pays to be aware of before you implement a strategy. These include:

  • High-value clients: Rather than casting a wide net and catching low-quality leads (those who are unlikely to convert or will spend less with your business), you need to focus on high-value clients. These are the customers who are likely to stick with your business for the long term and bring in a significant amount of revenue.
  • Long decision-making cycles: In the finance sector, the time between the initial engagement with your business and making a sale can typically be long. Clients are careful with choosing who should handle their finances and are likely to check reviews, shop around, and need multiple interactions before possibly converting.
  • Strict regulations: Marketing for the finance sector involves plenty of laws and regulations. For example, it’s vital you don’t mislead consumers, are clear about any relevant interest rates, and include representative APR examples.

It’s also important to consider the differences between business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customer (B2C) lead generation marketing.

B2B marketing tends to focus on building relationships with clients who already know what they need. The decision-making cycle can be longer with a demand for multi-faceted lead nurturing. In B2C marketing, the decision-making process should be made as simple as possible, with a focus on quicker transactions and ease of use.

B2B marketing tends to be geared towards clear features of your financial services or products, and won’t shy away from using a dash of industry jargon. You’re speaking to an audience who is (usually) already educated about what you’re offering.

B2C marketing is more relaxed and might focus on value and emotions, putting the jargon aside for more accessible messaging.

It’s vital that you know whether you’ll be implementing B2B or B2C lead generation marketing before you kickstart your campaign.

Why Lead Generation Is Crucial For Financial Institutions

Lead generation marketing for the finance sector isn’t an easy business, so why bother? Let’s take a look at exactly what this strategy brings to the table, and why it’s always worth your time.

Customer Acquisition

With over 80,000 financial businesses in the UK vying for a share of the market, focusing on customer acquisition is crucial.

Lead generation marketing is a targeted strategy that begins by defining your niche. This helps you focus your time on quality prospects and, through clever research, gives you the strategies needed to win them over.

It helps you attract new customers by making sure you’re in front of the right people at the right time, too. In business, that sort of serendipity is invaluable.

Building Trust and Credibility

In an industry where you’re often handling client money or advising on how to acquire, save, and grow their funds, trust is crucial. Lead generation marketing allows you to build relationships with your potential clients and establish credibility.

This strategy emphasises nurturing through consistency and transparency, allowing you to showcase your expertise and address questions reliably. By doing so, you help prospective clients form a clear understanding of your business and why they can confidently choose your financial services.

Regulatory Compliance

We’ve already touched on the importance of following regulations when carrying out marketing for the finance sector, but it’s worth going into a little more detail before we move on.

Regulatory compliance isn’t optional. If you don’t follow UK advertising standards then your marketing is likely to be removed and you could face fines and penalties.

This isn’t an area that you can be a little cheeky with, either. The rules are there in black and white, and there’s no wriggle room allowed. Some of the regulations outlined by the Advertising Standards Authority include:

  • Being clear about what your financial product or service is, and not taking advantage of an audience who might not have a strong financial knowledge.
  • Offering free material alongside short advertisements that further explain the deal or contract on offer.
  • Including the basis used to calculate any interest.

If you’re worried about complying with UK regulations, your best bet is to work with a team already experienced in compliant lead generation marketing, like our team at Woya.

High-Value Relationships

Lead generation focuses on quality over quantity – always.

It does this by implementing strategies designed to target long decision-making cycles and focus on serious leads. Lead generation marketing pinpoints your target audience, helps you to understand them and emphasises the importance of targeted campaigns to show off the value that your business brings to clients (both B2B and B2C).

A pretty crucial aspect of lead generation is the use of data. From social media metrics to website analytics, you’ll use data to direct future marketing campaigns and streamline your efforts for an overall boost to your ROI.

Key Lead Generation Strategies for the Finance Sector

Around half of professional marketers consider lead generation to be a top business priority. Our hot take on the topic? We’re surprised it’s not more than 50%.

At its core, lead generation helps you identify and convert the clients who will generate your business’ revenue. That makes it extremely important, to say the least. So, how can you get started?

To gain more insight into what lead generation marketing for the finance sector involves, we’ve taken a look at some of the key strategies. These are techniques used and trusted by our team, giving them the Woya seal of approval.

Content Marketing

Kick off your lead generation marketing strategy with a focus on content marketing. Informative and authoritative content can attract new leads and help them move along your marketing funnel.

From blog posts to podcasts, content is a fantastic way to show off your industry knowledge and establish your business as a thought leader, building trust that moves beyond the features of your products or services.

There are tons of different forms of content that you can create including: White papers (particularly for B2B marketing), case studies, and financial webinars.

We’d also recommend incorporating testimonials into your content marketing strategy. With over 80% of UK consumers trusting reviews, this is a smart way to boost the credibility of your marketing messaging.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

SEO is a lead generation method that involves organically placing yourself in front of your target audience. Unlike traditional advertising, this isn’t invasive – it simply helps leads already looking for a business like yours to find you.

SEO helps you rank for keywords and phrases that your target audience is searching for in Google, and other search engines. For example, your keyword research might identify that ‘accountants for small businesses’ is a frequently searched term. Optimising your website to rank for it could bring more viable leads your way.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

PPC bypasses the lengthy process of SEO for an near-instant marketing method.

This method of lead generation marketing involves paying for a sponsored position in search engines for relevant keywords. So, for example, rather than using SEO strategies to rank naturally for ‘accountants for small businesses’, you’d simply pay for a spot at the top of the SERPs (search engine results pages).

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a smart way to engage leads who are already in your marketing funnel. It’s particularly useful for creating personalised, segmented messaging that tackles different leads’ needs directly.

For example, if a lead gave you permission to email them when they took an action such as downloading your whitepaper on tax compliance, you’ll know they’re looking for information about tax. Emails that market your tax-related services or resources, therefore, are more likely to engage them.

We also recommend using software to add your leads’ names to your marketing. These personalised emails are more likely to be opened, making it a simple way to improve the efficacy of your lead generation marketing.

You must follow best practices for email marketing in the finance industry. This includes following data protection laws when storing client email addresses and other information.

Social Media Marketing

Social media is a useful tool for sharing your marketing messaging with both B2B and B2C clients.

For B2B clients your focus would be on relevant platforms such as LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter). For B2C clients, you may focus more on platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and Facebook.

We particularly love social media marketing for building those all-important, long-term relationships with your leads. Consistent, high-value content sharing will create repeat impressions and encourage your leads to interact with your business as they gain trust in your financial services.

Another important aspect of your social marketing strategy is paid social ads. With an audience of billions of monthly users, targeted, well-formulated ads can help you reach new leads and keep those in your marketing funnel actively engaged.

Best Practices For Lead Generation Marketing

Not all finance sector marketing is created equally. To give your campaign the best chance of standing out from the crowd and turning leads into clients, let’s take a quick look at best practices:

  • Compliance and regulations: Be vigilant that all of your lead generation activities meet industry standards and follow UK laws. This includes advertising standards and data protection standards.
  • Tailor your marketing: By tailoring your content to individual clients (or segments) through personalisation, you create far more engaging campaigns.
  • Continuous optimisation: Lead generation marketing isn’t designed to be stagnant. Use data and metrics to continuously refine your campaigns and keep your strategies focused on results.

Last of all, work with professionals. We might be biased, but we don’t think your lead generation marketing can get any greater advantage than the help of an experienced team. And…

That’s Where We Come In!

At Woya Digital, we’re experienced experts in lead generation marketing for the finance sector and have a stellar reputation to prove it. We offer services specially tailored to finance businesses and, with a niche knowledge of nurturing leads in this industry, we can take your marketing to the next level.

Want to learn more? Get in touch today to talk more about your lead generation.

The Benefits of Webinars for the Financial Services Industry

The Benefits of Webinars for the Financial Services Industry

6 Sep 2024 | Finance, SEO

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Digital tools power the modern finance industry.

In fact, 80% of global financial businesses state that improving the quality of their digital experiences for customers is a crucial strategy. This is alongside another 80% of banks that are looking to accelerate their technological capabilities, signalling widespread uptake.

The key takeaway? The digital revolution has already begun, and it’s up to businesses to keep up.

One area that financial brands should be looking at in particular is digital communication, and how webinars for the financial services industry could better connect them to customers.

From generating new leads to enhancing brand authority, these remote seminars have simplified global reach.

Want to know more? We’ve got you. In this article, we’ll take a look at why webinars are so relevant within the finance industry and how SEO can help you get the most out of your online events.

What Are Webinars?

Webinars are basically the online version of seminars. A group of people come together using a digital platform (like Zoom, for example) to listen to a speaker – or speakers – discuss a specific topic.

In the world of finance, for example, you might host a B2B webinar on recent corporation tax changes or a B2C webinar discussing the relevance of cryptocurrencies in contemporary finance. Those are just a couple of off-the-bat ideas.

Rather than simply reading from a presentation in an hours-long monologue, financial services industry webinars focus on interactivity. Not only is it possible to see the host’s computer screen and follow their research or presentation, but there are also frequently:

    • Question and answer sections
    • Interactive polls
    • An area to chat with other attendees

This dynamic way of sharing information makes webinars ideal for the finance industry, where clear communication is key.

When discussing complex topics, like legal regulations or tax, the ability to interact ensures the audience keeps up with the conversation, can pose questions, and stay engaged throughout. It also gives the host more feedback on whether all attendees have understood a certain topic, or whether a little more time is needed to explain the subject in further detail.

Webinars are an effective medium for educating clients, showing your thought leadership, and converting leads into paying customers by establishing clear competence in your field.

What Are the Benefits of Webinars for the Financial Services Industry?

Okay, so you know what a webinar is, but why is it important for financial businesses? We’ve dipped our toe into a few of the benefits already, but let’s take a look at what exactly you can gain from financial service industry webinars in closer detail.

Client Engagement and Education

If you’re looking to engage an intrigued audience, webinars are the way to go. You can use a variety of mediums to keep your leads hooked, from pre-prepared videos and presentations to interactive Q&As.

This isn’t just relevant to the topic at hand, either. By fully engaging your audience, you begin to nurture your leads, building relationships based on interactive discussions and a mutual interest in finance (be it from the business or the customer’s perspective). This strengthens trust, gives insights into your brand, and sows the seed that you’re a reliable business to work with.

Converting Leads into Clients

For attendees who have spent some time in your marketing funnel and are on the cusp of converting, webinars provide the perfect final digital touchpoint. You put a face to the business and give your leads a chance to talk with you directly.

You also have the chance to offer additional resources, talk about how you can help individual leads, and impress with your financial knowledge. Through these techniques, you clearly display your business capabilities and prove why you’re the right team for their financial needs.

Cost-Effectiveness and Reach

As an effective way of nurturing and converting leads, webinars are incredibly cost-effective. The fees and logistics associated with hosting a webinar are minute compared to in-person seminars and conferences.

You don’t have to rent a space, kit it out with branded goods, and provide catering for your attendees. Instead, a webinar can be as simple as members of your team on Zoom, with pre-prepared resources made by your business, making it simpler to organise and a whole lot cheaper.

The online nature of webinars also allows you to reach a global audience with ease. There are no issues around location and travel, making your event instantly more successful through the simple power of convenience.

The SEO Benefits of Financial Services Industry Webinars

At Woya Digital, we’re financial services SEO experts. So – of course – we’re going to look at webinars from an SEO perspective, analysing both their benefits for your existing SEO strategy and how SEO can boost your webinar’s reach.

First of all, let’s talk about the SEO benefits of webinars for the financial services industry.

Creation of Valuable Content

Webinars are classed as valuable content, meaning that they bring rich, in-depth information to your target audience.

You can then repurpose the information in your webinar in the form of transcripts, blog posts, and infographics. These are wonderful for showing off your relevance to specific topics and boosting your domain authority (DA), pushing you up the search engine results pages (SERPs) for greater visibility.

Increase Average Visit Time and Increase Engagement Time

By including your webinar on one of your web pages, you can keep them on your site longer whilst they watch your discussion. This should drastically increase your website’s average visit time, showing search engines that your audience finds what they’re looking for on your site.

You could potentially see this increase in engagement rates (fall in bounce rate – the number of users who click off your website without engaging), which is a well-known ranking factor.

Generate Valuable Backlinks

Link building (the strategy of securing links to your website from other websites) is a key aspect of SEO.

By publishing your webinars on your website after they’ve finished – alongside content generated to compliment your event – you create a valuable resource. This makes third parties more likely to link to your site or to share the content on social media, generating high-quality backlinks that pinpoint your financial business as authoritative and reputable.

Utilising Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are more specific than short-tail alternatives, honing in on your niche target audience.

For example, a short-tail keyword might be ‘SEO services’. A long-tail keyword could be ‘SEO services for finance businesses’, which would have a lower search volume but be less competitive and far more targeted towards potential customers.

Your webinar content provides the perfect opportunity to utilise long-tail keywords relevant to the topic you’re discussing. This could see your site move up the SERPs, reaching a specific segment of your audience who are highly interested in what you have to offer.

Understand What Makes Your Audience Tick

The wonderful interactivity made possible through financial services industry webinars bridges the gap between you and your target audience. Why is this so important for SEO? Because it helps you learn what your leads are interested in.

By keeping an eye on the conversations going on between guests, the questions asked, and poll results, you gain a deeper understanding of the topics your audience wants to know more about.

Use this to guide future content (including blogs, social media posts, and podcasts) to boost the number of clicks and keep your leads hooked. The more interest your content generates, the higher up the SERPs you’ll go.

Compliance and Security Considerations

In the financial services industry, webinars must meet compliance and security requirements.

This includes data security. By using encrypted communication tools and following GDPR and The Data Protection Act (UK relevant), you can maintain privacy among your attendees. For example, if you’re storing any guest data, it’s important to protect it with firewalls and get rid of the information when it’s no longer relevant to your business.

It’s also smart to implement restricted access controls for your webinar, ensuring only authorised guests can join the discussion. Security measures like password protection and two-factor authentication can also boost safety.

Any financial data shared during webinars for the financial services industry should be compliant with UK laws and financial regulations. Knowingly promoting scams, misleading attendees, or sharing false financial information is a criminal offence under UK law.

Optimising Financial Webinars for SEO

If you’re hosting a financial services webinar, you’ll want to see the maximum number of people attending or visit on-demand. That’s where SEO and digital marketing comes in.

By using the same techniques that push your website up the SERPs, you can also better advertise your webinar and reach a wider, interested audience of potential attendees, which is especially good for on-demand webinars, as-live webinars or even basic reruns.

To help boost your numbers, here are some top SEO tips to help webinars for the financial services industry stand out:

Choosing the Right Topics

Your webinar needs to address a topic that resonates with your audience. You can pinpoint exactly what your leads want to hear about through:

    • Analysing frequently asked questions
    • Surveying your audience
    • Looking at content that’s performed well for you in the past
    • Keeping updated on industry changes

It’s also crucial that you research keywords as part of your topic creation. Understanding what your target market is actively searching for will guide the focus of your webinars.

On-Page SEO Strategies

Give your marketing material the best chance in the SERPs with on-page SEO. This includes:

    • Optimising titles, descriptions, and metadata with keywords
    • Sharing links to your content on social media
    • Using press releases to gain social proof traction and essential backlinks

These strategies should be used for any content on your website that advertises your webinar, including blog posts and videos.

Post-Webinar SEO Strategies

We’ve already mentioned publishing your webinar once it’s taken place, but this is a point that’s worth repeating. Recorded webinars make wonderful evergreen content that can bring plenty of SEO value to your website, including boosting engagement analytics and providing opportunities for plenty of keywords.

Using specialist software to maximise the potential return with on-demand reruns can be amazingly effective with the least input. As-live webinars are particularly popular and allow you the opportunity to spread your ROI over multiple sessions.

Create additional content to support your financial services webinar SEO before and after it’s taken place. Blog posts, eBooks, and infographics are all wonderful ways to bolster the success of your webinars.

Tracking and Measuring Success

A crucial aspect of a successful SEO strategy is measuring your results. Track the analytics available for your webinar and related content, analysing:

    • Attendees
    • Engagement of your content
    • Website traffic fluctuations
    • Conversion rates

Understanding your data informs your next move, showing you what content caught the attention of your audience and how you can streamline your next webinar to align your business goals with what your potential clients are looking for.

Support With SEO for Financial Services Industry Webinars

Webinars for the financial services industry are an excellent way of bolstering your digital-first strategy, enabling communication with a wide reach. But, a webinar only works if you secure attendees.

Make sure your webinar marketing stands out with the help of our team at Woya. We have years of experience working on both long-term and standalone financial SEO campaigns, and pushing businesses up the search engine results pages.

From keyword research and optimised blog content to digital PR and Google Ads, we offer full-service financial SEO to put your webinar in the spotlight. Get in touch with our team and we’ll be happy to answer any questions or kickstart your webinar SEO.

Technical SEO for Finance Websites

Technical SEO for Finance Websites

21 Aug 2024 | Finance, SEO

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Did you know that the average load speed of top-ranking Google pages is 1.65 seconds? It can’t be a coincidence that this is around a second slower than average speed across the internet, with those snappy sites constantly scooping up the best spots on the SERPs. 

It all boils down to technical SEO, the unsung hero of digital marketing that’s constantly working away behind the scenes. It’s not flashy, it has no frills, but it does do a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of your website rank.

To learn more about technical SEO for finance websites, we’ve put together this guide to provide an understandable overview of what the technical SEO element is all about.

What Is Technical SEO?

Technical SEO involves improving the foundations and functionality of your finance website. Through a range of different technical strategies, we make it simpler for search engines to find, understand, and rank your website. In turn, you’ll see your site moving up through the ranks, landing those coveted top spots that get around 55% of all clicks (28.5% of which go to the first result). 

A lot of technical SEO focuses on back-end development (the coding side of your site). Some of the core components include:

This a coding-heavy strategy that tends to be more complex than keyword optimisation or writing meta descriptions (both of which are important for on-page SEO). You need an intricate knowledge of how websites are built and improved, making it a job for our SEO experts at Woya Digital.

Why Do We Conduct Technical SEO?

Technical SEO for finance websites is an essential, heavy-duty part of any SEO strategy that takes a lot of time and knowledge. 

Improving Site Performance

Techniques like optimising site speed, improving responsiveness (how a website adjusts to different devices), and creating secure connections all improve the performance of your website.

By implementing technical SEO, websites become snappier and more user-centric. Think of it like polishing your digital presence until it sparkles, which reflects wonderfully on your brand image and improves the way in which your website fulfils its purpose.

Our finance SEO services will also uncover faults in your site. Little errors can impact your site performance, and by fixing them we create a more seamless experience for a site (and business) that’s taken seriously.

Enhancing User Experience (UX)

Those wonderful site performance benefits we’ve just mentioned also have a direct impact on the user experience. By improving performance, we also improve the useability of your platform from the customer’s perspective, making it easier and more enjoyable to navigate

It’s well-known, for example, that over half of users will abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load (and it can be even less when browsing on smaller devices). The fact, therefore, that technical SEO improves load speeds makes it more likely that your visitors will be happy to stick around.

Search Engine Crawling and Indexing

Technical SEO techniques improve the crawlability of your site. This refers to the method search engines use to analyse different web pages, ‘crawling’ them for information in order to index and rank the pages. The better your technical SEO, the easier it is for your web pages to be crawled and understood by Google, and the higher they’re likely to rank.

We implement a number of different clever tactics to make your website easier to crawl. For example, we might do a cleanup of your site structure and create a clear, logical sitemap to submit to Google. We also use internal linking to better map out your website, ensuring that none of your content is missed when the search engines come crawling.

Boosting Search Ranking

As with all of our finance SEO services, the desired result of technical SEO is to help your website rank higher in the SERPs and provide an improved user experience *(UX).

Each method we utilise is known to influence rank, and with our experience of financial SEO services, we can put a tailored spin on your strategy for the best results.

Benefits of Technical SEO for Finance Websites

We’ve taken a look at some of the main reasons we carry out technical finance SEO, but these are just the tip of the iceberg. Let’s hone in on some more of the specific benefits you can expect:

  • Better mobile experience: We focus on responsive design when carrying out technical SEO. This ensures that your website instantly adapts to different devices, including smartphones and tablets, without losing any functionality. All of your features will be in the correct place and your website will work seamlessly to cater to all of your leads, no matter how they browse.
  • Better search engine visibility: By improving your technical SEO, we make sure your web pages are clearly visible to search engines. This ensures that all of your keyword-rich blogs and locally optimised content are indexed quickly, adding countless SEO points to your website and boosting visibility.
  • Enhanced website security: Google wants to present results to its users that they can trust, which is why it favours sites with solid security in place. As part of our finance SEO services, we use SSL certificates, firewalls, HTTPS, and other security measures to keep your users and your data safe.
  • No duplicate content: Duplicate content is a big no-no. Search engines penalise or at best, ‘ignore’ pages or websites that use duplicate content. This includes content published on other websites and on different pages throughout your website. As part of our technical SEO for finance businesses, we’ll check that your site contains original content only to avoid search engine penalties.
  • Easier navigation: Technical SEO creates better-functioning websites, including in terms of navigation. By creating logical site structures and navigation breadcrumbs, exploring your site becomes intuitive for users and potential leads can find the information they need to convert with ease.
  • Reduce bounce rates: By improving site speed and navigation, you should see a reduction in your bounce rate. This is the percentage of users who leave your site without having clicked on another page. A high bounce rate indicates to search engines that your website isn’t fulfilling user needs, which can trigger a decline in your rank. A low bounce rate has the opposite effect, improving your SERP position and boosting conversions.

A Quick Look at Our Technical Finance SEO Services

At Woya Digital, we offer comprehensive finance SEO services for businesses looking to increase their online visibility. Drive high-quality leads to your website and boost conversions with our SEO experts.

To give you a quick overview of what to expect when working with us, here are the steps in our SEO Marketing Success Strategy:

  • Discovery and strategy – we start every technical SEO project by sitting down for a chat with your business to identify goals. We’ll then create a detailed strategy that aligns your requirements with an evidence-based approach to boost your rank.
  • Technical SEO analysis and audits – we’ll carry out an audit of your website to highlight the areas that need to be improved, pinpoint opportunities for quick SEO gains, and identify issues to fix.
  • Implementing technical SEO techniques – after analysing your site, we’ll begin the complex technical SEO strategies to improve the back end of your website. This can include improving your load speeds, removing duplicate content, and creating index-friendly sitemaps.
  • Analytics and reports: to ensure our technical SEO is doing what it should, we’ll constantly monitor analytics to gain insights into your rank position, bounce rate, lead generation and more. We provide you a monthly SEO report to show you how things are progressing.
  • An agile process: we put insights and metrics to good use, using data to direct the future of your technical SEO campaign and constantly streamline our processes to bring the best results to your business.

Technical SEO is an ongoing process, so the work doesn’t stop here! We’ll continue improving your website performance and indexing new content constantly.

Taking the Next Steps in Technical SEO

Technical SEO is complex and should be carried out and managed by a SEO experts who know what they are doing.

That’s where we come in. With our experienced team on your side, you don’t have to worry about load speeds, internal links, and sitemaps because we’ve got it all covered. Sit back, relax, and watch your site skyrocket towards the top of the SERPs with our technical SEO for finance businesses.

Ready to move forward? Get in touch with our team at Woya Digital and let’s give your finance business a well-deserved boost.

Leveraging LinkedIn Personal Branding: Growth Tactics in the Finance Sector

Leveraging LinkedIn Personal Branding: Growth Tactics in the Finance Sector

19 Aug 2024 | Digital Marketing, Finance

Reading Time: 7 minutes

In the highly competitive finance sector, establishing a strong personal brand from LinkedIn personal branding, writing guest posts and articles has become a professional necessity for those wanting to stand out and grow their business. As digital marketing evolves, finance professionals need to leverage online presence to their advantage to build credibility, social proof and start to drive significant business growth.

At Woya Digital we always want to understand more and research what works in our specialist sectors. We asked 12 finance industry thought leaders questions about the benefits of a professional personal brand and how utilising LinkedIn personal branding can achieve business goals. From sharing expert insights and blogs about financial topics to participating in groups and publishing authoritative content, these strategies could help you position yourself as a trusted expert, attract new clients, and ultimately propel your overall finance business to new heights.

Read the LinkedIn Personal Branding insights from the finance industry experts who we asked the question: “Can you explain how building your personal brand online has supported your business growth within the finance sector?”

Establish Credibility Through Insight Sharing

Building my personal brand online has significantly contributed to my business growth in the finance sector. By sharing insights and expertise through various platforms, I’ve established credibility and trust with my audience. Engaging in discussions about market trends and innovative strategies has attracted potential clients and collaborators who resonate with my vision. 

This visibility allows me to connect with industry leaders, opening doors for partnerships and networking opportunities. My brand embodies my commitment to transparency and education, which appeals to customers seeking reliable information. A strong personal brand has transformed my online presence into a powerful asset that drives both engagement and revenue.

Ace Zhuo, Business Development Director (Sales and Marketing)
Tech & Finance Expert, TradingFXVPS

Ace Zhuo-Featured

Expand Business by Blogging Financial Topics

Building an online personal brand has been crucial for expanding my business. By regularly blogging about financial-planning topics and sharing insights on LinkedIn, I’ve increased my visibility and established expertise. Traffic to my website has grown over 50% this year, leading to numerous new clients. 

Early on, I struggled to attract high-net-worth clients. To overcome this, I began writing extensively about issues important to business owners and executives, like tax planning and succession planning. Publishing this content built credibility and trust, allowing me to reach key decision-makers. 

Connecting with other thought leaders has amplified my messaging. Appearing on podcasts like Sharkpreneur and co-authoring articles with attorneys and CPAs has expanded my network and referral base. Collaborating with complementary professionals is a win-win, raising awareness for all parties involved. While time-consuming, building a personal brand through education and community involvement has been integral to scaling my business.

For those looking to grow, start by identifying your key audience, develop relevant content and expertise, then find ways to distribute that knowledge to the people who need it most.

David Blain, CFA, Chief Executive Officer,
BlueSky Wealth Advisors

David Blain, CFA - Featured

Enhance Reputation with Financial Tips

Building my personal brand online has been crucial for growing Leverage in the finance sector. By sharing useful financial tips and updates on LinkedIn and our blog, I’ve connected with more people and built trust.

For instance, posting weekly financial advice on LinkedIn sparked great conversations and boosted my visibility. This has attracted new clients looking for reliable guidance.

Engaging with followers by answering questions and joining discussions has created a community around Leverage. Clients feel more connected and confident in our services.

Hosting webinars and online workshops has also helped us reach a wider audience and showcase our expertise. These sessions often lead to new business inquiries.

Overall, building my personal brand online has enhanced our reputation, expanded our client base, and supported Leverage’s growth.

Rhett Stubbendeck, CEO & Co-Founder,
Leverage Planning

Rhett Stubbendeck - Featured

Develop Personal Brand for Market Authority

In the early days of any business, developing a personal brand allows your target market to put a face to your business. It enables you to establish domain authority and credibility with your prospective customers. I had a stated goal of publishing on LinkedIn daily in 2022—this was around the same time I was launching my business. 

In that first year of posting consistently, I was able to develop a personal brand that became synonymous with the business I am building. It’s been helpful for the market to attribute value to the business based on the thought leadership that is developed on the personal side. The next step in the equation is to segment personal brand from business brand in order to reduce the marketing dependency on me, the founder.

Roman Villard, Founder,
Full Send Finance

Roman Villard - Featured 

Boost Visibility Through Forum Participation

I boosted my professional presence by actively participating in online forums and discussion groups. By consistently providing valuable insights and practical advice, I positioned myself as a knowledgeable and reliable expert in my field. This proactive engagement improved my visibility and credibility, leading to meaningful connections with potential clients impressed by my expertise. 

Focus on joining relevant industry forums and groups, addressing common issues with well-researched content, and engaging thoughtfully with members. This strategy will elevate your reputation, broaden your network, and attract clients who value your expertise and are more likely to seek your services.

Sacha Ferrandi, Founder & Principal,
Source Capital

Sacha Ferrandi - Featured

Share Industry Information for Business Growth

As a tech CEO in the finance sector, building an online personal brand has been like growing a robust digital portfolio. By consistently sharing relevant industry information and our company’s advancements, I’ve made our brand a standout in the finance realm. Potential clients and industry partners have a clear picture of our expertise and dedication, and this clarity drives them toward us. Essentially, my online personal brand has significantly expanded our reach and accelerated our business growth.

Abid Salahi, Co-founder & CEO,
FinlyWealth

Abid Salahi - Featured

Become Thought Leader in Finance Sector

By regularly sharing my insights and expertise on bridging loans, commercial mortgages, development finance, and business loans, I’ve been able to establish myself as a thought leader in the industry. This visibility has helped me reach a wider audience, connecting with potential clients and industry peers who might not have come across my services otherwise. 

Maintaining an active online presence has allowed me to stay current with industry trends and shifts, ensuring that my knowledge and strategies are always up-to-date. Engaging with my audience through social media and other online platforms has also fostered a sense of community and trust, which is crucial in finance. This direct line of communication has enabled me to respond to enquiries quickly and provide personalised advice, further strengthening client relationships and driving business growth.

Gary Hemming, Commercial Lending Director,
ABC Finance Limited

Gary Hemming - Featured

Showcase Expertise in Publications

I work in the B2C finance sector (secondary mortgage market). When private mortgage holders consider selling a note, trust and authority are big factors. As the public face of my company, it’s not just the company’s brand that matters, but also my personal brand. Being featured in publications like GoBankingRates, Yahoo Finance, or Realtor.com helps tremendously in showcasing the expertise. Unfortunately, there are some black sheep in the industry, but people are getting smarter in vetting them out.

Abby Shemesh, Chief Acquisitions Officer,
Amerinote Xchange

Abby Shemesh - Featured

Build Trust Through LinkedIn Insights

In finance, everything is based on trust. Building my personal brand online has had to do with establishing credibility and showing experience. Sharing insights on LinkedIn and speaking at industry events have been ways to help establish me as an intellectual leader in the business community and drive business opportunities from people who value my different perspective. My online presence has become a magnet for business growth, allowing me to forge real connections and create a reputation that speaks for itself.

Chris Yang, Co-founder,
Coins Value

Chris Yang - Featured

Attract Clients with Credible Content

By sharing insightful content and engaging with industry trends, I’ve established credibility and attracted a loyal audience. This visibility has led to increased client trust and opportunities, positioning me as a thought leader and driving business expansion.

Alan Noblitt, President,
Seascape Capital, LLC

Alan Noblitt - Featured

Connect Broadly with Authentic Content

Building my personal brand online has been a game-changer for my business growth. It all started with consistent and authentic content. Sharing my insights and experiences helped me connect with a broader audience. People began to see me as a trustworthy source of information in legal funding. I made it a point to respond to comments and messages on LinkedIn, which built a sense of community. This interaction helped me better understand my audience’s needs, allowing me to tailor my services to meet those needs more effectively.

Jared Stern, Owner and Marketing Manager,
LawsuitLoans.io

Jared Stern - Featured

Create Relatable and Engaging Digital Presence

Building my personal brand online has really supported my business growth in the finance sector. Our firm encourages advisors to develop personal brands and sees it as a great perk for employees. With the firm’s support, we now create content in a more relaxed and genuine way, which helps us stand out and build authority in our field. 

When you’re recognised as an expert, it’s easier to connect with people and form valuable partnerships, which can benefit both parties’ businesses. A strong personal brand attracts higher-quality investors and clients because people prefer experts to solve their problems. Plus, being established as an authority allows you to charge premium prices because clients are willing to pay more for trusted experts. 

For me, creating a personal brand means making finance relatable and straightforward. I keep my digital presence engaging and accessible, from LinkedIn profiles to website bios. I also make sure to engage with clients actively on social media, avoiding a one-way interaction. This way, I build trust and credibility, positioning myself as an authoritative figure in financial planning and wealth management.

Eric Croak, CFP, President,
Croak Capital

Eric Croak - Featured

Ready to give your personal brand an online boost? Get in touch with our financial services SEO team today and let’s discuss how Woya Digital can support your personal finance brand, LinkedIn personal branding and digital PR campaign.