Every business has a brand, whether they are aware of it or not.

Unfortunately, businesses that are unaware of the importance of their brand miss out on a lot.

Leveraging your brand enables your finance company to stay top of mind with your target customer while increasing brand awareness and recognition with a wider audience.

This is why it’s crucial to invest in your branding strategy.

Your brand is the identity and story of your company, showcasing your point of difference and why you should be the preferred solution for your audience. 

Branding allows you to sharpen your brand identity and story, and this involves creating materials that build your brand, such as the logo, tagline, visual design and tone of voice.

While branding and marketing are different, they work in tandem and are both equally important.  Branding is the identity of your company while marketing involves strategies that communicate your story and key messages.

Your branding is one of your most important assets — it gives your company a clear identity, it serves as the foundation for your marketing strategy and it encourages your target audience to partner with your finance firm.

How branding can boost your finance company

Your branding can have a significant impact on your company’s overall performance. Branding can affect how people perceive your company, it can generate new business and increase brand value. However, if branding is neglected or done poorly, it can have the opposite effect.

As a finance brand, it’s important to build a credible and trustworthy reputation in the industry — investing in your branding can help you control what that reputation looks like once your audience starts interacting with your company.

When you have a strong company reputation, your brand value increases because you’re firmly established in your industry and your customers recognise your finance company as a thought leader.

Getting positive impressions and feedback from your customers can also strengthen your brand and create a continuous loop of referrals and new clients. 

Once you have established a certain image of your brand, word of mouth will further reinforce that perception, whether it’s good or bad. So it’s important to create a positive association with your brand to make prospects more likely to partner with or purchase from your company.

You know your branding is successful if your company has a distinct brand personality online. This means people associate certain characteristics and traits with your finance company, and they know they can depend on you for a specific type of content. 

This is most evident on social media when different brands engage with their audiences online. Starbucks, for example, make impactful content online by using humour and quirky graphics while highlighting their customers’ stories around the world. 

Effective branding strategies to differentiate your finance company from its competitors 

To make your branding focused and consistent, you need to implement strategies that can help you communicate the vision and story of your company.

Here are key strategies that your finance company can use to stand out from your competitors:

• Lean into your niche – You can’t appeal to every person in the world (or even Australia, if we’re being more specific). Each consumer has different needs, interests and motivations for their purchases. To make your brand appealing to your target customer, you need to identify your niche audience’s needs and ensure that your brand offers a solution.
• Add a personal touch – With so many options available, you need to make sure you emotionally connect with your target customers. Personalising your marketing efforts and customer interactions can go a long way in building a sterling brand reputation for your company.
• Customise the customer experience – Providing a tailored experience for your clients can make them feel important and valued to your company, which can increase referrals and positive customer feedback.
• Elevate your customer service – Customers won’t hesitate to switch brands if they feel like they’re getting subpar services from a company. Invest in strategies to consistently provide excellent customer service. Listen to customer feedback and be open to suggestions for improvement. Monitoring brand mentions and reviews online can also help you generate insight into improving your customer service.
• Prioritise product differentiation – The finance industry has a hypercompetitive market, with many new entrants coming into the sector. Identify and highlight specific aspects of your offering that make customers want to buy from you. This helps you build brand awareness and gain a competitive advantage.

Make sure your strategies align with your brand and marketing goals. This ensures that your initiatives are cohesive and consistent.

Maintaining a finance company’s branding through consistent content 

Content marketing is essential in building and maintaining your finance company’s branding.

Your content can help you emphasise key messages, connect with your audience and increase engagement.

Developing a digital brand presence in the financial services space involves three ingredients:

• Consistency across channels – You need to post different types of content according to the corresponding platform (e.g. thought leadership posts work well on LinkedIn while memes can go on Instagram). However, you need to ensure that your tone of voice and key messages are consistent across all your official channels. This ensures your audience knows what to expect from your brand, encouraging them to associate key traits and qualities with your company. 
• Omnichannel marketing – Customers want a seamless digital experience with finance brands suited to how they actually interact with your company, so you need to make sure that all your digital products and services are aligned with all your sales touchpoints. This allows your customers to have a smooth buyer’s journey, which can encourage them to make a repeat purchase (or sign on for a long-term partnership).
• Proactive customer engagement – Customers interact differently with finance brands now. Because there are so many digital options available, finance companies need to meet customers where they’re most active online.

This gives you a clear idea of what you need to establish as you create content to build your brand identity and increase brand awareness.

Developing a content strategy for your finance company’s branding

One social media post does not make the brand for your finance company.

Consistently creating a diverse range of content is key to building your brand. Before you decide on what kinds of content to create, you need to prepare all the elements of your content strategy. This includes aspects such as:

• Building a framework that serves as the foundation for your content strategy
• Creating a shortlist of key messages that resonate with your brand story and values
• Developing a weekly or monthly lineup of content ideas for your official channels
• Establishing a posting schedule for your content
• Identifying the content metrics that you need to monitor

Harnessing the power of branding can give you a competitive advantage in a saturated market, where it’s necessary to stand out. Strong branding enables you to showcase your point of difference and encourage potential customers to partner with your company. 

Learn how to maximise the potential of your finance brand through content. Contact us and we’ll help you develop the branding for your finance company.