Community banks and credit unions aren’t exactly leading the charge in starting blogs and blog strategies. There are however, numerous great examples of financial services content marketing and banking blogs.
I was just at a meeting yesterday with one of my client’s, BankFive. A year and a half ago we started an online only bank for them called Bank5Connect.com. We recently won the best of show at the NEFMA financial marketing awards for driving tens of millions of dollars in deposits, so as you can see, it worked out really well.
We did blogging, podcasting and created videos in order to build them up as a trusted authority before we started running paid search ads or doing social media. Now we get a lot of leads from organic searches, but to be honest, it’s just scratching the tip of the iceberg for financial blogs.
The compliance officer for BankFive was a joy to work with and allowed us to be successful because of his realistic approach. He says that the only way for a bank to completely mitigate risk with digital marketing is to not do it at all or to close the business.
If community banks and credit unions are going to step up their game, they’re going to have to stop letting compliance issues stop them in their tracks and look at what the big boys are doing, even though they can’t necessarily compete with these large-scale websites. They at least have to take a page out of their book. Certainly Google isn’t going to factor in your concerns about compliance issues when they are ranking the other websites ahead of you.
3 examples of financial services content marketing
This site is an absolutely stunning example of amazing content. I think their navigation menu says it all. First they have a link to their products. The mega drop-down menu makes it very easy to see what they offer. The next item in the list is the advice center that is absolutely chock-full of amazing content, broken down into categories.
They absolutely do not want you to leave their website. If you are researching about something like auto loans or mortgages, then you can find out everything you need to know on their website along with their branded offering. If you are worried about retiring or being a parent, then they have you covered there as well. Worried about your health? There is a section on that also. They have content for various types of people at the different stages of their lives and the website is a truly authoritative resource.
The next navigation tab and the last one of three main options, is “Why Join USAA”. This makes it very easy to get to the information about what makes them unique. This type of value proposition content is highly persuasive and can increase conversions.
Also, check out their Member Community section, where you can ask them financial questions and see popular blog posts.
Number of pages indexed in Google (Size matters, assuming its quality content)
By searching Google for the following (site:usaa.com) you can see that they have 111,000 pages that Google knows about.
Number of back links
According to the link building tool ahrefs.com, they get the following 8,273 people linking to their site and content (which includes 33 government sites and 79 schools):
Value of their organic traffic
According to the competitive analysis tool SEMrush.com their search engine traffic would have cost $5,230,428 per month if they were buying it through Google ads.
Number of organic keywords driving traffic
Also from SEM Rush you can see that 38,247 keywords drive traffic to their site!
Below are just a few of the keywords sorted by highest search volume.
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Navy Federal Credit Union
Navy Federal Credit Union is another example of a site having an advice and planning navigation tab that is up front and center.
Lots of the content is built into the main website, and they have a blog as well. I love what they say on the “about us” blog page:
This blog is an open forum created to provide you with commentary, news and advice that will enrich your personal and financial life and assist you in your daily and long-term financial decision-making.
We hope you visit us often and join the conversation.”
The fact that they welcome people to join in the conversation takes it from just producing content, to engaging people.
They have a list of 18 different financial thought leaders on the contributor’s page:
https://blog.navyfederal.org/contributors
By searching Google for the following (site:navyfederal.org) you can see that they have 3,300 pages that Google knows about.
Number of back links
According to the link building tool ahrefs.com they get the following 2,148 people linking to their site and content (which includes 5 government sites and 9 schools):
Value of their organic traffic
According to the competitive analysis tool SEMrush.com, their search engine traffic would have cost $1,200,000 per month if they were to buy it in Google ads.
Number of organic keywords driving traffic
Also from SEM Rush you can see that 17,135 keywords drive traffic to their site!
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S Bank (a good example of what NOT to do)
I need to apologize in advance to S Bank for highlighting them as a terrible website, but I just couldn’t resist. There is a lot of weak bank marketing out there, but this takes it to a new level, with the hokey graphics in the background, the poor layout, and the awkward spacing.
They are promoting the idea that they are all about success with a capital S, but they can’t even hire a decent website designer to give them a basic clean website. This is the perfect example of not matching your brand message with your content marketing strategy.
Number of pages indexed in Google
They have 143 pages indexed in Google.
Number of back links
They have 51 total links and none from government or school sites. They certainly haven’t given a school any reason to link to them. They have no blog or informative content.
Number of keywords driving traffic
49 Keywords driving traffic to their site and they are mostly related to their brand name.
S Bank, please call me, as I would be happy to help you. At the very least, re-do your site using a responsive WordPress theme, which can be done inexpensively, if you are willing to forgo complete customization. It’s not a complete option, but it’s a better start than what looks to be a 1990’s design. It could also be fun to add a blog post later with before-and-after photos of your new website and helpful blog!
Conclusion
Financial services content marketing is clearly possible, and is being done really well by some. It is only a matter of time before more community banks and credit unions start doing the same. This will make the people that still have their head in the sand look extremely bad in comparison.
Content marketing is at the heart of modern marketing. In my opinion, backed by my experience of driving more business to an online branch in about a year than a physical branch would’ve gotten in 5 years, it works! Not only can it work for large sites, but for your local community bank or credit union site as well. You just have to create a marketing plan and stay committed to the process.
Wondering how much to budget for content marketing and marketing in general? Check out the awesome review of “Bank Marketing Budgets” from The Financial Brand blog and think about what they say in this great quote:
Bottom Line: If you want average performance, make an industry average investment in marketing. But if your bank’s strategic plan calls for aggressive growth, you better be prepared to support your plan with the additional marketing necessary to hit the goal.”
Please chime in with other good (or bad) examples of content marketing for financial services or with questions in the comments below.
