What if you’re not a neobank? Can you offer the same benefits of an easy-to-use, convenient financial service using just a few digital tools? The answer is yes. And as popular as digital-only banks may be, stats show only about half of their customers use their neobank as their primary financial service provider.

That means there’s lots of room for financial professionals of all stripes – traditional banks, private practice accountants, and individual wealth advisors – to use the latest tools to market their services and serve their client base. It’s true that banks, accountants, wealth advisors, and debt collectors all have to consider legal issues and consumer privacy in any marketing campaign. But that’s easy to achieve with the right SMS marketing partner.

So what are the benefits of SMS marketing for your financial brand? Let’s take a closer look.

Easy Sign-Up

Remember when you had to visit a branch to open a bank account? Now that’s no longer the case. You can get a financial product entirely online. Every step has a digital counterpart to the in-person process – from information gathering to identity verification.

But the digital process has one potential downside: people that start the process and don’t finish. A bank or credit card company may have a digital file full of half-finished applications. Maybe the consumer decided they were no longer interested or just got distracted.

Text messages are a straightforward way to nudge a customer through the rest of the application. You can steer them to an automated process by texting a link or offering live help by connecting them to a customer service agent.

Either way, you can recapture that business – all with the ease of an SMS message. 

Account Updates

Once you’ve got your new clients on board, how can you use SMS text message marketing to keep them engaged? 

You can allow clients to opt-in to account updates and alerts. Those messages send people a notice if their balance is running low or if they have a payment coming due. Many people find these messages helpful. They are a free client service, but they have another purpose. They keep your brand in the conscious awareness of the consumer. 

In an age when people frequently have multiple financial service providers – neobanks and others – any opportunity to remind clients about your services can be to your advantage.

Let’s not forget text is another effective way to reach someone who’s fallen out of contact. Debt collectors may use SMS alongside email and phone calls to get their message across. SMS is a good technique for this purpose; although someone may ignore phone calls or delete emails, people open text messages about 98% of the time.

Financial Check-Ups

Speaking of free services, let’s not forget the classic marketing technique of many financial professionals: the check-up. That’s when a banker tells a client how to grow financial service investments or offers new products. 

A short text message to your contact list can start to fill your appointment book. About one-third (33%) of people respond to calls to action in text messages. The benefits of these check-ups are pretty simple; your clients have better financial health, and you have sold more of the financial packages that support your business’s profitability.

Compared to email, a text message may be more effective in getting people to make that appointment. The click-through rates of SMS campaigns can be 10 to 15 percent higher than email campaigns. That statistic is pretty easy to understand; after all, it takes just a few seconds to read a text, while it can take longer to open and scan an entire email. 

Fraud and Security Alerts

Being a victim of fraud or a security breach is any account holder’s worst nightmare. When a bank routinely uses SMS marketing to talk to clients, those clients can trust those messages – meaning it’s an effective way of letting people know when their account may have been compromised.

Text as a method of communication is great for consumers because they get the note right away. They can then call the bank to investigate further. 

But it’s also a great option for banks, who have a legal responsibility to safeguard client accounts and prevent financial fraud. Banks fall under many authorities that ensure they don’t allow for illegal activity like money laundering. Text messaging is just another way banks can show regulators they are doing their job.

Regular Check-Ins

Finally, text is a great way to check in on clients. You can send a text to point them to a blog post about easy tax preparation as springtime hits. You can use SMS to funnel people on your contact list to your informational materials about household budgeting, planning for retirement, and estate planning.

This is a great alternative to the old-fashioned cold call; 88% of people ignore calls from businesses or unknown numbers often or very often.

Get Started With SMS Text Message Marketing

Ready to begin with SMS text message marketing using a straightforward, intuitive platform?

Launch.ai wants to help you engage with your clients in the financial sector. Learn more about how we help businesses success through SMS text message marketing, or book a call with us. We look forward to hearing from you.