Marketing Technology in Financial Services

For the past decade, world events and world events pertaining to marketing have been dominating headlines and the news around the clock. Every single day, world leaders are killed, politicians are impeached and a couple of world wars are being fought. Add to the mix a new epidemic and a lot of people are saying that all of the above should now serve as the turning point for marketing. Let's be clear, they're not wrong and this does constitute a "critical juncture" for marketing. Let's focus on a definition of "marketing" first and get a clear idea of what is meant.

When we say "marketing", it may sound a bit different from the way you're familiar with it. In fact, to a non-marketing person, marketing sounds a lot more dangerous than helpful. However, one thing will remain the same; marketing is a set of methods and practices that helps businesses succeed in a competitive and unforgiving marketplace. The difference between marketing and marketing technology is that the former is about telling and the latter is about doing. The former focuses on the goods/services which businesses are selling; the latter focuses on how to sell those goods/services effectively.

However, the way that marketing technology is being used should not be confused with the purpose of it, it's use or lack of use in the industry. Let us focus on two industries which have been heavily and successfully using marketing technology to promote their products or services and those are the financial services industry and real estate industry.

The financial services industry uses technology as an essential ingredient for promotion. The industry has been using web marketing techniques in marketing their products since the 1990s. These techniques have been used in the real estate industry since the 1980s. These industries have been using marketing technology to make their products or services stand out and more known than other competitors.

The marketing techniques have been used in the financial sector because these industries are still dependent on financial transactions to exist and thrive. In the financial sectors, businesses must still be able to do business with their clients and partners. The business should be able to conduct transactions and be able to collect dues/debts/funds. It should also be able to provide accounting and tax services and this is the reason why the use of marketing technology in these sectors has been so important. This is where the term "technology" has been so widely used - to describe and make things happen., 2010) (acquired 2006). CRM and Auto Response Marketing). The financial services industry, has been using marketing technology to increase their transactions. The first form of marketing technology used for financial services was the post card. These post cards were used to inform potential clients of the products or services offered by the business. This technique however was ineffective and the mail (still is in many parts of the world) still remained the dominant mode of marketing. The use of web marketing came in second. In this technique, the website of the financial services company is used to promote the products or services by placing ads on other websites (Google Adword, Ahrefs, Facebook etc.) These ads are placed where potential clients are likely to be looking and are targeted based on the past behaviour of the potential clients in searching for similar products. These two techniques however still have a lot of work to do. The most important thing today is that they have become more effective and have become increasingly integrated. That is why the use of marketing tools for financial services has become so widespread. This integrated marketing technique has made it possible for the financial services industry to get a new technique that was not available with the first two techniques. This technique is CRM and Auto Response Marketing). (acquired 2004).

This last technique however does not target the particular market or customer. With this technique, the financial services company uses both marketing technology and CRM to create a system for the system's marketing. The idea behind this is to get the right marketing for the right customers. In other words, the marketing of the Financial services industry is targeted by using the CRM system. This technique has become increasingly popular in recent years as more and more customers switch from the traditional marketing techniques. This is because they find the process as not confusing and does not give them bad experiences. (acquired 2014)

Financial services is not the only industry that is adopting this technology, television advertising is also becoming more interactive. The use of SMS and Email has been increasing in recent years. These technologies allow the companies to have a quick response to their advertisement.

The financial services industry is not a newcomer to using marketing technology. That too old technology, is still used. But new technology has made many things easier. The use of CRM and Auto Response Marketing) are two examples of new technology that make things simpler. As these two techniques are used more and more the use of marketing technology will become stronger.