The financial crash might have been more than a decade ago, but people are still feeling its effects. One of the consequences of the crash was an erosion of trust in banks and financial institutions.
Before the crash (in 2006) nearly 50 percent of respondents said that they had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of trust in banks. Flash forward to 2012 and that percentage had fallen to just 20. A few years later, in 2018, it’s risen, but only to 30 percent.
Banks make a pretty big ask of people. When a person opens an account a bank, they are handing over their money and, in many ways, their livelihood, hoping that the bank will take good care of it. Although banks do keep people’s money safe for the most part, it’s those few bad apples, such as the failed banks, or the banks that openly lie and steal, that get the attention.
One way for banks to rebuild trust with their customers and audience is through bank influencer marketing. Learn more about influencer marketing, what makes it different from other forms of marketing and advertising, and how banks can benefit from it.
A Quick Intro to Influencer Marketing
What is influencer marketing? One way to describe it is the use of influential people to help a brand — in this case, a bank — get its message out to an audience. Ideally, an influencer will speak to the specific audience that a bank wants to target.
Influencers need to have a few things before they can be considered influential. They need to have established trust with their audiences. Their audiences need to perceive the influencers as authentic. If people who follow or pay attention to an influencer don’t trust that influencer, they will be less likely to take action based off of the influencer’s recommendations.
Authenticity is also essential. Influencer marketing works best when an influencer genuinely believes in what they are promoting. Their audience should get the sense that the influencer actually uses a product or service (such as a bank) IRL, and that they would use that product or service even if they weren’t getting compensated for promoting it.
Influencers also need to have reach. Reach is often confused with follower count, but it is a bit more involved than that. Since there are fake followers out there, the number of followers an influencer has might not accurately reflect the size of the audience that is actively engaged with them or interested in what they have to say.
A better way to measure reach is to look at how people respond to an influencer’s posts. Are there likes and comments on each post, or do people largely ignore them? An influencer who’s actively engaged with their audience will have plenty of comments, likes, and other responses on the majority of their posts.
How Can Bank Influencer Marketing Work?
Banks are simply places where people can deposit their money or access checking accounts. But a bank can provide much more to consumers, such as helping them plan for major purchases (like a car or a house), plan for their retirement or other financial goals, and learn the basics of money management.
But before a bank can do all those things, it needs to convince consumers that they can trust it. That’s where bank influencer marketing can step in.
For example, an influencer can create a blog post on a financial topic that is relevant to them and of interest to their audience. For the UK-based Tesco Bank, blogger Charlotte Taylor created a post on merging finances with a significant other. The blog post covered how to go about merging finances, and included individualized tips from Charlotte to add authenticity, and to help the piece better connect with the target audience.
Another way that bank influencer marketing can work is through the creation of specialized hashtags. Capital One has developed a couple of hashtags and encouraged both influencers and regular social media users alike to share their stories with the tags. For example, the #walletstories hashtag asked influencers to share what they keep in their wallets, and the stories behind those items. With the hashtag and influencer participation, the bank was able to show that it’s much more than a financial company — it’s a business that’s invested and interested in the lives of its customers.
Unique Challenges of Bank Influencer Marketing
Although bank influencer marketing can help banks and other financial institutions build trust with their audiences, and can help to improve the overall standing and reputations of banks, there are some challenges marketers need to be aware of.
One challenge is ensuring that all influencer posts are in compliance with the appropriate guidelines. Influencer marketing posts need to follow the FTC’s endorsement guidelines.
Depending on which product or service the posts promote, they might also have to follow FINRA’s guidelines and rules for advertising. For example, if an influencer is talking about a particular investment or account, they need to be clear that they are not recommending that people invest in that account. Influencers might also need to state that past performance is no guarantee of future results, depending on the product or institution they are working with.
