When you hear the word “finance,” do your eyes glaze over? Although financial services might not be as fun and sexy as say, fashion or beauty, there’s still plenty of opportunity for financial services companies when it comes to influencer marketing.
Getting things right when it comes to finance influencer marketing involves knowing the specific rules and regulations that specifically apply to financial companies, the right way of going about finding influencers, and the best way to use influencers in a campaign.
The Unique Concerns of Finance Influencer Marketing
Any company that uses influencers for marketing purposes needs to be aware of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) disclosure guidelines. In a nutshell, an influencer’s posts need to reveal the material connection between the influencer and a brand. For the most part, including something like #ad in the post is sufficient.
Finance companies also need to take into account the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s (FINRA) advertising rules and regulations whenever they pay an influencer to promote their products. FINRA’s rules typically bar an influencer from recommending specific mutual funds or stocks in their posts, as Digiday notes.
Although finance influencer marketing has its own set of rules and regulations, it’s not terribly difficult for a financial services company to work with influencers and get their message out there. As long as the influencer marketing campaign takes FINRA and FTC rules into consideration and focuses on the influencer’s experience — rather than specific stocks or investments — then finance influencer marketing can be an ideal way to connect with your desired audience.
How Financial Services Companies Can Benefit from Influencer Marketing
When it comes to financial services, consumers aren’t exactly super trusting. Bank failures and the mortgage crisis of 2008 had some influence on the way people view financial institutions and had a negative effect on people’s trust of those institutions.
Although trust in financial service institutions has been increasing in the years since the recession, the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer found that trust in financial institutions dropped by 20 points among informed consumers in the U.S. since the previous year.
When people look for financial institutions they can trust, they look for a few things. One of those things is a human touch. For example, people are more likely to trust institutions that allow them to speak with a real person when they have a problem. On the influencer side of things, people are more likely to trust the recommendation of a friend, family member, or even, say, an influencer they follow and respect in the financial sector.
Working with influencers doesn’t only help financial services brands establish trust with an audience. It also allows a brand to give its products that human touch. In many ways, influencer marketing is about creating and sharing stories. When a financial institution works with an influencer who shares how using a certain credit card or setting up an IRA with a particular bank or investment firm helped them reach their goals, it gives a human face to what might otherwise be an institution like any other.
Finance Influencer Marketing in Action
What does finance influencer marketing look like? Here are a few examples from top financial services companies.
American Express: Pay It, Plan It. To promote its Pay It, Plan It payment plan option, American Express partnered with numerous influencers, dubbed “AmexAmbassadors.” Among those influencers are John Philp Thompson III, who runs the blog Risky Jackal, and Amanda Jane Jones, a freelance graphic designer and mom. Both Jones and Thompson have more than 120K followers and both created Instagram posts explaining to their followers how they used the Pay It, Plan It feature to reach a lifestyle goal.
Ellevest: 5 Minutes With. Ellevest is an investment firm that specifically targets women and that aims to encourage more women to invest their money. One way that the firm uses influencer marketing is through its #5MinutesWith Instagram series. Posts with the hashtag feature a female business owner/entrepreneur, who answers a number of questions about their business and personal goals and successes.
US Bank: #ISaveSoICan. US Bank is another financial institution that’s created a special hashtag for influencers to use. With the #ISaveSoICan hashtag, influencers shared their (often heartwarming) reasons for setting money aside.
How to Find Finance Influencers
When it comes to finding influencers to work with on a finance influencer marketing campaign, it’s worth remembering that you don’t necessarily want to partner with “financial pros.”
Although there’s a time and place for professional advice, when it comes to influencer marketing, you’re better off focusing on the human element. You want influencers your target audience can relate to. That often means finding mommy bloggers, style bloggers, and travel bloggers and asking them to create a post that demonstrates how they use a particular financial product or how they’ve worked on reaching a specific financial goal.
You can connect with influencers in a few ways. One of the more expedient options is to use an influencer marketing marketplace or software program to search for influencers who have the appropriate follower count, engagement levels, and audience.
For example, if you’re looking to encourage new moms to take advantage of a college savings account or are looking to get more women to invest, it can be worthwhile to find an influencer who already connects to a female audience.
You can also search through social media to find influencers, but doing so often takes a lot longer than using software or a marketplace. It can also lead to a lot of dead ends, as you try to connect with social media users who aren’t interested in being influencers.
Finance influencer marketing helps your brand build trust and rapport with a target audience. Just make sure that your influencer content humanizes your brand and follows both FINRA’s and the FTC’s guidelines, and you should be good to go.
