Last Updated on May 9, 2023
Marketing is all about grabbing the attention of your audience. But doing that in the money industry is actually tricky. It is not because that one cannot create a catchy campaign, it is because of the restrictions that come with this industry. A lot of good ideas will simply become non-executable. Let us have a look at some of the key factors that you might have to consider before you get into brainstorming.
Are you clear with the technicalities?
Most of the financial products like Bank accounts, Mutual funds, Loans, Credit Cards are very technical, especially because these are just categories of products and not the actual products. There will be multiple types of products just in the Savings Account category. Banks come up with different types of accounts to cater to different customers. Mutual funds, similarly, is another ocean. For a beginner, it will be extremely overwhelming and confusing as everything will sound similar yet they are unique.
We worked on this video for a type of Savings Account called Savings Max for HDFC.
The value proposition of this account is that just by choosing to open it, one will be able to save a few thousands of their money. A very interesting value proposition, but if you don’t know the technicalities of this account you will end up thinking of ideas in the wrong direction.
Here is what you could do,
- Be a user of the product or meet the user of the product. This will solve the 80% confusion
- Take time reading the specs of the product and ask the product lead to explain it to you.
- Be silly and ask all the questions you have. To my surprise, some of my dumbest questions have helped in cracking the ideas for the campaigns.
Is it getting repetitive?
By working on multiple campaigns for financial products we understood that the core message is more or less the same for all the products. For example, all the Mutual Funds are created to attract investment, with “financial freedom” as the key benefit. All the loans are there to help when you are in need. Credit cards are there to give you the freedom of spending. After a point of time, the ideas might get repetitive which will make your campaigns boring. This can become one of the costliest mistakes one can do while marketing the financial products.
In order to overcome this, you should,
- Stop thinking too much. Some of the best ideas are very simple.
- Keep learning about the product. The more the understanding, the better will be your ideas.
- Develop a thick skin to kill your own good ideas. Try approaching it with a fresh perspective every time.
Is it compliance-friendly ?
In our experience one of the biggest challenges that will come in your way is Compliance. You must be aware of the mandatory “Mutual funds are subject to market risk” after every Mutual Funds promotion. There is nothing more painful than adding a * symbol on your key message. Some of the key points will keep changing based on government policies. This is the core nature of the money industry.
You can try doing the following to avoid major damages.
- Get your ideas reviewed by the compliance team at the preproduction stage.
- Make sure you get the right and updated stats from the product team.
- Understand how compliance works and try to avoid churns. This will save you a lot of time and money.
