Financial Services Copywriting

We provide email marketing support to a number of businesses in the finance sector. The average engagement rates for finance & banking sector emails are at 21.05% for opens and 2.53% for clicks. 

Tone:

In general, financial services are complex to market due to the diverse range of services and sub-sectors available. Finance is a sensitive subject for many businesses and individuals and one that can easily put people on the defensive if approached incorrectly. In particular, the rise of pay-day loan companies and mis-sold insurance has left the finance sector with a bad reputation in the eyes of many. For these reasons, the copy has two principle jobs: to explain the product in simple terms and to make the reader trust in the provider. This can be achieved by combining factual information and testimonials with the right tone of voice.

Presentation:

Once you have created your copy, its presentation is important to ensure that your recipients will want to read it. We use some simple techniques with our clients to break up block text and make the overall email layout easier on the eye:

• Include images and buttons - Link these through to relevant web pages to enhance click rates
  • Incorporate bullet points and sub-headings – Break key points down into lists or appropriate sections. If your readers are short of time, they will only pick out relevant sections and short text
  • Insert formatting – Give text that needs extra emphasis a little bolding, underlining or italics. You can also experiment with text sizing and colour. Don’t go overboard though, as too much formatting will be picked up as spam.

Split testing:

Testing can help you to predict how your campaign will be received. You can test anything you like but it is best to keep things simple by testing one thing at a time. Most recently, we tested whether a humorous or a serious subject line would generate the most opens for a campaign. We also experimented with different locations for an important call to action button within the main text body to determine which would generate the most clicks through to the landing page. We sent both subject lines to several different sets of data and were able to achieve an average open rate of 25.5% from the contacts who had received the humorous subject line. For the serious subject line, the average open rate was 18%. In some sets, the open rate ranged from as low as 11% for the serious subject line, and as high as 31% for the humorous one – a huge difference!

Analysis:

Once your e-shot has been delivered, it is important to collect and analyse the data to measure the success of the send. Is the subject line generating enough interest? Are people reading through your text and completing the call-to-action? Are the findings from your testing producing meaningful results? You can use these results to make judgements over time on the effectiveness of your copywriting and your overall campaign.

If you are a financial services company looking to improve your email marketing results, get in touch.