Paid media is an essential element for a successful always-on content strategy as it enables your finance brand not only to reach beyond your organic social following but also to quickly scale up your campaigns. Understanding how and when to optimise your content program over time is critical for your finance brand to fulfil your business objectives and drive consistent results. We chatted to The Dubs social media strategist, Tara Cimino, who explained the importance of a paid media strategy, and why finance brands must always look to continue to optimise their always-on content program to improve client acquisition processes, trust and brand awareness.
The benefits of a paid media
The benefits of a paid social media strategy are you can scale up to as many markets as possible, depending on your finance brand’s budget and buy-in. This means you can begin a campaign targeting a select UK audience, before then increasing the range to include other countries like Spain or Germany, for example.
“When scaling, we can start off small before expanding to reach more target audiences,” says Cimino.
Paid media in this regard enables your finance brand to reach beyond your organic following. “If you’re just putting organic content out, there’s no guarantee anybody else is going to read it beyond your organic reach,” explains Cimino.
To generate new leads and funnel potential clients through to your website, a paid media approach is not simply a nice-to-have but an essential element to an always-on content program.
A paid media strategy builds trust
“ The benefit of social is we can scale up to as many markets and platforms as is relevant for the client. We can start off small before expanding to reach more target audiences.”
Other than the obvious benefits of a paid media strategy helping to generate meaningful leads and acquire new clients, it can also build trust and establish your finance brand. A successful always-on paid media strategy will grow your follower base. While followers can be considered a vanity metric, they’re not. Instead, they provide your brand with greater legitimacy and help you to build a captured audience which you can then nurture over time.
“Running a paid media strategy helps to build your follower base and expand your audience,” Cimino says. “Your followers are what potential clients will see and are what establishes your brand as a trusted source.”
At the heart of it, gaining a following on social media platforms can offer a competitive edge as it builds trust with clients. It’s unlikely your finance brand will be able to build a following without paid media and an always-on content strategy. This is simply because an always-on strategy that favours timely content means your brand voice is regularly seen by clients. By improving brand awareness and offering a perspective on current affairs, clients are likely to push through the top of the funnel (your content) and continue through to your products and website.
“Because finance brands have built trust at the beginning, through their always-on content strategy, potential clients will begin looking through your products and offerings,” adds Cimino. “They’ll move down the customer acquisition funnel.”
Why optimisation is the key to success
In order to optimise your paid media strategy to fulfil your business objectives and drive results, you must consistently analyse your website and social metrics. Looking past platform metrics, like clicks or shares, ensures your finance brand gains a panoptic view of how successful your customer acquisition process is. Understanding how your media buying strategy influences web conversion rates is critical to understanding what strategy is successful and what isn’t.
“Focusing on the onward journey beyond the ad is critical,” Cimino notes. “The ad is the only thing finance brands can control, so optimising the creatives, content and website is important to ensure the user journey is completed successfully.”
While you could have the best paid media strategy out there, if your website is not optimised to convert clients it won’t be successful. Ensure it’s user and mobile-friendly, accessible and tailored to your audience to ensure the client acquisition process is seamless.
The essentials
At the end of the day, paid media is an essential part of any always-on content strategy. To convert customers and generate meaningful leads you need to move beyond your follower base, improve brand awareness and gain trust – these can only be achieved through a paid media strategy that has been optimised to reach your objectives and drive consistent results. Consider your target audience and tailor your always-on content strategy to match. Paid media is the competitive edge your finance brand may be missing.
