The financial marketing landscape has drastically changed in 2020. By now, the world has resigned to a new way of living. After doing extensive research and speaking with several clients to see how COVID-19 has changed their marketing outlook, we assembled a report to help financial marketers navigate this situation. We combined our clients’ qualitative insight together with quantitative figures from our app data to paint a picture on audience behavior and communication about coronavirus during these critical times. The goal? To arm marketers with the right information to weather the storm. The report contains insights from our clients like how webinars were used, centralizing of COVID-19 materials and how wellness was incorporated. It also details views on longer term digital transformation and sentiment towards the events industry. We pulled out interesting trends from January to May this year to see the impact of COVID-19 on email marketing and communications. The first section outlines general trends and figures while the second section breaks this down by month and by geographical distribution. We pulled out interesting trends from January to May this year to see the impact of COVID-19 on email marketing and communications. The first section outlines general trends and figures while the second section breaks this down by month and by geographical distribution. On the statistics front, we pulled out interesting trends from January to May this year to see the impact of COVID-19 on email marketing and communications. The first section outlines general trends and figures while the second section breaks this down by month and by geographical distribution. Broadly speaking, we saw increased communication, COVID-19 specific campaigns, stable open rates, less opt-outs, consistent engagement, and bi-weekly cycles. We also noticed that the Easter holiday period was rife with activity. As COVID-19 significantly impacted physical events, we included a dedicated section to cover this. In summary, webinars were the channel of choice to replace physical events, but we also saw an uptick in webcasts, videos, webinars, more calls, more emails, and more social media. There was a rapid learning curve to implement this transition and joint processes between the event and content arms of the marketing teams had to be drawn up to make sure the team was aligned in producing and executing webinars. However, many clients confirmed that the enforced change was a good opportunity for everyone to test video tools that had been available before but not widely used in the context of a more conservative financial industry. The successful implementation of this strategy gives virtual meetings a good chance to continue instead of in person events when government restrictions are lifted. We also cover the psychology of crisis communications, giving a human explanation as to why we act the way we do during this period, and to give scientific grounding to the tips that we imparted to clients. These include the need to communicate simply, the imperative to instill trust and the importance of thinking for the client. Finally, we concluded the report with tips to financial services marketers such as adapting their email marketing tactics to the situation, getting their tone right and shifting offline marketing activity to secure online channels.
Unlock our insights
Register your email to access all of our case studies and receive exclusive insights.
