Financial services branding: The relationship between trust and your brand.
In our previous blog, we explored how search engine optimisation for financial services helps to get more clients and the benefits, including increased brand trust. As a crucial component for any business, brand trust determines the impression that consumers have of your business and whether they are likely to convert.
With Forbes tipping customer experience to be one of the biggest banking and financial services trends for 2024, it’s no wonder that enhancing every touchpoint on the customer journey is a priority for many businesses. By reducing friction and improving satisfaction, the customer experience plays an increasingly major role in buying decisions. At the heart of a satisfactory experience is the impression your overall brand leaves, creating a rise in demand for financial services branding services.
The role of branding for financial services
As financial services businesses look to expand into new markets and meet targets for audience engagement and customer conversions, decision-makers are realising the value of investing in branding. There are two primary elements to branding that inform the wider strategy:
Visual language
As a form of visual communication, branding creates an identity for your business that encompasses your colour palette, imagery, illustrations, font, accessibility and logo design. Each of these elements influences the initial brand perception that customers have, including how they think and feel about your brand. As the foundation of your visual identity, these elements feed into your website, social media, email and third-party marketing.
Tone of voice
From your business name to your brand persona and the tone of voice you use to communicate with customers. Your written communications provide insights into who you are and allow you to distinguish yourself from your competitors, especially when it comes to interacting with your audience.
Take Monzo Bank, for example. Monzo’s tone of voice and brand persona are vastly different to Lloyd’s Bank’s. From their strapline of being the “bank that lives on your phone” to their reactive Traitors LinkedIn posts, Monzo’s simple but effective branding distinguishes them from jargon-heavy competitors. It’s the human element of their content and distinct no-nonsense persona that has established trust in their everyday users. But financial services branding, like with all other industries, isn't a one-size-fits-all approach.
The benefits of building a trustworthy brand
Strategic direction
Once you [thoroughly] understand your brand and your audience, you can develop a brand strategy that informs your marketing activities. It also informs how and where you interact with your clients and the way that you speak to them.
Market distinction
With a unique strategy, tone of voice and visual language, you can build your market presence and distinguish yourself from your competitors. Your branding should incorporate key elements of simplicity, scalability, memorability, versatility and relevancy to work across all formats.
Seamless customer journey
Financial services branding should span every customer touchpoint, from your LinkedIn banner to your merchandise and email signatures. Creating a brand that is easily identifiable and consistently present makes you memorable to your audience, building your story.
Take a look at our financial services branding case studies
fscom
To align fscom’s marketing and comms to its new target audience, we evolved the brand language and are assisting with website restructuring to improve the customer experience. This has included making the team and valuable resources more prominent.
Lightbulb Credit
As Lightbulb Credit’s outsourced design agency, we’ve helped to transform the look and feel of the brand, distinguishing it from competitors with a [revolutionary] rebrand. As company credit rating experts, the client wanted to rebrand to better position themselves as market leaders within the B2B market.
Including an entirely new website design, complete with a new logo, colour palette and branding, the rebrand provides a more sophisticated feel. This has elevated the brand to reflect Lightbulb’s service offering and the markets it operates in. Across the website, social media and external comms, Lightbulb’s value is communicated clearly in their revised tone of voice. Designing the marketing strategy and launch campaign under the same roof also means that the new Lightbulb brand has made a considerable mark in the company credit rating market.
[Website design and development] [Logo design and visual language] [Tone of voice and proofreading]
Read the full case study here.
Looking for financial services branding expertise?
As the outsourced marketing agency for financial services businesses like Lightbulb Credit, we act as the brand guardians ensuring they look and feel their best.
Whether you’re looking for a complete rebrand, or simply a logo refresh or content strategy. We understand that every business has unique goals and deliverables, so we want to get to know yours. Give our team of financial services branding and strategy experts a call on 0115 671 3868 or get in touch here.