As of January 2024, nearly 60% of U.S. adults were living paycheck to paycheck (PYMNTS Intelligence). For banks and credit unions, this presents a unique opportunity to help their customers and members improve their financial literacy. When done right, financial education content can be a powerful marketing tool that builds trust, deepens relationships, and drives long-term customer and member loyalty.
Why Financial Literacy Content Should Be Part of Your Marketing Strategy
1. Support Your Mission
Many community banks and credit unions are built on a foundation of financial empowerment. Offering educational content on your website reinforces your institution’s mission to serve your community, not just sell your products and services. When people see that a financial institution is committed to helping them understand budgeting, credit, investing, and retirement planning, you position yourself as a trusted financial partner, not just a service provider.
2. Improve SEO and Engagement
Banking blogs are a popular tactic and when paired with the right types of content, can help improve your organic search visibility and help drive qualified traffic to your website. Blog articles on topics like “how to build a budget” or “tips for paying off credit card debt” answer real questions that people have and attract searchers in your community. With each piece of content, you have an opportunity to cross-promote relevant products like savings accounts, credit cards, and loans. And, you have the ability to add mention of your own geographic footprint with local resources if relevant.
3. Create Cross-Sell and Lifecycle Marketing Opportunities
A well-written blog on a topic such as retirement planning can naturally introduce visitors to your IRAs or advisory services. An article about budgeting can lead to checking account and savings account conversions. Financial literacy content educates customers and members, while leading them to the right solutions when they’re most likely to engage.
4. Reduce Financial Stress and Strengthen Retention
One of the top stressors for Americans is financial anxiety (Duke University Personal Assistance Service, n.d.). By educating your community, you can help reduce confusion around money and validate your bank or credit union’s role as a trusted guide. This type of relationship with customers and members improves their satisfaction and makes them more likely to stay with your bank or credit union for the long haul.
Key Financial Literacy Topics That Engage and Educate
Plan your literacy content around relevant topics that align with your audience’s financial journey:
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Budgeting & Saving: Create engaging content about emergency funds, developing a budget, and how to reach savings goals. These topics are perfect for introducing readers to your checking and savings accounts. This can include articles, infogrpahics, videos and podcasts.
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Credit & Debt Management: Help your audience better understand the importance of credit scores, how to borrow responsibly, and how to avoid high-interest debt. In these articles, you can link to your credit cards, loans, and counseling services.
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Investing Basics: Use simple terms to explain stocks, bonds, and retirement accounts. These articles can be used to promote your wealth management offerings or IRAs.
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Financial Planning for the Future: Make the focus of these articles about long-term planning, from buying your first home to preparing for retirement. These topics are great for promoting your mortgages, CDs/certificates, and encouraging financial advisor appointments.
How Can You Get Started?
Planning financial literacy content can be overwhelming, and many institutions enlist the help of a partner agency if in-house resources already have a full plate.
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Build a Content Calendar: Plan out blog topics that align with seasonal moments and holidays such as Financial Literacy Month, tax season tips, and back-to-school budgeting.
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Support Top Customer/Member Questions: Ask your front line staff what the most frequently asked questions are, and turn those questions into blog posts.
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Promote Your Blogs: Share your blogs via email, social media channels, digital ads, and even in your branch to get the biggest reach.
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Track Engagement and Impact: Use web analytics to see which topics perform the best and where users are converting in their journey. This could even be used to personalize their website experience depending on your CMS capabilities.
Literacy is a Smart Investment
Educational content doesn’t just build knowledge, it also builds trust, strengthens your brand, and supports your bottom line. By investing in financial literacy blogs and resources, banks and credit unions can better serve their communities while also meeting their strategic marketing goals. ZAG Interactive is happy to chat with you about a blog and our pre-built library of semi-custom financial literacy articles and infographics.