How to Formulate an Effective Digital Marketing Strategy for Banks in Saudi Arabia?

Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) has so far issued licenses to approx 13 local banks and 17 foreign banks to operate within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Like every industry, digital marketing has transformed the way of business in the banking and financial sector as well. According to Expatica, Saudi is ranked as a top digital banking ground in Middle East opening ways for digital marketing services.

As per the statistics generated by DataRePortal in January 2021, Saudi Arabia hosts 33.58 million digital users. Surprisingly, 95.7% of the Saudi male and female population is internet literate. Users now prefer to use banking websites and apps instead of personally visiting local branches. If you represent a bank, or financial institution, this article is especially for you.

Every Bank / Financial Institute Need Three Things

4 Areas to Cover in Your Digital Marketing Plan for Banks and Financial Institutions

An effective digital marketing plan for banks, financial institutions & fintech companies should cover at least four areas for desired results. There are as follow:

1. Engaging Web Content: Share interesting, informative and engaging content
2. Free Organic Traffic: Optimize your websites and apps for free organic traffic
3. Social Media Presence: Attract and engage more customers from social media
4. Paid Advertisement: Allocate sufficient funds for paid advertisement

1: Produce Engaging Web Content
The foundation of your digital marketing is engaging web content and if the foundation is strong, the pillars will stand stronger. Share multiple types of content with internet customers and social media followers. Some of the examples are as follow:

• Products and Services: You should introduce popular banking services and products through your websites and apps. For example, you can offer personal banking, business banking, investment, credit cards, loans, and other services.
• Fees and Charges: Nobody would like to visit a branch just to know the charges of service. Hence you should facilitate customers by sharing fees and charges for the services such as money transfer, bill payment, statements, credit cards,etc.
• Investment Opportunities: Wealthy – HNWI – (High Net worth Individuals) customers love investment opportunities and by offering investment services, you can attract a lot of customers. You may offer local and international brokerage to your loyal customers.
• Informative Blogs: Blogging is another great tool to attract a huge audience. Use articles, eBooks, PDF, videos, images, and infographics to engage with potential customers.
• The Solution to the Problems: People may face problems and if they find the solutions online through your blogs, articles, or even through customer support, they would be grateful.

2: Get Free Organic Traffic
A well-planned search engine optimization strategy would bring you Free Organic Traffic from Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines. A successful SEO strategy would help your website keep appearing in search results until your competitor pushes you down.

Gone are the days when you used to have a static website with few pages. Now you must feed your website with fresh content. On the other hand, traditional SEO techniques have also gone outdated and now you have to keep your strategies as per algorithms updates. Follow the below-given tips for effective SEO suggested by Bytes Future digital marketing company professionals:

• Research Industry Relevant Keywords: Since your industry is banking, finance&fintech, you must find the most relevant keywords for your website and apps. Find the keywords which clearly describe your business and mention your products and services.
• Insert Keywords on Different Places: Once you have a set of bank and finance-related keywords, you can insert them on different pages of your site. Search engines will understand your site much better with relevant keywords. Make sure not to stuff too many keywords as this may bring negative results.
• Mobile-Friendly Website Design: Though mobile apps have covered the gap, you still need to have a responsive website for Smartphone and tablet users. Hire a digital marketing agency Bytes Future to design and develop a responsive website.
• Use Title and Other Tags: Your website needs title tags, Meta tags, header tags, and alt tags for images. These tiny elements will help search engines understand your digital platforms in a much better way.
• Internal linking of Pages: Your website may have hundreds of pages and if they are not properly interlinked, the search engine may not find them. Proper internal linking would allow search engines to crawl and index all the important pages on your site. The use of anchor text is an effective technique for this purpose.
• Improve Readability and Loading Time: If your website has great content but it is not readable, it will be useless for readers. Loading time is another factor often ignored by the developers. To improve page loading time, use compressed images.

You can count on experienced and professional team based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for all your digital marketing needs, Bytes Future has been ranked Best Digital Marketing Agency in the region for several years in a row and helped many fintech companies, banks and financial institutions to create impactful strategy, market penetration and results in the region.

3: Build Strong Social Media Presence
When we talk about digital marketing for banks and other financial institutions, we can’t ignore the significance of social media marketing. Social media will provide you an opportunity to connect with loyal customers, target potential customers, and establish a community around your financial institution specially fintech companies.

If your bank really wants to rebrand its image, social media is the right place to invest. Some of the best tips to take advantage of social media are as follow by Bytes Future digital marketing team:

• Share Valuable Information with Customers: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Linkedin and other similar channels will help you enhance users’ engagement. Share posts consistently every week to maximum users engagement.
• Get Advantage of Referral from Social Networks: Your website or app is your online branch where you sell your products and services to the customers. So you can take advantage of referral links from social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and twitter where you can share links of your website pages via posts.
• Celebrate Milestones with Followers: Don’t let your milestones go away without notice. If your bank has made an achievement, celebrate it with your followers. There are many things you can do, for example:

• Launching of new services
• Opening of a new branch
• Remarkable annual profits
• Customers reviews
• Profiles of managers
• Performance of a particular branch
• So many other stories

• Review Policy for Social Posts and Sharing: A bank is a responsible institution directly dealing with the local public and therefore, it must follow government and banking policies. Follow these tips to ensure compliance with policies:

• Document a well-thought social media plan for your bank.
• Every post must be approved by a team of experts before it goes out in public
• Periodically review and audit your social media publishing policies
• Bank’s privacy policy should be available for the users
• Prepare a crisis management plan for your social media presence

Home financing, car financing, personal loans, credit cards and other services will bring traffic to your company’s website.

4: Invest in Paid Advertising
Great content, correct SEO, and a perfect social media strategy may bring you a lot of organic traffic through search engines. However, with a paid advertisement, you will be able to get a focused audience particularly interested in your products and services. In this way, you can target your audience on a bigger spectrum. Some of the best platforms for paid advertisement are:

• Google ads
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Youtube
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• TikTok

With a well-thought plan and the right expertise, you can cover all areas of the digital banking sector. If you don’t have an expert team but still want to see amazing results, BytesFuture’s Digital Marketing Services can be a blessing for you. If you are ready to invest in the right place, let’s discuss your project today.