Why landing page design can’t be an afterthought

If you’re putting time and effort into your content marketing strategy then you can’t leave your landing page design as an afterthought. A well-designed page ensures the leads you’re gaining from your content are actually being converted. At the end of the day, an effective page designed to convert will help ensure your lead generation campaign is successful.

With the average landing page conversion rate across all industries being 9.7% (with 10% being widely considered a good conversion rate) getting them right is critical. As Hubspot explains, “Marketers who create landing pages that build trust with page visitors, provide valuable information, and use different content types see higher conversion rates.”

How to design a landing page that converts

Creating not only an engaging landing page but one that converts is all about the design. Here are our top tips for creating an engaging landing page:

• Keep it personal – Ensure your landing page is personalised to the user. Utilising generic messaging won’t lead to conversions or maintain engagement, with studies revealing personalised CTAs convert 202% better than a normal CTA.
• Optimise, optimise, optimise – Consistently testing your landing page and optimising it is critical to its success. Utilising A/B testing will ensure your landing page operates smoothly and help convert clients, with 1 out of 8 A/B tests shown to have driven significant change.
• Keep it simple – Too much information can overwhelm your clients. Keep your information clear, simple and concise.
• Have a clear call to action – Ultimately, you want your clients visiting your landing page to take action. This means an effective CTA is critical.
• Ensure it’s mobile-friendly – With more people using their mobiles to find and research businesses it’s critical your landing page is not only designed for mobile but is fast, quick and responsive otherwise people simply click off.

Two great examples

These two finance brands demonstrate what makes a good landing page design. Keeping it simple and immediately trying to gain important first-party data makes these landing pages particularly effective.

Future Green Steps has made its landing page eye-catching and engaging. Keeping the information simple, users gain the necessary information seamlessly. Additionally, it has incorporated short-form videos to make the page feel fresh and provide a variety of content appealing to a wider range of visitors while also increasing users’ time on the page.

Odin’s Crow has also created an innovative and engaging landing page design. Utilising intelligent web design, Odin’s Crow combines interactive graphics with accessible typography that provides critical information. Odin’s Crow highlights that landing page design doesn’t have to be boring, instead, it can be modern and contemporary.

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Making finance inclusive

The financial sector can be highly competitive with hundreds of finance brands vying for the same customers. Creating a design experience that’s inclusive means your finance brand can generate meaningful leads from the widest pool of consumers. Not only that, but inclusivity can set your finance brand apart from the competition, gain consumers’ trust and build brand loyalty with customers that have never previously had products catered to their unique circumstances.

According to research by PwC, “Inclusive design enables organisations to increase their revenue by growing the size of their target markets and reducing the need to make costly retrofits when products and services don’t meet the needs of excluded population groups. In turn, organisations can improve their brand reputation and recognition.”

Your finance brand shouldn’t assume a one size fits all approach for your digital experience. While it can be difficult to recognise and cater to all abilities and needs there can be a range of measures your finance brand can take that range from simple to more complex. Inclusivity is about centring the human user at the forefront and recognising everybody’s different.

Inclusive design principles for every finance brand

At the core of it, your finance brand should engage with a variety of users in the design and creation stage to fully understand the unique requirements of consumers. Not all inclusive design elements will be obvious or easy to implement which is why your finance brands need to converse with the end-user.

However, there are a number of changes your finance brand can make today, to help create a more inclusive design. These include:

• Text-to-speech – This is to benefit those who are visually impaired.
• Translated digital experiences – This is to benefit people whose first language isn’t English.
• Plain language – This benefits all users but caters towards those whose first language isn’t English and low-income users who may be intimidated and confused by complex financial jargon.
• Not utilising colours to signify actions – This is to benefit users who are colourblind.
• Large buttons that are distinctive and operate logically – This benefits a variety of users but can be particularly useful for the elderly.
• Readable fonts that can be magnified – This can benefit a wide variety of people but particularly those who are visually impaired or the elderly.

Inclusive design benefits everyone

While inclusive design is catered to and created for edge consumers, people who don’t fit within the one size fits all approach, they benefit everyone. At its core, it’s about including everyone within your finance brand. Offering inclusive design principles provides users with more options and ways to manage their money. This provides greater flexibility and satisfaction with your financial products and services.

At the end of the day, inclusive design enhances the reach of your finance brand, helping to build trust, loyalty, and lead generation.

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Harnessing the power of micro moments

Micro moments are opportunities for engagement not distraction and can provide a prime opportunity for finance brands to gain a new customer, increase brand awareness or generate greater trust and loyalty.

Micro moments can be divided into four different categories and when finance brands tailor their marketing strategy to them, they can capture a vast array of new customers. These categories include:

• I-want-to-know-something – Finance brands should provide important information about particular finance topics to satisfy this need.
• I-want-to-go-somewhere – Finance brands should provide their location to harness the moment when consumers are searching for a company or store to visit (this is particularly important for financial services such as banks).
• I-want-to do-something – To satisfy this need, finance brands should look to provide informative ‘How To’ content such as videos and podcasts to teach consumers about how to perform certain tasks, such as invest or open a bank account.
• I-want-to-buy-something – This ones a little more obvious, but finance brands should look at creating content that funnels consumers into purchasing a product or service.

To ensure finance brands are able to harness these micro moments, they must understand their customer’s needs and identify where these micro moments are occurring. Finance brands should focus on producing content that targets these moments and provide useful information that engages consumers at specific points in time. By demonstrating that a finance brand can help in a customer’s moment of need, this will create greater trust and loyalty and change a consumer’s moment of a want-to-buy to a must-buy.

Strengthen your content to strengthen your profits

Finance brands should aim to provide high-quality and relevant information to customers’ queries as they happen, to not only inform customers but funnel them into buying a product. Strengthening a finance brands’ SEO and web content to align with the relevant micro moments in their target customer’s consumer journey will enable them to gain the attention of users. In fact, 69% of customers agree that the quality, timing and relevance of a business’s information influences their perception of the brand.

Mobile-friendly marketing is king

It pays to be speedy

Micro moments are short-lived, meaning customers aren’t patient. By ensuring a finance brands’ website is not only fast but also accessible, it’ll ensure users stay on the site and remain engaged. With one in four people abandoning a site if it takes over four seconds to load, finance brands should look to eliminate any blocks to their customers’ ability to access the information they need.

Micro moments make big impacts

Micro moments are fought by finance brands in those brief periods of procrastination. To ensure finance brands win the battle and harness the power of micro moments they must understand their customer’s journey and create a targeted content plan that aligns with it. Finance brands that capitalise on these moments and make sure they aren’t going to waste by aligning their customers’ in-the-moment needs with valuable and accessible content can gain a competitive edge.

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With Ecommerce expected to make up 22% of global retail sales by 2023, websites are fast becoming one of the most important aspects of a successful marketing strategy. By combining product marketing and design, a harmonious balance can be found that will ensure your website is both functional and beautiful, as well as being informative and profitable.

The difference between UX and UI design

To get started, it’s important to understand the difference between user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design. At its core, UI design is focused on visual design and brand image. Alternatively, UX is centered around user experience and how customers interact with a website. UX design solves structural pain points to make the purchasing process easier.

UX design and UI design collaborate to deliver a holistic customer experience. A website that focuses on both UX design and UI design will be both functional and visually appealing and finance brands must incorporate both. Yet, often, it’s UX that’s forgotten about with 86% of companies failing to consider UX when developing their website.

Users want UX design

With so much choice online, users expect websites to be easy-to-use and functional. In fact, more than two-thirds of businesses compete on customer experience alone, making UX design a key weapon in remaining competitive. UX is an investment that has great returns for finance brands with a study by Forrester finding that every $1 invested in UX design generates $100 in return. Customers want their online experience to be easy and UX design allows for that.

By altering the focus from the aesthetic qualities of a website to the users’ experience it can help finance brands reduce visitors dropping off and choosing an alternative business. 88% of customers were less inclined to purchase from a company after a bad user experience indicating the influence UX design has on customers’ purchasing decisions.

Know your audience

UX design is human-focused. It places the customer at the forefront of your website’s design. By researching and understanding not only who your finance brands’ audience is but also how they use your website, finance brands can drive customers to take certain actions. Whether this is to purchase a product or to engage with a specific campaign, when UX aligns with a strategic content program they work in partnership to deliver on business goals. In fact, companies that focused on customer experience saw their revenue increase by 4-8%.

While 81% of banks believe they understand their users’ needs, only 37% of customers agree. With web design a key aspect of the customer experience, it’s an important component to ensure finance brands are meeting the needs of consumers. Whilst visual design is a way to capture attention and engage customers, to strengthen customer relationships and drive them to take relevant actions finance websites need to be designed with customer behaviours front of mind.

Here are three simple fixes to improve your UX design:
Count how many clicks it takes for your user to get to the page they need. Remove any unnecessary pathways as you want your site to be easy and quick to navigate.
Ensure the front page of your website showcases who your brand is and what they do. Look to showcase content that will drive customers down the funnel as well as providing quick links to products for customers ready to act.
Ensure you have a call to action (CTA) that is noticeable and relevant. Having a personalised CTAs converted 42% more visitors into leads than un-personalised ones.

Design and marketing go hand-in-hand

UX design and marketing are symbiotic. UX design can improve marketing campaigns by ensuring website visitors both enjoy their experience and are directed to relevant information and ultimately to make a purchase. By merging key user experience information with rich marketing data, a finance brand can gain a competitive edge as lead generation can turn into profitable conversions.

Great design stops for nobody

It’s important that finance brands understand UX design isn’t a one-time investment, but a continuous aspect of their overall marketing strategy. UX must continue to evolve with its users and remain driven by data and research into audience habits and goals. With half of all customers who switched finance brands doing so because of a bad user experience, it pays for finance brands to continue to invest in UX design.

92% of businesses that have adopted a customer-centric marketing strategy have seen an increase in customer loyalty and 84% experienced an increase in revenue. Focusing on how your target audience experiences your website and digital platforms is an important aspect of improving a brand’s overall marketing strategy.

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Mobile-friendly web design is the future

Optimising your finance website so it’s mobile-friendly is a competitive decision that can ensure you remain discoverable over your opposition. Currently, only around 13% of websites retain their search engine ranking across all devices, showcasing a prime opportunity for your finance brand to increase organic traffic.

Nowadays, almost everything is performed on mobile phones, so even if you’re ranked high on desktop searches this may not be benefiting your finance business as much as you’d think. With Google implementing mobile-first indexing back in 2017, it’s time finance brands altered their web design to reflect these algorithm changes. Shockingly, 30% of businesses that appear in the first page of Google search results on desktop don’t appear in the top ten search results on mobile.

Quick! Check your website design now

If you’re unsure if your website design is mobile-friendly or not, Google provides a mobile-friendly test that’s a simple and easy way to double-check. It also provides a detailed analysis of key areas of your overall website that could be improved, such as if your:

• Text is too small to read on the screen
• Clickable elements are too close together
• Plug-ins are incompatible

Another way to check the health of your website’s mobile design and how it’s performing on mobile search engine rankings is Google Search Console.

Other than the technical side of things, a simple check on your own mobile should reveal just how easy your website is to use. If it’s difficult for you to use, then it’s most likely being penalised by Google for its poor user experience.

Unlock search engine traffic with responsive web design

With Google’s reindexing of mobile search results to favour websites designed for mobiles, if your finance brand doesn’t keep up it can negatively impact your visibility and organic traffic. For a website to be favoured by Google it must have a responsive web design. With 94% of consumers judging websites on responsive web design, not updating your website would be doing your brand a disservice.

Here are some quick tips regarding the core aspects of best practice mobile-friendly design.

• Your website must respond well to the different devices it appears on. Your web design should adjust to the size of the screen it appears on to ensure it’s easy to use by everyone.
  The transition from a desktop website to a mobile website should be seamless.
• Create visuals that say something. Less is more when it comes to mobile-friendly design.
• Ensure your mobile site is not separate from your desktop site. With Google’s mobile-first indexing they now favour mobile websites over desktop ones. If these are different it could be hurting your discoverability.

Strengthen your SEO with mobile-friendly web design

To ensure your SEO is working well, get comfortable with using structured data. This is simply a method of explaining exactly what your website is to search engines and when used in collaboration with a responsive user experience can greatly improve your mobile rankings.

If you’re not sure you’ve implemented structured data correctly then you can always double-check by using Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool.

Faster, faster, faster

The final aspect of a mobile-friendly website is its speed. A slow site ranks poorly on Google and will lead 50% of people to click off if page load time is longer than three seconds.

• To ensure your mobile website stays as quick as Usain Bolt take a look at your browser caching and image optimisation.
  Browser caching is information that your customer’s computer saves, like your site’s HTML or images. By saving this data, the next time they click on your website it will load faster. Talk to your developer to ensure that your browser caching is working as efficiently as possible.
• Optimising your images to ensure fast load times could take the form of compressing the file sizes, utilising fewer images, or ensuring the dimensions of the images are correct. It’s all about making sure your visitor’s computer has to do less work.

To check how fast your website really is, then take a look at Google’s Site Speed Tool.

It’s time to optimise

A mobile-friendly website has a direct effect on customers’ perceptions of your finance brand, with websites optimised for mobile improving 60% of users’ opinions and ensuring that 74% of users return to your site. With 52.16% of businesses’ rankings altering on mobile devices by three places, and 29.16% changing by 10 places, your finance brand could be losing out on potential customers every day.

While it may seem like a nice option rather than a non-negotiable, with 67% of users more likely to buy from a mobile-friendly website, it pays for finance businesses to create a responsive user experience.

The post Why Your Finance Website Must Be Mobile-Friendly appeared first on Financial Marketer.

STASH – powerful educational content

Finance brands disrupting the banking industry is what really stands out amongst this year’s Webby Award winners and nominees. Nominated for best financial services app, the STASH personal finance and investing app provides tools and guidance to help consumers achieve financial freedom from traditional banking institutions. 

Financial marketers need to watch out for disruptive brands like STASH that are challenging the status quo and putting financial literacy above all else for consumers.

Financial marketers need to watch out for disruptive brands like STASH that are challenging the status quo and putting financial literacy and understanding above all else for consumers. STASH is using education as a powerful content marketing tool to teach its audience about markets, budgeting and investing. Content marketing is at the heart of how STASH interacts with its audience, boasting a dedicated content hub that uses iconography and dynamic charts to help explain investments and projections. Targeted a millennial audience, the challenger brand steers clear of the static excel charts many finance brands are known for, embracing a more design-led style with simple, eye-catching and easy to understand data visualisations.  
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RangeDe – striking illustration

Social change is at the heart of RangDe, India’s first peer-to-peer online micro-lending platform. A Webby Award website nominee, the RangDe homepage uses beautiful illustrations to explain its concept of providing relief to marginal farmers through interest-free loans. 

Financial marketers should take note that websites gracing the Webby Awards’ ranks aren’t heavy on stock standard images of suits in a boardroom or shaking hands – so don’t be afraid to break-free from stereotypically brand-safe imagery. What makes RangDe’s website stand out from most finance brands is its unique design and style, incorporating illustration and animation. Illustration is a style synonymous with storytelling and a technique finance brands could use to capture an audience’s attention and explain the journey the brand has been on. 

Happy Money – impactful language

Taking home the title of Best Website, Happy Money is helping borrowers become savers with products that help you divorce from your credit cards and leave “sad money” behind. Pairing bold design with direct and impactful language, Happy Money has taken a refreshing approach that does away with the boring and stuffy language synonymous with many finance websites. 

Design Matters – stand-out speakers

2020 saw the introduction of the podcast category for the Webby Awards with Debbie Millman’s Design Matters taking out the title of Honoree. Millman is a renowned design author, educator and brand strategist who launched the world’s first podcast about creativity and design. Since 2005, Millman has interviewed luminaries such as philosopher Alain de Botton, Googler Robert Wong and illusionist Derren Brown to name a few. Millman has carefully curated a list of guests that spark creative and compelling discussions around design and what it means. All finance brands should look to Design Matters as an excellent example of the weight of having credible and insightful guest speakers featuring in podcasts. 

Business wars – powerful storytelling

While not a finance brand, Business Wars is another successful podcast worth noting that unpicks the rivalries between some of the world’s biggest brands like Netflix vs. HBO or Nike vs. Adidas. Delving into what drives each business, the podcast could serve as creative inspiration for asset and wealth managers looking for new ways to report on high conviction stocks or emerging businesses worth watching. 

If you’re looking for some more inspiration, the full list of Webby Awards winners can be found here. 

The post What finance brands are doing differently to win Webby Awards appeared first on Financial Marketer.

Website UX vs UI: What’s the difference?

We start off by asking Bradshaw to help us better understand exactly what ‘website design’ means, particularly with regards to users and conversion. He explains, “In this context, design is referred to as UI design (User Interface). Great website design should start with the UX (User Experience) process. This begins with research, analysis and ascertaining what is the best user experience for both your brand and the end-user or customer. From here the UI designer will take over. They will work on a design hierarchy and implement design techniques that users will interact with to achieve the desired conversion.” In order to provide a clear customer journey, both UX and UI should be considered at the start of the website design process.

Great website design should start with the UX (User Experience) process.

When it comes to designing for conversions, finance brands, in particular, must manage the sheer breadth of conversions they will be trying to achieve. As Bradshaw highlights, “A bank, for example, may have half a dozen completely different conversion funnels that it is looking to achieve within its one website, e.g. signing up to a bank account, a credit card or a home loan.” So for Bradshaw, this means the site must work much harder to simplify and streamline the experience for users. The homepage, for instance, will need to present a multitude of different options for the user. “The challenge for the UX designer and the UI designer is to find the simplest way for the user to navigate to where they want,” Bradshaw explains.

What exactly is wireframing and why does it matter when designing a finance website?

Wireframes are a design buzzword that we’ve all heard of, but how important are they? Bradshaw walks us through their purpose: “Wireframing comes before the actual design process. It is a way to illustrate the structure of the site. It is also a way to map out user needs and the user journey. As a finance content agency, wireframing is particularly beneficial as it allows us to work closely with a finance brand to finalise the structure of a website that will successfully convert, before entering design. It means that any small changes can be ironed out before design, as even a small detail can lead to large structural changes to a website’s design. Design can then take place, working over the top of the wireframes to make them look visually appealing,” he says.

Bradshaw’s top 5 tips for designing a finance website that converts

1. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear
   There are many blogs out there that promise a magic formula that will work for any website. These design processes have their benefits, but ultimately it is the product you are selling or the quality of your service that will ensure you convert your customers.
2. Count your clicks
   A great number to always bear in mind is the amount of clicks it takes for a user to get where they want. Always avoid an extra step or page that isn’t completely necessary.
3. Your homepage is your shopfront
   It needs to draw the user in. Ensure you present a simple homepage that outlines exactly what your brand does, and quickly directs the user to where they need to go.
4. Calls-to-action
   It’s important to not only provide clear calls-to-action but also consider a hierarchy of CTAs. For the most important CTA, try a button that stands out against the rest of the site (eg. A solid black button on a majoritively white themed site.) For secondary buttons, use either a keyline button or a button that uses the site’s colour. For less important buttons, use a grey fill with the website colour for the text.
   
5. Imagery makes (and breaks) a website
   It goes without saying but avoid cheesy, badly-lit stock imagery. If you do choose to use stock photos, source high-quality natural-looking imagery. The ideal situation would be to create your own imagery that illustrates your service or product as you can see in the case for content example on The Dubs website.
   

Top design mistakes to avoid

1. A slow site doesn’t convert
   If you choose to have large or a lot of imagery, make sure your site can handle it. Slow loading times will have an impact on overall conversions (as well as your potential SEO ranking).
2. Keep it simple
   Make sure your message is clear, but don’t overload the user with information or jargon. Consider both the language and the imagery you use, and whether it provides your potential customer with a quick, coherent understanding of what your brand does.
3. Trust is everything
   Users need to feel your brand is trustworthy, so it’s vital that your site communicates that your finance brand is real, genuine and already has existing satisfied customers. This can be achieved through the site’s imagery, but could also include quotes from satisfied customers as well as star reviews.
4. Too many fields in your forms
   People are less likely to convert if you’re asking for too much info. Formstack found that by reducing forms to 10 fields or less leads to an increase in conversions by 120%.

Five finance websites using great design with a focus on conversion

We asked Bradshaw if there were any finance brands in the market that he felt were doing a good job designing for conversions, and following some of the key pointers he has highlighted to us:

1. BlackRock
   Bradshaw calls out BlackRock’s clean black and white design and great use of imagery, acknowledging that finding imagery that stands out in this sector can be difficult. BlackRock has put thought into abstract concepts and imagery and coupled this with nice illustration.
2. Nuveen
   In a sea of bland and predictable designs, Nuveen stands out with its modern layout, strong use of colour and nice use of imagery and iconography. However, Bradshaw flags that the customer journey could be clearer and more streamlined.
3. HSBC UK
   Although the layout doesn’t break the mould. The HSBC UK site is clear and to the point, requiring just a couple of clicks to get to where you want to go. HSBC is also a good example of CTA hierarchy, with its consistent use of primary and secondary buttons. The site also employs progressive, multi-cultural imagery which is an important consideration of global design.
4. CommBank
   CommBank ensures a good user journey with a minimal amount of clicks. Bradshaw also highlights their use of imagery and iconography as a strong point.
5. Westpac
   Bradshaw particularly appreciates the design of the four dropdown menus which take the user straight to where they want to go directly from the homepage. The personal and business sections below the dropdowns also work well as they are clean and well laid out.

Designing for conversion is a huge task with many facets to consider. If there’s one crucial takeaway from Bradshaw’s insights, it’s that it must be considered from the beginning and in every aspect of your design process. Try to look at your website with new eyes – look at it from the perspective of a potential customer and someone who has never interacted with your brand before. Ask yourself if the design of your website is making that customer’s path to conversion as easy and encouraging as it can be. At The Dubs we specialise in website UX design for finance brands. If your website isn’t working hard enough for your brand, get in touch.

Related articles

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• Should finance brands be designing for dark mode?
• The trick to long-form content design

The post How to design a finance website that converts customers appeared first on Financial Marketer.

1. On-Site. A lot of brands make their blog part of their main website – take Goldman Sachs, who keep their insights page on their company site at https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/

2. Subdomain. Other brands use a subdomain linked to their website to house content. For example, Santander created its hub ‘Prosper and Thrive’ – https://thehub.santanderbank.com/ – to store articles and tools that appeal to millennials.

3. Standalone hub. Some brands create a content hub that exists as a separate entity to their main site. This method is often used to host separate campaigns or competitions, such as Prudential’s Challenge Lab – https://www.workandthings.com/prudential

Choosing one of these solutions will have a differing impact on SEO and the customer journey. So what are the key benefits – and weaknesses – of each approach?

On-site content

Keeping your blog content on your main website creates a smooth customer journey. It’s an easy and intuitive way for customers to navigate from your homepage to your blog and vice-versa, and means that directing customers to your blog through marketing material invites them to explore your site further.

On-site content also builds your SEO. In technical terms, keeping your blog as pages on your website helps to build the authority of this domain. This is because when external websites link to your blog content, your main site claims all of the domain authority – the secret sauce of SEO. Not only that, but a well-structured subfolder for your blogs will help search engines read your website and rank you favourably as a result.

When external websites link to your blog content, your main site claims all of the domain authority – the secret sauce of SEO.

Subdomain content

Many brands keep blog content as part of a subdomain for a number of reasons. From an SEO perspective, it’s important to note that your subdomain will be treated by Google as a separate entity to your main site – this will likely result in a dilution of domain authority. However, there are also SEO benefits to a subdomain. Many brands use a subdomain to insert hard-to-rank search terms into the URL of their blog, contributing to SEO rankings. Subdomains can also help to build niche authority about certain topics.

If your content hub is particularly extensive, a subdomain can also provide a neat, flexible and user-friendly way of storing your work.

Standalone content hub

This is the least common method of storing content for finance brands, but it makes sense in specific circumstances. There are no SEO advantages for your main site if you choose to build a standalone content hub, but it could be useful for separate campaigns, activations in different countries or to store content that branches out from your corporate site into new audiences or areas of interest.

When considering where to store your content, you need to think about your customer journey, SEO requirements and the scale of your content operation before deciding on the solution that’s right for you.

When it comes to mapping your customer journey, web design and your all-important SEO strategy, we can help set your finance brand up for success. Get in touch.

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The post On-site vs subdomain: Where to house your content appeared first on Financial Marketer.

Not all industries are voice-search equal

There are a host of popular voice-search stats quoted in market today. From Comscore’s (possibly misquoted) infamous prediction that 50% of all searches will be voice by 2020 to Gartner’s prediction that 30% of searches will be without a screen in that same year. But how do these stats affect the financial industry? Voice search is a natural progression for fact-finding, weather reports, music selection and even its gradual entry into the retail space. Reports suggest retail has seen slow growth in voice; with only 2% of Amazon Echo owners actually using voice search to make a purchase in 2018, and 90% of those not repeating the process.

Finance is an even tougher voice market to crack. A study undertaken by Answerlab found privacy and security concerns will make it tough for the financial industry to fully embrace voice technology. Of the smart speaker owners who were surveyed:

• Less than 30% were interested in applying for a credit card
• Less than 40% were interested in checking their credit score
• Less than 40% were interested in getting financial advice

South Park trolled Amazon Alexa owners in this week’s episode pic.X.com/7UWe8CBnUH

— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) September 16, 2017

Privacy and security concerns will make it tough for the financial industry to fully embrace voice technology.

The industry also had the highest negative scores, including 29% of respondents replying they were not at all interested in getting financial advice from voice-enabled interactions. The main reason for this lack of interest was generally related to security concerns, both due to potential hacking as well as the open location of most voice assistants in the home.

Can finance brands benefit from the growth in voice search?

With sales of smart speakers tripling in 2017, voice search is not going away anytime soon so the financial industry should continue to monitor opportunities. Building customer confidence by providing non-sensitive information or notifications through voice search is a simple step in the right direction. Maintain best practice, be aware of the trend towards natural language and simple questions in voice – now is the time set the right foundations for future voice search potential.

It’s also important for financial brands to stay on top of emerging technology. Keeping voice in mind when building new functionality will stand you in good stead. Consumers are clearly embracing voice and it’s likely only a matter of time until security catches up and it will play a greater part of the financial marketing mix.

Related articles

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The post Are finance brands ready for voice search? appeared first on Financial Marketer.

It makes for amusing reading, but the upshot is home loans still frustrate the heck out of customers, especially first home buyers. St George respondents cited three top irritants: the amount of red tape or paperwork, not knowing where you stand, and the process taking too long.

18% of people would rather sit in peak hour traffic than go through a traditional home loan application process, 20% would rather go to the dentist and 19% would prefer to dine with the in-laws.

We really didn’t need a survey to tell us that. Look at the amount of verification required – documents to provide and questions to answer, living expenses pored over – the endless back and forth. It feels invasive and repetitive, with manual intervention at every step of the way. And the process takes so long.

Already banks are required by APRA and ASIC to keep records explaining why an application has been assessed in a certain way. After the banking Royal Commission publishes its final report, we might find scrutiny of loans ratchet up a notch or three.

How St George tackled their painful process

St George says it tackled the home loan pain problem by launching a new online home loan application tool “to simplify the process and help educate buyers along the way”. Their app gives St George applicants a personalised home loan snapshot, showing how much they can borrow, upfront costs and monthly repayments. There’s also a “personalised” interest rate. Basically, it’s an indicative approval pre-auction in under 15 minutes and doesn’t require you to go through the full face-to-face process. And it’s written in a plain-English, non-taxing way.

It’s a step in the right direction. After you apply though, you still have to talk through the whole thing with a home loan expert. St George still needs to assess the suitability of the loan for your purposes, verify your information and check your credit history before they can proceed to conditional approval.

Compare that to how some fintechs are doing it. We’ve already blogged about Tic:Toc, the online-only lender that uses a digital algorithm to process your application in real time. Their pitch is the “22-minute home loan,” (assuming you have all your documents ready).

The future for home loan onboarding

So back to St George and the major banks. The last thing you want, if you’ve invested in finely-tuned content marketing, is a cumbersome home loan process that turns away the customers you’ve fought so hard to win over.

Digital is awesome, everyone says so. But just dumping everything online isn’t enough. Here are some thoughts about what mortgages might look like in the future to help raise your aim.

• We’re the last generation who will use the term mortgage. This from retail banking innovator and banking futurist Brett King.
• It’s not just a matter of retrofitting the old-school mortgage application into an online form. You’re dealing with homebuyers who are digital natives. The process must be intuitive and interactive.
• Digital natives look for customised, personalised experience (think curated playlists) and transparency around fees and costs.
• Borrowers will want to be able to check the status of their loan at any time and from any device.
• Digital processing and data leveraging will reduce the turnaround time of loans to hours not weeks and reduce the amount of information an applicant needs to submit.
• The real shift for banks is around experience. Think voice commands, phone apps, augmented reality as part of home loan platforms – more accessible and with fewer touch points. There will likely come a day when there are no touchpoints.
• The future will be all about responding to a customer when and where they need help, and not just during business hours. Think 24/7 access to service, with or without human intervention, and on any medium.
• Processes will be frictionless, products will not be reinforced through multi-channel architecture and nobody will “own” customers.
• Even the smartest digital processes need a human touch at times. Combining an automated mortgage process that takes minutes, with a friendly voice to help answer any questions might be the best balance of old and new.

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• AI takes creative control over finance marketing
• Why MoneyMe is going in to bat for millennials

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