Pegasystems Inc.
12/17/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 12/18/2024 09:15
New Year, New Strategies: Key Financial Services Market Trends You Should Consider in 2025
In an era of rapid technological advancement and evolving customer expectations, financial marketers face both unprecedented challenges and opportunities. As we look ahead to 2025, several key trends are reshaping how financial institutions connect with and serve their customers. Here are the emerging trends forward-thinking marketers need to know about:
Marketing Teams Must Do More Than Sell
The role of financial marketing is undergoing a fundamental transformation. Today's customers expect their financial institutions to be more than just service providers - they want a long-term partner in their financial journey. Marketing teams must pivot from traditional sales-focused approaches and position their brand as a trusted advisor, on hand to help customers navigate their financial lives.
This shift requires marketers to develop deeper, more meaningful relationships with customers through education, guidance, and support. Success in 2025 will depend on creating value-driven content that empowers customers to make informed financial decisions, rather than simply pushing products.
The New Generation of Super Apps Switching Up Engagement
Super apps are revolutionising how customers interact with financial services. These all-in-one platforms are already commonplace in Asia but are fast becoming the new norm in the western world. By 2027, more than half of the world's population will be using Super Apps daily.1 These apps, like AliPay and Revolut, offer seamless integration of various financial services, from banking and investments to insurance and payments.
During 2025, we'll see Super Apps continue to evolve further, creating ecosystems that anticipate and fulfill customer needs before they even arise. Financial marketers must adapt their strategies to this integrated environment, ensuring their institutions remain relevant in a world where convenience and connectivity are paramount. The key will be delivering personalised experiences within these comprehensive platforms while maintaining brand identity and customer trust. Cracking the Super App market could be well worth it, with increased potential for cross sales, improved lifetime value, greater profit margins for financial services brands and enhanced real-time engagement with customers.
Creating a New Norm in Real-Time Customer Experiences
Real-time engagement is no longer a luxury - it's an expectation generated by other service providers and retailers. Around 70% of companies understand this and are already actively investing in technologies that capture intent signals. These can then be leveraged using advanced AI and data analytics to deliver instantaneous, contextually relevant experiences across all channels.2 This means moving beyond reactive service to proactive engagement that anticipates customer needs and provides solutions in the moment.
The challenge for marketers will be orchestrating these real-time experiences while ensuring they remain meaningful and personal. Success will require sophisticated use of data and AI to create interactions that feel both immediate and authentically human.
Reducing the Load in Times of Financial Stress
As economic uncertainties persist, financial marketers must prioritise empathy and support in their strategies. By 2025, successful marketing initiatives will focus on helping customers navigate financial challenges through personalised guidance, stress-reducing tools, and proactive support systems.
This trend reflects a broader shift toward purpose-driven marketing, where success is measured not just in conversions but in genuine positive impact on customers' financial well-being. Smart marketers will leverage technology to identify signs of financial stress early and deploy targeted support mechanisms. Getting this right can yield healthy returns with up to 78% of people willing to reuse their bank when it has provided support in times of financial difficulty.3
Gen AI Is Transforming Content Creation
Generative AI is revolutionising how financial marketers create and deliver content. By 2025, AI will enable unprecedented levels of personalisation, allowing marketers to produce highly relevant content at scale while maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements.
This technology will help marketers create everything from personalised financial advice to tailored product recommendations, all while ensuring consistency in brand voice and regulatory compliance. Around 85% of marketers in a recent Hubspot survey found that AI was making the delivery of high-quality content easier. However, deploying AI to upgrade your marketing collateral isn't straightforward. Around 60% of participants in the same survey also expressed reservations around potential biases, hallucinations, plagiarism or misalignment with brand values that could result from using AI.4 The key to overcoming these will be finding the right balance between AI-generated efficiency and human creativity to maintain authentic connections with customers.
User Engagement Is Levelling Up with Gamification
It's tough to stand out in today's Retail Banking market. The good news is that gamification provides a refreshing customer experience that captures attention and delivers on KPIs. Gamification has grown in popularity and use - think Vitality Health or completing those 'rings' on your Apple Watch. Gamification can help build relationships, engage customers, increase a customer's spend on their card, nudge them to put their card on their smart phone, help them save, and so much more.
There are plenty of great examples out there in the market of Retail Banks using Gamification to great effect. One of our favourites is Monzo who noticed that younger demographics often face a steep learning curve in financial matters. Monzo used Gamification to make education more engaging and accessible. They provided insights into spending habits and offered various challenges and goals to help users manage their finances.
From personalised challenges to social interactions, these game-like elements resonate with all generation's, creating an emotional connection with financial matters.
The era of gamified finance is just beginning. The fusion of technology, psychology, and economics is redefining the way we engage with money. Whether it's through encouraging sustainable investing, encouraging specific actions or turning financial education into a rewarding experience, the future is full of possibilities.
Looking Ahead
As we approach 2025, financial marketers must embrace these trends while keeping customer needs at the center of their strategies. Success will require a delicate balance of technology adoption and human touch, ensuring that innovations serve to enhance, rather than replace, meaningful customer relationships.
The financial institutions that thrive will be those that successfully integrate these trends into a coherent, customer-centric strategy that delivers value at every interaction. The future of financial marketing lies not just in selling products, but in creating experiences that engage as well as empower customers and build lasting relationships.
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