Marketing for financial services is more than simply acquiring new customers with pretty packaging and cool Snapchat filters. Dustin Cohn, who heads brand marketing for Marcus by Goldman Sachs, said marketing is also an important tool to service, and thus retain, existing customers.
“The key to marketing in financial services today, and certainly the key to our marketing strategy at Marcus, is to educate the consumer,” Cohn said. “We’re trying to add value above and beyond our products, whether that is communicating our offerings or informing customers about things that are outside Marcus.”
There is also a crucial compliance angle when it comes to advertising for financial services.
“For example, you cannot target specific ethnicities because of the Fair Lending Act,” Cohn said. In contrast to lenders, a phone company can target a specific demographic (notice all those call-family-around-the-world campaigns).
“So the way we look at our campaigns and branding is to serve, inform, and demystify finance for people,” Cohn said. “And for us to provide that service, you don’t need to be a Marcus customer.”
Clarity Money, which Marcus acquired earlier this year, comes to mind.
“The way I think of Clarity is it lets us interact with regular customers by giving them tips, helping them budget, etc.,” he said. “For example, many people don’t know they can pay off credit card debt with a personal loan, we communicate that through Clarity.”
Of course, it also helps Marcus given that one of the company’s core businesses is offering personal loans. So far, Marcus has originated over $4 billion in loans, according to Cohn.
Its other core business is a savings account product, offering an APY rate of 2.05%. “That’s four times the national average,” Cohn said.
To market that benefit to consumers, Marcus kicked off a campaign today, releasing a video survey showing that 60% of those with savings accounts don’t know their APY rates, while 56% of consumers opened accounts with their banks without exploring other options. The survey found that the average APY is 0.5% or less.
And to supplement this ad campaign, Marcus launched a feature that lets customers switch over to a Marcus savings account through the Clarity Money app. Consumers are given the option to open an account through the app or are prompted to the website.
The entire account-opening process can be completed in a few minutes and can be done via mobile.
So far, Marcus has $26 billion in deposits to date, and over 1.5 million customers in the U.S. across lending, deposits and Clarity Money, he said.
Marcus hopes this campaign helps increase those numbers.
Other forms of marketing that Cohn has used for the company include social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. And like other fintech companies such as investment platform Acorns, Betterment and some challenger banks, Marcus also finds marketing value in its Marcus Content Hub, a blog where the company posts financial advice, and proprietary research.





