Skip navigation
The Financial Services Marketing Handbook
Book

The Financial Services Marketing Handbook

Tactics and Techniques that Produce Results

Bloomberg Press, 2004 more...


Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

No one claims that marketing any service is easy, but marketing financial services is especially difficult. Today, you can buy financial products – mutual funds, insurance, banking services, mortgages, credit cards – through a variety of channels and providers, often at a discount. This creates a challenge for financial marketers, who tend to rely on proven time-tested marketing techniques from other industries that are not always effective for financial products. Here, consultants Evelyn Ehrlich and Duke Fanelli present marketing basics in a financial services context. Their best material comes from short case studies or vignettes from real financial services companies. Readers may wish there were more of these since much of the marketing content is not new. This is a good basic book for newcomers to marketing in the financial services industry, but veterans will find it less valuable. getAbstract recommends it to novice marketers or to those working in financial service firms’ non-marketing areas (such as operations, shareholder services or sales) who want a marketing briefing.

Take-Aways

  • Financial services advertising is regulated more than any other industry’s advertising, except pharmaceuticals.
  • Financial institutions know more about their clients than other businesses. However, many institutions have not used this treasure trove of information.
  • Banks have a much higher retention rate than other types of businesses. Customers think it’s difficult to transfer assets or close accounts. It is not.

About the Authors

Evelyn Ehrlich, PhD, has been president of Ehrlich Creative Communications, a marketing consulting firm, since 1982. Her clients have included many financial service companies. She has a PhD from New York University. Louis A. “Duke” Fanelli has more than 25 years of marketing experience in financial services. He spent 15 years at J.P. Morgan Chase managing the retail sales network and worked as a journalism and public relations executive.