Financial Services PR – Financial media is much less forgiving than other types of media. Companies play the game of speculation’s grand juggle with unusual fervour. Which stocks are likely to fall the most? Where will the markets go in the morning?
Doing good work and trusting that the markets would recognise it is risky (and perhaps extremely expensive) because there may be such a huge discrepancy between what firms are actually achieving and how they are viewed. You need “spin” in your favour, in the mildest and least pejorative sense of the phrase.This is where public relations in the financial sector comes in.
What Does Financial PR Mean?
To put it simply, financial public relations is the practice of taking data about your financial services PR firm and reorganising it in a way that will appeal to your target audience, be it investors, consumers, or shareholders.
In theory, finance is simple: there is one output, money, and one input, money. In practice, however, there are a million ways to announce the money a business has made or can make, a million ways to announce losses, a million ways to entice potential investors or patrons, a million combinations of financial instruments and, thus, a million places a corporation can insert itself in the exchange and redoubling of money. And also, in the midst of all this nuance, it’s easy to forget that money is ultimately about people and not just numbers. That’s why you need a plan for how you’ll communicate with them.
Why Are Financial PRs So Essential?
There are several ways in which public relations can help your company. Shareholders in the banking, wealth management, insurance, and similar sectors are just as receptive to instructional materials, invitations to participate, and displays of authority, competence, and mutual understanding as those in any other sector. There is aggressive competition in the financial services industry. Thus, many firms in this sector use public relations to set themselves apart from their rivals and attract customers. To some extent, PR in the financial sector could include campaigns with any of these goals.
If a financial firm doesn’t have a handle on public relations, it risks having any number of things go wrong, including having an accomplishment get lost in the shuffle of the news cycle, having the general public misinterpret its silence as an indication of arrogance or lack of credibility, and having market disruptions go unaddressed, which could cause investors to sell off their shares. Public relations is crucial since it can change the direction of stories that might otherwise be unfavourable to your business.
Financial services PR can help businesses in the following 6 ways:
1. Establishing Your Niche Audience
When competing against other businesses that do essentially the same thing as yours, it can be tough to separate from the crowd. However, PR strategies can aid in financial matters. There is always room for differentiation amongst businesses, and a financial communications agency can help you identify an area of specialisation that will benefit your clientele. Then, they may advise you on how to draw attention to that differentiator in a way that will hopefully make it an integral part of your brand and a signature of your services.
2. Establish Brand Character
One of the most effective PR tools for use in financial communications is to demonstrate the human side of the company or organisation through amusement, understanding, and empathy. The public’s perception of you may be that of a faceless, emotionless robot in a grey suit that spends all day staring at spreadsheets, thanks to the finance industry’s unflattering reputation for coldly calculating profits.
3. Improve Your Website’s Design And Copy
In today’s day and age, it is fundamental to have a website that is both impressive and easy to use. Your website’s interface needs to be user-friendly. What you do and who you do it for should be made very apparent on your website. Moreover, your pricing structure should be intuitive.
Upgrading your site can be as simple as updating stock photos, optimising it for mobile devices, and getting rid of any ambiguous language. By working with a public relations firm, you may increase the number of visitors to your website and strengthen your relationship with existing customers. The people you help need to be able to rely on the information on your website.
4. Real-Time Participation With Social Media Audiences
A public relations expert can set up and manage your profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. On social media, you may have one-on-one conversations with clients, new and old, who have questions about your business. A public relations company can instruct you on how to handle online feedback and private messaging.
LinkedIn pages for financial advisers are recommended because of the network’s emphasis on professional credibility and experience. The PR team may also design a social media calendar to ensure that your channels are always updated with fresh, relevant material that will attract and retain followers.
5. To Offer Guidance On Matters Of Public Interest
Financial public relations firms care about more than just the official performance reports. They are also frequently sought out for input during high-stakes discussions between businesses, particularly when mergers and acquisitions are on the table. For example, a proposed merger often receives harsh criticism because many people fear it would lead to a monopoly or because the firms’ respective customers are against it.
Many businesses are large enough that negative public opinion won’t have much of an impact on them, but that doesn’t mean they want to take the chance. They would regard the cost of hiring public relations professionals to identify strategies to achieve their objectives while minimising negative attention to be money well spent.
Think about the growing emphasis on ensuring the satisfaction of one’s clientele as an example of commercial success. One of the simplest ways for a company to receive praise is to have a reputation for genuinely caring about its customers’ success. However, even a rumour of a business decision that would run opposite to that might destroy that reputation in an instant. This is not a trivial matter.
6. Combating The Risks Of Media Leaks
When the internet was in its infancy, employees weren’t considered a major security risk. After all, newspapers wouldn’t use headlines to discuss personal experiences. But things shifted when platforms like Twitter and Facebook made it simple for anyone to have their views read by thousands, if not millions.
Therefore, a company’s reputation can suffer when an employee leaks confidential information to the public. It doesn’t even have to be scandalous; it only needs to be a collection of small details that add up to make people doubt the brand’s reliability or good faith. In order to identify any problems that could damage the company’s reputation if word of them were to get out to the public or to competing businesses, a financial PR agency can perform a top-to-bottom analysis of the business.
For e.g., A financial firm works hard to uphold its reputation for innovation but fails to do so on the inside. Perhaps, while insisting that all businesses must embrace technology, it still uses paper documents. Perhaps the CEO routinely processes employee payments manually, despite the availability of free payroll software that might accomplish the job more efficiently. The release of such information could be devastating to the company’s reputation and stock price.
Conclusion
Financial public relations (PR) is the practice of managing a financial institution’s image and stock price. This role requires regular presentation and spin of financial figures, advice on public-facing strategic choices, and general assistance to businesses in preventing adverse leaks.