In financial services marketing, there is an ongoing debate around always-on vs campaign marketing. At Hub Agency, we think both have a place in an effective marketing strategy.
Always-on marketing provides continuous engagement, helping firms nurture relationships and use customer data to become more relevant over time. Campaign marketing provides focused, time-bound activity designed to build awareness or drive action around a particular opportunity.
The question, then, isn’t necessarily which approach is better. It’s when to use each – and how to make them work together.
In this article, we’ll look at how financial services firms can balance always-on and campaign-led marketing. We’ll draw on insights from our financial services marketing podcast, The Growth Engine, where Charlotte Lamb, Demand Generation Director at BNY Mellon, talks about her experience of running demand generation programmes. We’ll also draw on Hub Agency’s own work and research into always-on marketing.
What is always-on marketing?
Always-on marketing is an approach where communication with customers and prospects continues beyond the start and end dates of individual campaigns.
Instead of repeatedly starting and stopping, always-on marketing creates an ongoing presence across relevant channels and gives firms an opportunity to nurture audiences over time.
This can be particularly valuable in financial services, where customers often make complex, considered and long-term decisions. Someone who encounters your brand today may not be ready to act today.
Being useful and relevant throughout that journey increases the likelihood that your brand will be considered when they are ready.
At Hub Agency, we describe always-on marketing as constant engagement across multiple channels – such as social media, email and digital – designed to build relationships and provide customers with a consistent and increasingly relevant experience.
On The Growth Engine podcast, Charlotte Lamb discusses how BNY Mellon’s always-on demand generation programme in Spain increased marketing qualified leads (MQLs) by 8%, compared with a Pan-European average of 3.9%.
It’s a useful example of what can happen when marketing is designed around sustained engagement rather than a succession of disconnected bursts of activity.
What is campaign marketing?
Campaign marketing is focused activity built around a defined objective, audience and period of time.
While always-on marketing provides continuity, a campaign-led marketing approach can concentrate attention and investment around moments when there is a particularly strong reason to communicate.
In financial services, that might include a product launch, an important market development, a seasonal opportunity or a specific point in the customer journey.
ISA season is an obvious example.
Interest in tax-efficient saving and investing increases around a predictable period, creating an opportunity for financial services brands to run targeted campaigns designed to move relevant audiences from consideration towards action.
Behavioural triggers can provide other campaign opportunities. If an investor has repeatedly engaged with particular product information, for example, a more targeted communication may help them take the next step.
Campaigns therefore provide the spotlight moments. The problem comes when those moments are the only time an audience hears from you.
Always-on vs campaign marketing: what’s the difference?
The simplest distinction is one of continuity and concentration.
Always-on marketing maintains the relationship. Campaign marketing concentrates attention around a particular objective or moment.
Always-on activity can help a financial services firm build familiarity, understand audience behaviour, nurture prospective clients and maintain relationships over time.
Campaigns can then create additional intensity around a product launch, seasonal opportunity, event or other moment when the firm wants an audience to take a particular action.
The two approaches don’t need to compete for the same job.
In fact, always-on activity can make campaigns more effective because the campaign isn’t starting from zero. The audience may already recognise the brand, have engaged with useful content or demonstrated interests that can inform the campaign.
And the relationship doesn’t need to end when the campaign does.
Someone who engages but isn’t yet ready to act can return to the always-on nurture journey rather than simply disappearing from the marketing funnel.
Why financial services firms need both
The strongest financial services marketing strategies can combine the two.
Always-on provides the steady beat of engagement; campaigns create the spotlight moments that drive additional attention and action.
At Hub Agency, we’ve seen clients use always-on activity to nurture prospects and support existing customer relationships while running campaigns around product launches, seasonal opportunities and behavioural triggers.
Charlotte Lamb’s example at BNY Mellon demonstrates the value of sustained demand generation, while focused campaigns can create additional impact around high-priority products and launches.
A great example from Hub Agency’s own work is Janus Henderson.
By layering always-on activity on top of campaign-led marketing, Hub Agency increased organic website traffic by 87% and grew brand awareness by 430%.
The important point isn’t simply that two types of marketing activity were running at once. It’s that they played complementary roles within the wider strategy.
How always-on marketing can improve campaign performance
One of the biggest advantages of combining the approaches is the data and insight generated between campaigns.
Always-on activity can tell you what audiences are engaging with, which subjects interest them, how they’re moving through your digital ecosystem and where they may be demonstrating intent.
Those insights can inform future campaigns.
Instead of treating every new campaign as a fresh start, marketers can use what they’ve already learned about the audience to improve targeting, messaging and timing.
The campaign can also feed the always-on programme.
People who engage with a campaign but don’t convert can enter an appropriate nurture journey. Questions or content themes that perform strongly during the campaign can inform future always-on communications.
That creates a continuous learning cycle:
Always-on engagement → audience insight → targeted campaign → campaign insight → improved nurture
Rather than two competing marketing models, they become connected parts of the same system.
When should you use always-on or campaign marketing?
The right approach depends on what you’re trying to achieve.
Use always-on marketing when you need to:
- Build brand familiarity over time.
- Nurture prospects through a longer decision journey.
- Maintain relationships with existing clients.
- Learn from ongoing audience behaviour and engagement.
- Remain visible between major campaigns.
Use campaign marketing when you need to:
- Support a product or fund launch.
- Capitalise on a seasonal opportunity such as ISA season.
- Generate additional attention around an event or announcement.
- Respond to a relevant market or behavioural trigger.
- Drive a particular audience towards a defined action.
In many cases, the most useful question isn’t “Which one should we use?” but “What role should each play?”
Four tips for combining always-on and campaign marketing
1. Start with the objective
Always-on is well suited to relationship building, ongoing engagement and lead nurturing. Campaigns are useful for specific, time-bound objectives such as product launches or seasonal investment opportunities.
Be clear about the job each activity is supposed to do before deciding how to measure it.
2. Use data in both directions
Use insights from always-on activity to inform campaigns.
During ISA season, for example, existing data about investor interests and behaviour can help determine which audiences receive particular messages.
Then use what you learn from the campaign to improve subsequent always-on communications.
3. Align sales and marketing
Sales teams need to understand when to act on campaign engagement and how ongoing insights from always-on activity can help them follow up appropriately.
Likewise, the questions and objections sales teams encounter can provide useful inputs for future nurture content and campaigns.
4. Measure and optimise
Always-on and campaign marketing shouldn’t necessarily be judged using identical metrics.
A short-term activation campaign may reasonably be measured against immediate action, while an always-on programme may need to demonstrate improvements in engagement, audience development, qualified demand and longer-term commercial outcomes.
Measure each against the role it is designed to play, then look at how the two contribute to the overall customer journey.
Building a more connected financial services marketing strategy
At Hub Agency, we recommend a balanced approach.
Always-on provides consistency, audience insight and ongoing engagement. Campaigns create opportunities to focus attention on the moments that matter.
The real opportunity comes from connecting them.
Instead of repeatedly switching marketing on and off, financial services firms can use always-on activity to develop audiences between campaigns, use those insights to make campaigns more relevant, and then continue nurturing people after the campaign ends.
That creates a more connected approach to financial services marketing – one capable of delivering both short-term impact and longer-term relationships.
