Compliance

In the financial services industry, compliance refers to the rules, policies, and procedures that financial firms must follow. Compliance makes sure that firms meet legal, regulatory, and ethical standards. It also governs they market their services and communicate with clients.

Think of compliance as your marketing GPS. It helps you navigate the complex landscape of regulations from agencies like the SEC, FINRA, and CFPB to data privacy frameworks like GDPR and CCPA. When brands meet regulatory obligations, they reduce their legal and financial risk.

While these regulations and guidelines might seem restrictive to some, they're meant to protect clients from being misled or treated unfairly. Compliance regulations also aim to protect clients from fraud.

With the right mindset, compliance also positively influences marketing performance. It can be used as a brand reputation builder that helps firmstrust and credibility. Strict compliance standards can spark practical innovations in technology, processes, and teamwork.

It's no secret: content creation can expose brands to risk. As search channels keep fragmenting into social media, video, and AI-driven experiences, marketers must adapt. Meanwhile, every YouTube ad, TikTok short, Instagram post, 1:1 text, chat, or automated email must meet strict regulatory standards. Plus, clients expect personalization 93% want to communicate with businesses via text.

Compliance teams are expected thoroughly to review potentially risky content. They're also frequently burdened by heavy, high-stakes workloads. More often than not, lengthy compliance review cycles create friction and frustration.

By the time marketing content receives approval, the moment to make a marketing impact may have already passed. This is particularly challenging when trying to capitalize on real-time news, market trends, or other timely opportunities. Local teams may struggle even more when compliance processes are siloed in a corporate legal department or decentralized to team members without effective training.

Success in financial marketing requires reimagining how we approach compliance.

Here's how to build a strategy that satisfies both marketing goals and regulatory requirements:

1. Integrate compliance from the start

Success in financial services marketing isn't about choosing between compliance and effectiveness — it's about making them work together. Marketing pros don't treat compliance as a final checkpoint; instead, they embed it into the content creation process.

When compliance understands marketing's goals and the need for speed, and marketing respects rules and risks, you can create better content and get approvals faster.

Here are a few examples of how your marketing team can embed compliance into your content creation workflows:

• Create compliance-approved templates for common marketing materials.

• Document clear guidelines for different content types and bake them into your templates.

• Develop a library of pre-approved messages and copy related to known market cycles, product, and service campaigns.

• Build relationships with your compliance team so they see you as an invested partner.

2. Streamline review processes

Compliance reviews don't have to feel like hurry-up-and-wait. After all, not every social post or content type carries the same regulatory risk. Developing a risk-based approach to content review helps marketing and compliance teams establish strategic review processes based on content type and risk level.

Here are some examples of tactics marketers can use to streamline compliance review processes:

• Use automated content-scanning tools like profile managers. These tools detect unapproved changes and revert agent/advisor profiles back to a previously approved version. At the same time, they automatically submit the changes the agent/advisor made to compliance for approval.

• Use lexicons to flag content in the content creation process. For instance, a risk lexicon is a standardized set of terms, definitions, disclaimers, etc., that marketers create in partnership with risk management. Similarly, a blocking lexicon prevents a word from even flowing into a channel. It has "detect-in" functionality to flag specific words in higher-risk channels like DMs or emails. Marketers use them to ensure compliance and consistency.

• Create tiered review processes based on risk level and channel. It's easier to take down a video on your website than it is to pull a viral social post.

• Use the PPI framework (Personal, Professional, and Industry) for agent/adviser social media content. As wealth shifts from Boomers to Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z, these customers expect social content — and reward brands with engagement and loyalty.

• Set up clear escalation steps and service-level agreements (SLAs) with compliance teams when content needs a review due to uncertain or clear risks.

• Give your processes and teams time to build trust. Then, run with that trust – using SLAs, best practices, and level of risk tolerance guidelines as your guide.

3. Leverage social media technology effectively

Purpose-built tools and in-house compliance expertise minimize risk for firms. Your martech stack can help bridge the gap between compliance and marketing efficiency:

• Upgrade your tech stack with compliance management platforms and social media archiving tools. With the right tools, supervising video in a compliant, scalable way shouldn't burden your compliance team.

• Adopt workflow automation and triage systems to quickly direct content reviews to an appropriate compliance colleague. For instance, content with risky keywords like "advice" or "cheat" appearing in brand or user-generated content (UGC) can fit into those workflows.

• Empower agents/advisors to create compliant yet highly engaging videos with built-in compliance supervision. Because videos are considered "static" content, they're subject to stricter rules than simple posts or comments.

Remember, compliance isn't just about avoiding problems. It's also about building a sustainable marketing operation that can grow and innovate responsibly.

Yext helps financial brands seamlessly integrate compliance into social media, text messaging, and marketing workflows. Our approach balances compliance, engagement, and efficiency, making sure firms can make the most of each marketing touchpoint while minimizing risk.

The future of financial marketing lies in the ability to innovate while maintaining compliance. As new marketing channels emerge and regulations evolve, successful marketers will adapt quickly to channel opportunities without sacrificing compliance. Learn more in the 2025 State of Compliance >>