Turning a financial wellness company into a category of one

The Challenge
Introducing a new category – financial wellness.

Financial wellness is a voluntary employee benefit from FinFit that helps workers better manage and save their money. The benefit also provides access to affordable loans, repayable through payroll deduction. FinFit offers employers a turn-key program that lessens employee financial stress, while reducing lost productivity due to employees spending work time to resolve personal financial emergencies.

The task is to educate employers on the benefits that financial wellness brings to their organization through increases in worker productivity, employee engagement, retention, satisfaction and loyalty.

The goal is to convince the target audiences – employers, benefits consultants, professional employer organizations and others – that launching a FinFit financial wellness program will provide a significant ROI.

The Realization
The statistics are frightening: 57% of American workers have less than $1,000 in savings; 21% don’t even have a savings account; 67% have difficulty paying their household expenses on time; and 48% must use credit cards to buy monthly necessities. The cost to U.S. business caused by stressed, absent workers spending work time on personal financial emergencies is estimated at more than $300 billion annually.

The Solution
BRITE collaborated with FinFit to help distill the message and determine the hierarchy of communications for the marketing initiatives and materials. The average person believes that talking about money is dull, yet most are also often stressed over their own personal financial situation. Communicating the concept in terms that both employers and employees saw as a significant benefit was essential.

For FinFit president David Kilby, BRITE ghostwrote a definitive 175-page book on financial wellness (available on Amazon), that is used by FinFit as a marketing tool at trade shows and at presentations. The FinFit program includes online personal dashboards and interactive education modules for employees. In addition, BRITE crafts blog posts, articles and collateral material that delivers the message and resonates with the target market.

Results
FinFit is one of the nation’s largest financial wellness benefit organizations, covering over 100,000 employees, and is growing rapidly. According to a FinFit employer study conducted in 2017, the program has helped 84% of covered workers solve a financial problem; 70% increased their personal savings.