Financial Marketing and Cross Selling Blog
Adidas fails to understand their audience
As you may have noticed, this blog is focused on bank marketing. We talk about how to cross sell more products and services to bank customers. One important ingredient is knowing your customer and making sure you’re listening to what they have to say. Every now and then we hear of great examples of other industries adopting successful strategies that banks could learn from. We also find examples of strategies that show “what not to do”. Here’s a great “what not to do” story.
Thanks to Rick Burnes of HubSpot for pointing me in the direction of the blog, RedsArmy.wordpress.com, I learned that Adidas came out with a new Laker’s t-shirt. Ok, so what? Adidas makes tons of sports t-shirts. Sure, but do the folks making the shirts know their audience? Clearly the answer is no.
If you’re not a sports fan or rather a basketball fan, let me bring you up to speed. Fans of the Boston Celtics and fans of the L.A. Lakers despise one another. It’s been ingrained ever since the days of Bill Russell for the Celtics and Jerry West for the Lakers (1960′s) all the way up till now with Kobe Bryant hated by every Boston newborn and Paul Pierce snubbed by every Laker “celebrity” fan.
The colors of the Boston Celtics are green for obvious reasons. The shamrock is dawned by every fan in the stands and is printed on the floors of the court. So you would think that the last color a Lakers fan would want to wear or the last symbol they’d want to associate with their squad would be green and the shamrock. Well, I give you the latest t-shirt developed by Adidas:
I don’t think I have to tell you that this shirt will not sell out it’s original allotment. Lets just hope they didn’t make too many.
What product line presents the greatest cross selling opportunity for banks?
In a recent poll posted by the BAI Community, members were asked, “What area presents the greatest cross selling opportunity for banks?” I answered by selecting “retirement”. And I wasn’t the only one. The percentage was heavily weighed towards retirement. Another poll asked if retirement products were a priority moving forward. As of today, fifty percent said “yes, definitely a priority” while the other fifty said, “yes, but other products take precedence”.
So it’s clear that banks see an opportunity with respect to retirement. And they’re not the only ones. In 2007, a study was released by the BAI and Mercatus LLC done in conjunction with Deluxe of 2,977 mass affluent US consumers (35-75 years of age with $50,0000-$2 million in investable assets). It was conducted to help banks figure out the best way to compete for retirement assets. The study grouped people into attitudinal segments to identify which segments are most likely to deal with a bank for their retirement savings. According to the study, “mass affluent consumers who are generally less confident about retirement, and who are worried they lack sufficient assets to retire, are the most receptive to bank messages.” The study also indicated that this group was relatively large “representing 69% of the mass affluent investable assets exceeding $370,000.”
So what does it take to win over retirement assets? I direct your intention to one of the leading institutions with respect to retirement assets, Fidelity. Recently, they developed a new website. It’s currently active but they haven’t made it their official home page. You can visit the site here: https://www.fidelity.com/pf/destination/retail.jhtml
After playing around with the new site, you’ll notice one thing. Its focus is not on their individual products. The front of the page showcases an article written by a member of their “Fidelty Interactive Content Services” team. The content is generally unbiased. The only thing they point to that has Fidelity’s name on it are their various online services such as calculators and their own money manager, “Fidelity Full View”. The latter is similar to sites like mint.com or Yodlee. There are several outside articles from places like CNNmoney.com, the Wall Street Journal and Smartmoney.com.
The focus here is clearly content. Giving visitors as much helpful content as they can possibly muster without making it too overwhelming. They strategically steer you to their tools. In order to use these tools like the “Retirement Quick Check”, you must be a Fidelity member. Members, just like customers, can access these tools at any time. Members will also be informed of special offers. To become a member, all you have to do is provide your name and email address. Those who sign up are clearly interested in saving and investing for retirement. Does this mean that everyone who signs up will become a Fidelity customer. Not necessarily. They may be in it for the free content and tools. But there’s no question this will help Fidelity win new retirement accounts.
Banks can learn a few things from what Fidelity has done here. Instead of using your website as a billboard for your products, make it a hub of helpful information and tools. Banks are making headway with respect to tools but I would argue that many sites have a long way to go with their content. Even those who have good content haven’t necessarily figured out how to use it to drive sales.
Online Social Networking by the BAI
I recently joined the BAI Online Community and so far I’m very impressed with the overall design and functionality of the site.
When you join, you’re asked what’s your goal, who you’re looking to network with and what professional challenge you hope to overcome by joining the community. You create a short bio of who you are, upload a photo, and away you go.
They have several groups you can join such as the BAI Mavericks in Banking, Financial Services Marketers, Banking Strategies Corner and Employment Opportunities. From what I can tell, anyone can join.
There are various ways to connect with
other members in the community. One of my favorite tools is the BAI People Map where you select certain criterias and based on your choices, a circular map appears with little human icons representing all the members that fit your criteria. You are the gray icon in the middle of the map. The more relevant a member is based on the search criteria, the closer they are to you in the map. When you scroll your mouse over each icon, a window pops up with details of the member. Very useful tool for finding contacts.
But like any other online network, it all starts with the blogs. A few select members run the community blogs. You can read each one individually or follow the “community blog” which shows all posts. I’m not sure how you can become a blogger but I’m assuming it has to do with being an actual member of the BAI.
Creating a Service Oriented Sales Culture
In a recent GonzoBanker newsletter, Steve Williams makes the case that sales culture in banks is dead and a new chapter of sales culture is about to begin with the hope that banks have the chance to get it right this time.
In this well written piece, he states, “Across the country, many banks have 10+ years of effort on sales culture without significant improvement in results, but fail to question if they are even building the right mouse trap.” He challenges banks to develop a new type of sales culture built by creating value for customers. In other words, provide a service that customers find valuable that, at the same time, initiates dialogues and creates sales.
What kind of service will do this for banks? To find the answer, you only need to look at what customers are facing today. Customers are scared. For many, the bottom has fallen out of their retirement savings. They are fearful of losing their job. They feel they have no place to turn for answers. The world as they knew it has changed.
And the world too has changed for bankers. In many cases – trust – the backbone of the customer relationship – has eroded. For banks to acquire and retain customers today they need to focus more and more on the value customers see in their bank relationship. The new customer experience needs to go beyond an array of product offerings.
To build strong relationships, banks should give their customers a service they are desperately looking for – simple and easy to understand information about the financial issues they face, whatever their stage in life. Help seeing and understanding the issues they may face before they are blindsided.
The world didn’t stop, it just changed. People will still get married, raise a family, buy houses, save for retirement, send kids to college, retire, live in old age, and, probably leave an estate to their heirs. That means lots of decisions to make. Customers cry out, “Tell me what I need to know.”
Banks that provide such a service will reap the rewards. They will earn back the trust. Banks will become a resource where customers go first, putting them ahead of the competition. A request for information means a customer has raised their hand and is looking for help. Requests for information start dialogues, dialogues lead to referrals, and referrals lead to sales opportunities.
Not only has the customer experience changed, so has the employee experience. In helping customers find information that could be helpful, they feel they are doing them a favor. Instead of the oftentimes painful task of trying to extract information, customers provide it willingly in exchange for something they see as value.
More and more banks across the country are adopting this education based marketing approach. With all of the attention given to acquiring new customers, the value of retention, and customer profitability from cross selling, these banks are the winners.
What Financial Institutions Can Do to Acquire and Retain Customers in Today’s Economic Times
In a recent GonzoBanker newsletter, Steve Williams makes the case that sales culture in banks is dead and a new chapter of sales culture is about to begin with the hope that banks have the chance to get it right this time.
In this well written piece, he states, “Across the country, many banks have 10+ years of effort on sales culture without significant improvement in results, but fail to question if they are even building the right mouse trap.” He challenges banks to develop a new type of sales culture built by creating value for customers. In other words, provide a service that customers find valuable that, at the same time, initiates dialogues and creates sales.
What kind of service will do this for banks? To find the answer, you only need to look at what customers are facing today. Customers are scared. For many, the bottom has fallen out of their retirement savings. They are fearful of losing their job. They feel they have no place to turn for answers. The world as they knew it has changed.
And the world too has changed for bankers. In many cases – trust – the backbone of the customer relationship – has eroded. For banks to acquire and retain customers today they need to focus more and more on the value customers see in their bank relationship. The new customer experience needs to go beyond an array of product offerings.
To build strong relationships, banks should give their customers a service they are desperately looking for – simple and easy to understand information about the financial issues they face, whatever their stage in life. Help seeing and understanding the issues they may face before they are blindsided.
The world didn’t stop, it just changed. People will still get married, raise a family, buy houses, save for retirement, send kids to college, retire, live in old age, and, probably leave an estate to their heirs. That means lots of decisions to make. Customers cry out, “Tell me what I need to know.”
Banks that provide such a service will reap the rewards. They will earn back the trust. Banks will become a resource where customers go first, putting them ahead of the competition. A request for information means a customer has raised their hand and is looking for help. Requests for information start dialogues, dialogues lead to referrals, and referrals lead to sales opportunities.
Not only has the customer experience changed, so has the employee experience. In helping customers find information that could be helpful, they feel they are doing them a favor. Instead of the often times painful task of trying to extract information, customers provide it willingly in exchange for something they see as value.
More and more banks across the country are adopting this education based marketing approach. With all of the attention given to acquiring new customers, the value of retention, and customer profitability from cross selling, these banks are the winners.
Read more postings online at www.truebridge.com
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Truebridge blog looks at financial services marketing with a focus on education and cross selling
Truebridge, Inc. announced today that they have launched a company blog, which can be found at http://www.truebridge.com/. “The site will provide information, opinions, and encourage feedback on marketing topics that we feel are important to the financial services industry”, says Stewart Rose, President of Truebridge. “We will have a particular focus on education based marketing and cross selling but it won’t be limited to that,” says Rose. “We want to explore what is being done well and what is not,” he added. “What are the factors behind the successes and failures? What can we learn from other industries?”
According to Rose, “There is just so much information out there, it’s a matter of sifting through, finding what may be relevant, and sharing opinions on what it means to the industry.”
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