Financial Marketing and Cross Selling Blog
Two surveys confirm Americans still ill prepared for retirement years
If you had any doubts about the average American consumer knowing what direction they should take after retirement, two recent surveys conducted by Putnam and Prudential should help shed some light.
In the Putnam survey they found that 52% of respondents were in need of a better understanding of how much income they would need to maintain their lifestyle in retirement. As for the Prudential survey, one figure showed that 47% of those enrolled in 401k plans said they were unsure as to what types of investments are best to generate income in retirement.
Learn more about these two surveys at Financial Advisor
This reinforces the opportunity that banks and credit unions have to help their customer base become more knowledgeable on financial topics. They should be making this type of information easy and readily accessible at all of their touch points – website, branches, email, mail. Those who are their first to help these individuals understand their options without putting product first will be the one who wins over their relationship.
A move towards simpler times in the banking industry is on the rise
Trader Joe’s has come up with a new lager they call Simpler Times. While it may not be at the top of the drinking list for beer aficionados, the name itself is ingenious. People today are in desperate need of a time when life was easier to understand. Today’s complexities have clouded many of our own judgments and one area where people have clearly been out of touch is their own personal finance.
This is why you’re seeing all this talk about Personal Financial Management tools and people like Aaron Patzer, new CEO of Quicken and founder of mint.com, talking about the simplicity these tools bring to ones financial life.
Tomorrow’s State of the Union will surely gain the attention of not only average citizens but also those tied to financial reform. They’ll be looking out for things like “consumer protection agency” and “too big to fail”. There’s also been talk from the Obama crowd forcing banks to offer what they call “plain vanilla” mortgages (Read more about this in the New York Times). No matter what happens, I think that we can all agree on one thing – the simpler the better.
This is not just to please the bounty hunters in Washington but it’s also to please the customer. People want simple, easy to understand answers to questions they have about their financial needs. The more complex a product the more likely they are to second-guess their decisions. And the last thing you want on your hands is a hesitant client. A decision made in the presence of uncertainty leads later on to finger pointing when times are bad. Just ask your investment advisor how many calls he or she received after the market tumbled in late 2008 asking what they did wrong.
This approach of simplification stems from the product itself to the content that helps educate the client on what it can do for them. One of the biggest challenges when writing financial content is how and when to leave the banker jargon behind. There are some terms you can’t leave out but when necessary, make sure to provide a brief definition or have an easy way for the client to see a glossary of terms.
Whether the client is online or in the branch, put this easy to read and understand educational content front and center. Most people have become numb to things like product brochures – unless, of course, it’s a product they know they need and want. But most people are unsure of what products they need. All they know is they want to make sure their families are protected, their kids get a good education and to retire with peace of mind and perhaps an ice cold Simpler Times to enjoy those relaxing years.
(Image credit: @joefoodie)
White Paper: “Using Customer Education to Boost Image and Sales”
Learn how a customer education approach to marketing can help you genereate more dialogus and referrals despite the economic conditions
Download Using Customer Education to Boost Image and Sales
Wealth Management blog on bank website shows promise
Overall, First National Bank and Trust Company in Wisconsin has a pretty standard bank site – rates, personal and business banking overviews, about us, online banking login, etc. However, there is a bright spot with the wealth management blog. This group has a good start to building a foundation of helpful online content.
It’s not the easiest blog to find. You have to click on wealth management so right away you know only people actively researching wealth management topics will be visiting this blog. Because of this, the bank is missing out on a number of customers that may very well be interested in some of the subjects discussed only they’re not actively thinking about or concerned about them while doing online banking or other research on the site. According to an article in the October 2009 issue of the Community Banker, Little Changes - Big Difference, “nearly 95% of visitors to a bank home page visit to login.” By not showcasing all the great, helpful information available to these frequent users of online banking, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to deepen your relationships.
The wealth management home page in general has some positive content marketing strategies. They have a column that describes Investment Management. They have attractive “tiles” in the left-hand column that promote helpful article topics such as “7 ways to plan for retirement”. They have a video series with Dennis Staaland, the department head, called Your Money Minute. Online video is becoming more and more popular among online marketers as consumers become more comfortable with watching online video on a regular basis.
The blog has one critical attribute - it never directly talks about the banks own products or services. Each article has one goal in mind, to provide helpful and relevant information to the immediate audience.
What I would suggest to this bank is that they add a few more images to their posts. People react faster to pictures then they do to words and it will keep the reader around for a longer period of time if there are images to support the content. I’d also tell them not to be afraid to link back to relevant pages within their wealth management section on the bank’s website. Especially to pages that showcase the professionals who can help with the topics being discussed or to a short form they can fill out to have someone follow up to discuss the topics further.
Remember, content alone is not going to bring you more business. You have to position and market it in a way that triggers people to want to read more. And most importantly, capture the activity to maximize the opportunities from those reading your information online.
Free Webinar: Using Content Marketing to Generate Referrals From Your Website
Join us as we walk you through the techniques to turn every website encounter into a referral opportunity using content marketing techniques.
Truebridge Client Featured in article – “Teach Your Clients Well” (Bank Investment Consultant)
In the January 2010 issue of Bank Investment Consultant magazine both Truebridge and one of our clients, AnchorBank, were highlighted in an article. The title of the article is “Teach Your Clients Well: How Truebridge’s turnkey system made referrals easier for Anchor’s branch staff” and it was written by Steve Garmhausen.
If you have any questions or would like to learn more about how AnchorBank is using the Truebridge system to generate referrals, contact Luke Owen at 800-476-6118 ext. 104 or send in a request to learn more about the EducateFirst Financial Marketing System.
Do you need social media to be a successful bank marketer?
In our top influential bank and credit union marketers of 2009 post, there was a clear connection between those on the list – most seemed to use social media tools. But do you HAVE to use these tools to be successful in today’s marketplace?
Ironically, on two different social media sites – LinkedIn and BankInnovation.net – this exact debate took place. The discussion on LinkedIn became so heated that as of this post there were 1,311 comments!
The question posted on BankInnovation.net was, “Which is better? Social media marketing or email marketing?” In the end, the group discussion that ensued came to agree that both are equally important. While it may be harder to quantify social media efforts, it’s still an important part of the mix because in these spaces you’re connecting and having dialogues with people where as in email you’re talking to your audience. JJ Hornblass, the originator of this question, said it best at the end - ”Is there a conversion rate to a branch officer greeting a customer in a branch? Of course. Can we quantify it? Better yet, do we need to quantify something as basic as having a relationship with a customer? While the parallel is not exact online, the essence is similar. It’s that fundamental.”
The LinkedIn discussion, started by Kevin Conway, had the headline, “Social media for business is CRAP!” This was started in the eMarketing Association Network group so you can imagine the responses to this statement. But Kevin was also on to something here. In my response to this question I started out by claiming that Kevin is right, in certain cases. Take my father for example, he sells employee benefits to small and medium size companies. He’s been doing so for over thirty years in the tri-state area surrounding Philadelphia and has built up a network of contacts that are worth more then any fancy list service available. Do you think he has time to start twittering? Or to create a fan page on Facebook? You could make the argument that all your small business lenders, trust advisors and personal bankers are just like my father and all this talk about social media is a big waste of time. To Kevin’s credit, his statement goes on to explain that he’s not completely against the use of social media, he just has yet to be convinced of it’s true ROI potential. Perhaps I could have steered him to Hubspot’s ROI stories for businesses using inbound marketing techniques, which in large part consists of social media activities.
As we confirmed in the first discussion, social media is all about developing and nurturing relationships. If you’re going to adopt these tools, you have to go in with this mindset and then think to yourself, who is our target? Who are we going to create and nurture relationships with in these spaces? Should we require our lenders, advisors and personal bankers to be on Twitter?
When you get down to brass tax, using social media is not going to make or break your bank. In fact, even if you do use social media, if all you use it for is to shout about your products and services then you’re doing more harm then good.
What banks and credit unions do need, however, is compelling content. No social media expert can argue against the fact that it all begins and ends with this one element.
You could say that using social media gets this content out in the public eye faster then the old traditional model. However, if you have the budget for a healthy mix of social media and traditional media, which most banks do, then this is by far the best approach for a bank or credit union to take. In a recent mediapost.com article, “Will Traditional, Social Media Blend”, Len Stein, a PR veteran from Visibility Public Relations said, “…the most effective reputation-building campaigns begin with coverage in traditional media, move into social media channels and go viral across the blogosphere and Tweetmemes.”
(Image credit: Matt Hamm)
Follow Us
-
