Financial Marketing and Cross Selling Blog
How Social Media is Changing Bank Marketing
Essentially, “Social Media” is really just a buzz word that has come to be used to describe the ever changing landscape of the internet that we’ve all grown to know so well. The phrase simply refers to all the social networks in existence and the way we, web users, customers, and brands interact with each other online today. Not only can a single social network be used as a marketing tool in itself, but integrating social media channels into your website gives you the power to leverage your website in ways that didn’t exist years ago. The difference between traditional websites and the ones within social media communities is the simple notion that traditional websites speak to a single customer at a time, where as social media sites allow everyone to have a voice. In this sense, social media is the catalyst that makes our everyday web experience so much more dynamic and it has opened the doors for individuals and brands to create their own unique online presence.
How to Make a Bank Reputation Drive Cross Selling
A good reputation is undoubtedly important to any financial institution. It translates into more new and more loyal customers. A recent article in American Banker, discussed the results of the American Banker second annual survey of bank reputation. This 30 bank survey was conducted by the Reputation Institute an evaluated reputation across several dimensions including corporate citizenship, financial performance, governance, innovation, leadership, perceived workplace environment and products and services.
The article noted that BBVA Compass enjoyed the most improved image, moving up 11 slots into the No. 5 position. When asked about this, the bank responded by saying that they used social media such as Twitter to monitor and respond to complaints. In other words they listened to their customers and fixed their problems, building stronger relationships than existed before the problem. Problems can actually help build your brand. Their experience defined for them what good service is in banking.
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Can a Bank’s Brand Image be a Trap?
Research will tell you that a bank brand attribute as a trusted institution is worth millions of dollars and the envy of so many other types of financial institutions (see recent article from The Financial Brand.)
The problem is breadth. Banks are seen too narrowly, as the place to go for deposits and loans; a place to go to transact. That’s fine if a bank is comfortable with a small share of their customer’s wallet (2 of 10) and are willing to watch other financial institutions earn more and more money by selling other products to their customers; products and services that can help people with other needs as they save for college tuition bills, save for retirement, and move into retirement and old age.
Is a bank’s brand image cast in stone? For the most part, the answer is “yes”. Think of this for a minute. You walk into your dentist’s office. This is the dentist that you have been seeing for several years. He suddenly says, “Take off your shoes and I’ll take a look at your feet, I’m also a podiatrist.” What do you think? “Oh no you’re not, you’re my dentist.” It doesn’t matter if a degree in podiatry hangs on the wall – you are in your dentist’s office and he is your dentist. An image cast in stone. If he really wanted to practice podiatry, he would be better off if you had no preconceived image of him as a dentist.
Banks are in the same trap. They want to take care of more of the needs of their customers but they are tapped by their image – a trusted place to go for deposits and loans.
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How Problems Can Help Build Your Brand
It isn’t really the problems that build your brand but how you address them. For years banks have done research to find out what brand attributes are most compelling to customers. And year after year, they got the same answers – customers value good service. So banks built their ad campaigns around the promise that they provide excellent service.
But most of the time, the promise fell flat. Why? Because people perceived good service in many different ways. That all changed when those messages evolved from a simple claim “We have good service”, and started to show a particular problem being solved. Demonstrating a problem being fixed defined service in terms customers could understand. The power of the message was not in the claim of providing good service but in the demonstration of providing good service.
Then marketers went to work to find problems and show how the bank worked diligently to solve them. And guess what they found? Customers that had experienced a problem that was fixed had stronger relationships than those that had never experienced a problem.
Improving Your Bank’s Website By Adding Content Marketing
Web sites are not created in stone. There will come a time when “the old look” doesn’t work anymore or that your site isn’t effectively meeting its overall objectives. If your site looks outdated, you’re not communicating a clear message to potential customers and consequently your company’s value is diminished in their minds. Similarly, you’re not exemplifying a strong web presence if your website lacks the type of information that your customers are looking to you to provide. By implementing a content marketing strategy into your next redesign, the outcome can prove to be very rewarding and effective for your company’s growth.
What is Content Marketing?
You may be familiar with the phrase “content is king.” Without content and clear information, a website will lack an essential element of online marketing regardless of how nice or elegant the design of the site is. For instance, online customers are increasingly utilizing online content to make financial decisions. In a recent Forrester Research report entitled “Online-Influenced Sales Exceed Direct Sales In Financial Services“, it was found that “63% of US online adults who researched financial services products did so online.” Another study sponsored by Powered, found that online consumer education produces ROI nearly 300% higher than traditional campaigns. Can you really expect to attract customers to your site when... Read More >>
Whose content are you using in your social media initiatives?
Imagine you went to your doctor one day and he/she diagnosed you with a minor sickness but one that required a set of treatments to help cure. Instead of your primary doctor detailing the steps you should take a new person walks into the office and begins to tell you what you should be doing. Now, how would that make you feel about your primary doctor?
Change up this story and instead replace “doctor” with your primary “bank”. With social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook gaining popularity among bank marketers, those in charge have been forced to come up with creative ways to find content that will keep their audiences entertained. And often times this means looking outside the institution to build up a healthy library of content. Now, think back to our doctor story at the beginning and you’ll start to understand where I’m going with this post.
Does this mean that you should never refer people to someone elses site? Of course not. In fact, this helps to show that you don’t just think about “YOU” all the time. A key factor in winning more business from clients. But the more I monitor bank and credit union messages through these social media tools, the more I realize that they almost never link to their own site unless it’s to a micro-site that was setup for a specific campaign. Or they may steer you to branch location pages, contact pages or other service related pages.
A key advantage to linking to your own content is the control you have. For example, you could link to a... Read More >>
Banks and credit unions, make sure you brand your content
If you were an expert on helping people solve problems it would seem logical that when you provide helpful information it’s seen as coming from you and not another source. Unless, of course, you need to site the source in your own content.
Unfortunately for many banks and credit unions this does not translate. I’ve visited many sites where I’ve clicked on a link that said something along the lines of “learn more about…” and it links me out to a news article from a local or major media outlet. Or worse, it sends me to a government website.
But it was a recent Tweet that reminded me to write about this subject. The message said, “5 ways to kill your credit score”. A great subject for a client of a bank or credit union to learn more about. The shortened URL then took me out to an MSN Money article. Mind you, this was a credit union sending out the message.
Now, I’m all for sharing links to sources that may be of interest to your audience, but at the very least, link them first to your site where they can read a short overview about the subject the article touches upon – then provide a link to the article in the body of the overview. You want to position your institution as the authority on these subjects. By steering them to someone like MSN you’re only confirming what your audience most likely knows, that MSN Money is a trusted source for financial news.
The easiest way to achieve this is by having a... Read More >>
Brand Finance’s “Global Banking 500″
Thanks to The Financial Brand, I found my way to the home page of Brand Finance, a leader in independent brand valuation consultancy. They have a report called the “Global Banking 500″ that showcases the top 500 bank brands based on their value.
How does this group determine the value of an institutions brand? Here are some key points taken from their site:
- We value intangible assets as components of Enterprise Value, and carry our rigorous market and comparable analysis to support assumptions
- We match the basis and methods for each valuation to its purpose and the reporting jurisdiction
- Our robust valuation approach is enhanced by an integrated knowledge of marketing, licensing and brand transactions
- We work closely with client’s auditors, tax advisers and lawyers
Collectively among the top 500, brand value fell by $218.1 billion and 198 brands from 2007 were completely knocked off because they either disappeared (Lehman Brothers) or taken over by government (Fannie and Freddie).
The report is free once you provide a bit of information about yourself. Download your copy today: Download.
We don’t hear enough about how banks are perceived, especially in this country. Everyone is too focused on... Read More >>
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