Financial Marketing and Cross Selling Blog
Cross Selling Continues to be a Top Priority of Bank and Credit Union Marketing
According to the recent 2012 Bank and Credit Union Financial Marketing Survey developed by Jim Marous of Bank Marketing Strategy and Jeffry Pilcher of The Financial Brand, cross selling is at the top of the list of marketing priorities. With fee revenue under pressure from new federal regulation, it is not surprising that generating more revenue per customer is so important. This is nothing new. Looking at this year’s Grant Thornton LLP’s 18th Annual Bank Executive Survey, along with previous years’ surveys, you will see that organic growth (cross selling) has been a top priority for quite some time. Read more >>
REWORK: Recommended Book For Bank Marketing and Management
How can a business book written by the founders of a small software development company be applicable to bank executive and marketing professionals? I asked myself the same question. REWORK was written by Jason Fried and David Heinemenier Hansson, the founders of 37Signals, a company that has created several products that help teams work together more effectively. For bankers, conventional ideas and methodologies aren’t what separate you from your competitors. Most often it’s your ability to be open-minded to new ways of thinking and putting them to work…or sometimes reworking them entirely.
Prior to reading REWORK, I was somewhat familiar with the company 37signals and the products they developed but never really knew their background. For most that have never heard of 37signals, they are a small software company that have developed a number of web-based apps for collaboration, information sharing and project management which are now used by millions around the world.
REWORK provides the reader with the insight into the attitudes of the founders and a basis for the reasons for their success. As a designer & developer myself, I wasn’t sure how their philosophies and ideas could really be applied to the large scale audience but they certainly managed to do so from my perspective. If you subscribe to conventional wisdom, this book may not be for you because the authors tend go against your experience and what has been instilled into you during your college and post-collegiate years. Nonetheless, this is a worthwhile book, for everyone from the single self-employed individual, the small business owner, all the way up to the larger institution management and marketing professionals.
A Lesson in Sales for Banks – Education Works Wonders
This story goes back to the mid 90’s but I will never forget it. It was a Saturday morning and I was standing in the kitchen when the phone rang. (This was before the “do not call” lists that we have today.) My young daughter answered and said, “Daddy, it’s for you.” As she handed me the phone, a pleasant sounding woman on the other end said, “Hi, I’m from MCI, and I’m calling to explain how our long distance service can save you money.” Now flash back to the time that MCI was making inroads into the long distance business that had been dominated by AT&T by offering lower long distance rates. I had always been with AT&T. In my mind, they were the standard and I was not interested in saving a few cents per minute for what I assumed was an inferior service.
Having been in sales as a cold calling stockbroker early in my career, I tried to be polite in my response, but I also wanted to be direct. I responded, “For the past two years I have seen your advertising, I have had countless direct mail pieces show up in my mailbox, and I am really not interested, but thank you for the call.” As a sales person knowing what you’re up against in cold calling, I was absolutely floored when I heard her response. She said, “You’re just the person I want to talk to?” How could I be just the person she wants to talk to when I said, “No thanks”? She continued without hesitation, “Most people don’t understand one key fact about long distance... Read More >>
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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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 >>
The difference between financial literacy and education-based marketing
The NFCC has announced that April is Financial Literacy month. They’re pulling out all the stops by making trips to Capital Hill and launching two new websites, one in Spanish – www.termineconsudeuda.org – the other a blog providing debt advice – www.debtadvice.org. Many banks and credit unions should join in with NFCC in supporting this cause.
I’ve had many people ask me, “Luke, you guys talk alot about using education as part of your marketing initatives. How is that any different then the financial literacy campaigns that banks and credit unions conduct throughout the year?” For starters, one of the main reasons we stopped using the term “education-based marketing” was because of this close relation in semantics to financial literacy. As you may know from reading our company blog, we’ve been using the term Content Marketing to better explain how the process works.
I think the best way to look at it is to think about your days in school. You may have been a go getter and strived to learn but lets face it, the majority of our peers are not all that excited to get up in the morning and take that yellow bus into the morning classroom. No one wants to be forced to learn and terms like “literacy” and “education” bring back those... 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 >>
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
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... Read More >>
Influential bank and credit union marketers of 2009
What made people on this list so influential is how they’re adopting to the new rules of marketing and PR. You may have heard us use that phrase on this blog before. If you’re new to these rules, we recommend reading the book by David Meerman Scott, “New Rules of Marketing and PR”. The basic premise is that the old way of relying on big media to deliver your story and advertisements is no longer a functional model. While this may sound horrible to the traditional marketer, in reality it’s a huge opportunity for every business, especially small businesses, to grow exponentially by letting go and diving head first into the new world. Some are using elements of content marketing, an essential ingredient to the new rules.
These banks and credit unions are showing signs that they’re either moving in the direction of the new rules or in some cases, making it a top priority. But they’re clearely ahead of the curve in the financial industry.
We most likely missed a handful of people that should be recognized. But the beauty of blogs and social media in general is the ability to voice your opinion so we encourage you to leave comments about institutions you feel deserve recognition.
This list is in no particular order.
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