Category Archives: Marketing
The Products Per Household Myth
A recent post on Bank Innovation caught my attention the other day. In particular, the part about products per household really stuck out to me:
Buried in Wells Fargo’s 2Q12 earnings was the unbelievable fact that retail banking cross-sell reached a record six products per household for the entire community bank consumer base at the San Francisco company. Yes, you read that right — an average of six products per household! That is a high bar Wells has hit and it deserves loud kudos. Its accomplishment also puts to bed the notion that banks can’t cross sell. They can and they will forever more.
Admittedly, six products per household does sound like a lot. Most people would probably think those six products consist of:
- two checking accounts
- a savings account
- a mortgage
- an equity line
- a credit card.
However, the dirty little secret is banks and credit unions all use different criteria to calculate products per household. I wouldn’t be surprised if the typical six products per household at Wells Fargo actually consists of:
- one checking account
- one debit card
- online banking
- bill pay
- eStatement
- mobile banking
When you look at in that light, six products per household isn’t impressive at all. It’s probably on par with every other bank and credit union.
Community Banks and Credit Unions Missing Out On Top Search Results
Have you ever tried to find a bank or credit union location by using the Location page on their website? Have you ever tried to use it on a mobile phone? Not exactly the best experience is it?
What I usually end up doing is a search on Google for locations in my area. This works pretty well if Google was able to search the bank or credit union’s website to find all the locations in the area. It would work even better if banks and credit unions submitted their branch locations to Google Places.
Here are the search results from “banks in charleston”
The first result is for an online Charleston directory. The second result is a bank website. The next six results are from Google Places. You’ll also notice that they are all different banks.
Quite a few people perform searches for businesses in this fashion. They don’t necessarily search by company name, but by business type in a particular geographical location.
In case it hasn’t sunk in yet, Google is placing greater emphasis on physical locations of businesses. Out of the top eight results of my search, only the second one was from organic search.
By not taking advantage of Google Places, community banks and credit unions are missing out on potential customers. There is a wealth of information that can submitted which will help you rise in search results.
Getting started is easy.
1. Sign up for a Google account
2. Find your branch location in Google Maps
3. Claim your business
Another reason for claiming and adding your locations is your customers may be submitting reviews about your bank or credit union. You may have noticed the red arrows in the first image pointing to customer reviews.
Regardless of whether you claim your location, customers can write reviews about you. If you claimed the location as the business owner, you’ll be able to respond to the reviews.
Your potential and regular customers may not follow you on Twitter or like you on Facebook, but chances are they do use Google. If they’re like me, they click on the Reviews link just to see what people are saying.
Those reviews could determine whether they open account or continue doing business with you. By taking advantage of the free tools that Google offers, you can provide a better, moderated experience for your customers.
Update – If you are listed as the business owner, Google will send you emails of Places traffic and who clicked on directions. Thanks @dmgerbino
Marketing on Special Occasions
I awoke this morning to a buzzing cell phone caused by text messages, Twitter and Facebook status updates; all wishing me a happy birthday. I must say, it feels pretty good to know that people are thinking of you on your special day. I even received some email coupons from stores wishing me a happy birthday. But you know who didn’t send me anything? All the banks and credit unions I have accounts at.
Lately you’ve heard a lot of buzz about “big data” in the financial services industry. Not tapping into the wealth of information that is at their fingertips is hurting financial institutions. Sure, it’s great that some of you have the capability to pull customers by account types and balances. But that’s used to just offer them more products.
Birthdays are one thing FIs can really take advantage of. Also, most FIs have a nice sized database of customer email addresses. So why not send your customer an email on their birthday offering a $5 gift card to iTunes, Starbucks, Amazon or some other merchant, if they visit a branch that day? You could even wrap this birthday wish up with an offer to help them get their finances on track for the next year.
Sending some type of correspondence on customers’ special occasions helps remind them that you’re a FI that cares and are thinking about them. Do you think your customers would mention to their friends that you sent them a gift card offer on their birthday? How about the anniversary day of when they opened their first account?
The good news for you is, I don’t personally know of any bank or credit union doing this now. The bad news for me is, I have to wait until next year to find out if this idea gets picked up and spreads like wildfire.
Photo by freakgirl
Social Media In Marketing
A while back I wrote about banks and credit unions needing to incorporate their social media links in their traditional marketing. Well it seems that SC Federal CU is doing just that.
Below is an image of an ad that was run in the Business Review of Charleston’s Post & Courier. The links to SC Federal’s blog, Twitter and Facebook pages are listed at the bottom. You’ll notice that they also us QR codes (which didn’t work for me).
Incidentally, other companies listed QR codes in their ads but no one else listed their social media sites.
