Getting Your Message Across Without Shouting in a Storm

Marketing, Uncategorized, ,

In a little more than a decade since the global financial crisis, things are looking up, especially for U.S. financial institutions. With the calmer waters comes fierce competition. On top of brick-and-mortars, Fintech and Neobanks are hitting their stride while Big Data companies like Amazon and Google are jumping on the lending wagon. Consumers are bombarded with messaging from all sides. How can your bank or credit union’s voice be heard through all this static?

Attracting and Retaining Households

Although it’s true that spending is up, acquiring new households is down and retaining current ones is an issue. Half of all accounts are single-service households. This presents potential retention issues, especially since new single-service households are 50% more likely to leave within a year. The likelihood of leaving halved if they add just one more product. With four products, the potential for leaving decreases to a mere 5%. Concerted efforts to add at least one more product to a household is essential for retention. But it has to be personalized and sent at the right time to the right person. Flooding households with untargeted messaging just doesn’t work, whereas a vehicle loan offer aimed at households with teenagers might do the trick.

Meeting Consumer Expectations

Today’s consumer voluntarily supplies enough information for brands to know and predict their preferences. Nearly three-quarters of global consumers expect brands to treat them as individuals, not anonymous parts of a larger whole. In a world of anonymous avatars and usernames, they expect brands to use the data to approach them as individuals with relevant, personalized experiences. That includes financial institutions.

The Backbone of Effective Marketing Efforts

It’s no secret. If properly utilized, Big Data enables the personalization consumers are looking for. When properly interpreted, you’ll know who your customers/members are, what they need, and when to engage them. Take it one step further to increase growth and profitability by leveraging the data for Growth Analytics.

The Analytics Growth Engine

Growth Analytics is used to identify growth attributes and metrics. An Analytics Growth Engine gives direction and purpose to your Growth Analytics by combining artificial and human intelligence to deliver insights to fuel consistent and predictable revenue growth.

Mark Gibson, Senior Consulting Associate at Capital Performance Group, suggests that growth engines for financial institutions need to have specialized stages.

Stage 1 – Prospecting

Stage 2 – Acquisition

Stage 3 – Onboarding

Stage 4 – Activation & Utilization

Stage 5 – Relationship Expansion

By using data and analytics as tools at each stage, you’ll have precise and scalable data that measurably improves performance and efficiency.

The Super Tools

A strong marketing plan is based on how consumers learn about and buy financial services. It’s about the journey from the prospect to full engagement. Gibson’s Analytics Growth Engine model requires data be applied as a tool to each stage of the process. These tools – Segmentation, Targeting, Engagement Strategies, Life Stage Marketing and Customer Value and Attrition Propensity – lead to a deeper understanding of customer/member needs. In turn, offers are more pertinent to targeted consumers and likely to elicit a response.

Putting It All Together

You have your Analytics Growth Engine. You have your super tools. When the tools are applied, insights will be more meaningful, leading to increased sales, deeper relationships and stronger retention.

Segmentation is the foundation of any targeted marketing strategy. Before prospecting, determine who your best customers/members are, what products and services they use and where they are on their financial journey.

Use Targeting at Stage 1 Prospecting to find prospects who resemble your best account holders. Combine predictive and look-alike modeling with third-party data to target individuals with potential for best value and profitability based on your Segmentation analysis.

Use the Engagement tool to define the onboarding process. Understand what services and products a fully-onboarded customer/member uses. Realize the vision by applying the Engagement tool to Stage 2 and 3 of your Analytics Growth Engine to develop a personalized approach for each customer/member. Then, use the Engagement tool for reboarding to increase activation and utilization.

Life Stage Marketing is perhaps the most important tool for customer/member personalization. Apply it to Stage 4 Relationship Expansion to understand where each customer/member is on their financial journey. Now, you can give relevant advice and predict what products make sense for your customer right now. For instance, a HELOC is meaningless to a 20-year-old college student, but a student checking account might do the trick. This tool helps deliver the right message at the right time.

You’ve reached Stage 5 – Relationship Expansion and your prospect is fully-engaged. Use the Customer Value and Attrition Propensity tool to determine their value to your organization. This allows you to fix a value on retention efforts in both time and money by targeting accounts that historically realize the most value.

You Are Not Alone

Developing a robust Growth Analytics program driven by a strong Analytics Growth Engine is essential in today’s banking landscape. However, most financial services marketers are short on time, training and manpower. Even though financial institutions have remarkably more data than other lines of business, many are unprepared to make the most of this opportunity. But consumers expect us to know who they are and what they want before they even know themselves. If we don’t deliver, we risk losing both prospects and current customers/members. That’s where a company like Marquis can help by leveraging the strength of technology, analysts and creative services needed to extend your reach.

Marquis works closely with your team to develop a strong marketing plan dedicated to attracting new customers/members, expanding product adoption and increasing product use. The Marquis team assembles data sources and provides the tools and expertise to analyze and understand customer/member relationships and opportunities. Using Big Data and Growth Analytics, companies like Marquis become your partner, helping you elevate performance and increase effectiveness. They become your Analytics Growth Engine.

Time for Action

To successfully compete in the current environment, you must engage with customers/members on a deeply personal level and develop a marketing strategy that meets consumers’ expectations of personalization. An Analytics Growth Engine puts your vast amount of data into context to discover new opportunities and promote revenue growth. It’s how you attract prospects and engage with those customers/members most likely to add new products. It makes your message heard in the ultra-competitive world of retail and business finance.

Image courtesy of Mark Gibson, Senior Consulting Associate, Capital Performance Group.

The SCRA – What to Do When Compliance is the Only Option

Compliance, ,

When duty calls, our military members don’t always have the time or means to care for their finances. The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) requires creditors to reduce interest rates on certain loans, prohibits foreclosures without a court order and allows servicemembers to terminate motor vehicle and domicile in certain instances.

Something to come home to.

The SCRA safeguards active duty servicemembers, reservists, active-duty members of the National Guard and, in limited instances, spouses and dependents. It calls for postponing or suspending certain financial obligations taken on before service began and, for a specified period, post-service. This is how financial institutions help our troops maintain their pre-service financial standing so they can come home to something that’s still worthwhile.

Noncompliance has a cost.

SCRA examiners concentrate on key areas; no reduced APR on loans and credit cards, foreclosures without a court order, repossessions, and apartment and vehicle lease terminations. If active members are not properly identified, a financial institution may be liable for fines, penalties and settlements. In today’s pro-service atmosphere, the reputation hit can lead to the loss of current customers and the distancing of new ones.

Be proactive.

Although required to inform banks and credit unions of their service status, the onus of identifying active military members and affording them their SCRA protections and benefits falls directly upon the financial institution. When a SCRA request is submitted, it is vital to record where it is routed, who reviews it, who approves benefits and who informs the borrower about request status. Your Compliance Management System (CMS) can help make that happen with effective policies and procedures.

Training—It all begins with knowingwhat to look for and how to proceed. Offer regular SCRA training to employees, especially those extending or servicing loans and credit. They should understand compliance obligations to identify active military and ensure they receive the proper protections and benefits. Then make sure employees have the knowledge and tools to identify qualified servicemembers and their dependents.

Internal Controls—Provide clear policies and procedures for SCRA compliance requirements, servicemember identification, loan documentation and other relevant material that demonstrate your institution is doing all it can to be in compliance with the SCRA.

Monitoring—As with all compliance requirements, regular monitoring is essential to ensure SCRA policies and procedures are effective. With the often unforgiving nature of SCRA exams, internal reviews and audits can be a preemptive strike against noncompliance as they identify policy exceptions requiring corrective action.

Identification—In addition to documentation provided by the servicemember, there are two powerful tools you can easily access to identify and monitor customers eligible for protection; the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) and your Customer Information System (CIS). The DMDC is essential to identify and authenticate status. Your CIS, through onboarding and other customer touchpoints, can identify and flag accounts of servicemembers and their dependents.

Complaints—A clearly documented procedure dedicated to SCRA complaints and their path to resolution may prevent issues from coming under the microscope of examiners and give a heads-up to similar problems.

The Benefit of Outside Compliance Experts

The SCRA is one of our oldest protections acts, with similar temporary statutes initiated as early as the Civil War. Made permanent law in 1940, the Act is often updated and riddled with ambiguities, making it open to interpretation, a recipe for misperception and noncompliance. Understanding and staying up to date with the SCRA create a drain on manpower for an already overworked compliance team. An outside party can help navigate these murky waters and alleviate demands, allowing the team to concentrate on other compliance issues.

Marquis Compliance Professional Services, known for their expertise and personal service, are well-versed in all aspects of compliance, including SCRA requirements. They can perform audits and assessments to ensure you have the necessary policies, processes and procedures in place and define areas that need attention. By utilizing third-party compliance experts, you’ll have a fresh view of your SCRA compliance practices and how to improve them.

Conclusion

Self-identification as active military to financial institution is not always a priority for our servicemembers. However, financial institutions are often answerable for servicemembers not afforded the protection and benefits of the SCRA. A robust CMS with clearly defined SCRA policies and procedures is essential. Third-party experts, like Marquis Compliance Professional Services, can help your bank or credit union stay in compliance and away from violations.