Are Banks Missing the Mark on Message?

Delivery and content are equally important to a bank’s future readiness.

 I received a “personalized” email last week titled 5 Savings Strategies for Your Down Payment. Strategy #5 on the list was: “You may need to make more money.” (Well yeah. Always sage advice.)

The email annoyed me for two reasons:

1. I’m winding down the end of a mortgage where the down payment was made three presidents ago. The sender knew that. That’s lame delivery.
2. The article offered no way to respond, interact or share. Just two pages of buzzkill. That’s lame content.

According to recent research What’s Going On In Banking 2018, 64% of mid-size bank and credit union executives don’t believe their marketing is future ready. And it was 64% when the question was asked a year ago.

In a recent session on Future Ready Marketing hosted by Harland Clarke and facilitated by Cornerstone Advisors, we polled bank and credit union executives on their marketing delivery and content. Let’s define delivery here as the way the customer interacts with sales, marketing and service processes across the bank. Let’s define content as knowledgeable and interactive information put together to stimulate action. While I recognize that a poll of webinar attendees isn’t exactly scientific research, practically none of the attendees rated their content and delivery as strong—and a lot of bankers feel the same way. What’s to be done?

Two Turntables: Content & Delivery

“I got two turntables and a microphone.” –Beck

Content is growing in importance as more consumers and businesses shift many of their interactions toward digital self-service. The freewheeling conversations with customers who saunter into their local branches on impulse are less and less frequent, so engaging customers digitally with knowledgeable content that encourages them to participate, respond and share is critical. A good example recently published in American Banker is how some banks coordinated helpful webinar content to guide small businesses and treasury prospects.

Delivery that is designed to interact first digitally is increasingly important because that’s how more and more customers begin the discovery and onboarding processes now. Instant credit decisions and Amazon purchasing have birthed customer expectations of smarter and faster interactions based on behind-the-scenes analytics they never even see. The resources necessary to build and maintain an analytically informed delivery channel are staggering to many management teams and boards, but as industry veteran Niel Devasir pointed out in this quick video, analytics leadership cannot be outsourced, even if some of the technology is.

In the Future Ready Marketing poll, although more bankers felt they had strong content than felt they had strong delivery, neither was felt to be strong by a majority. This is consistent with research on technology priorities in What’s Going On In Banking 2018 and what I’m seeing in our advisory work. Reshaping delivery is the main project right now, with sales and marketing delivery processes the hot ticket for system deployments or replacements. In keeping with this trend, at a recent industry roundtable, half of the executives in the room were in the process of deploying a new marketing automation platform.

Delivery may be THE current reshaping project, but content cannot be neglected. With the industry never more competitive for customers’ attentions, here are three tips banks can use to improve their message:

1. Find out how digital-first and analytically informed the bank’s delivery is. Is there an agreed upon forecast for growth in activity as well as investments and talent needs in digital and analytics? Is there a consistent resource allocation process that applies the same way to digital and analytics projects as it does with more traditional lending or branch projects?

It’s important to continue having the funding/resourcing debate. To keep it from becoming just another heated set of opinions, some setting of the table with a newer management accounting approach can be really healthy.

2. Review the bank’s content for how interactive it is and how much value it can provide to the intended audience. Beyond just tracking responders and buyers, hold the bank to a high standard on message quality.
3. Always check at least a small sample of messages to customers and ask if the combination of content and audience passes the smell test. Don’t just sample check loan preapproval offer letters with an eye toward managing credit risk. Instead, sample check all kinds of messages with an eye toward managing reputational risk.

What’s in your message?

-Sam