• by Martha Bush , May 22, 2012

Bank marketing today has lost much of its early competitive edge, as other industries have surpassed it with their use of marketing technology and analytics. More banks should be pushing the envelope and using all of the tools available to them to customize and improve their customer experience. Here are five steps that bank marketers can take:

1.  Real-time customer growth initiatives: taking cross-sell and up-sell to new heights

Is your marketing department bound to a campaign cycle that has nothing to do with your banking customers’ readiness to open new accounts? Develop a triggered cross-sell/up-sell program using high-speed predictive modeling to identify customers ready to add, change, upgrade or even start using your online banking services. Powerful models can be run against your customer files to identify customer behavior triggers that tell you it’s time to sell specific products, or suggest the use of new services. These insights can be turned into action through a message matrix that can be deployed in monthly statements, online banking messaging, call centers, direct mail or even text-messaging services. Let your customers’ behavior tell you when it’s time to tell them about new banking opportunities.

2.  Find high-net-worth individuals ready for a new banking relationship 

Are your wealth management salespeople using the hunt-and-peck method of prospecting? High-performing banking organizations use more than the traditional approach of “who do you know?” Using sophisticated targeting techniques coupled with the more advanced use of wealth and credit-focused data available today, your wealth managers can add significant support to their tried-and-true methods of prospecting. Combine a more sophisticated use of wealth data into ongoing nurturing programs to keep in touch with high-value prospects in an efficient way during the typical long sales cycle for bank relationship switching -- even while your wealth management team may change over time.

3.  Slow cusomer attrition while building strong relationships

Every day customers become dissatisfied or find a new banking partner because one of your competitors was there at just the right time.  If only you could have spotted the turning point in your relationship, you could have saved it. Early warning systems can be created using powerful predictive models and automated messaging strategies to help you identify those early warning signs that enable you to address those customers at risk as early as possible, giving you the best chance of implementing retention measures that will save them. 

4.  Improve customer engagement, satisfaction through relevant, timely communications

Your customers want a 24/7/365 relationship with their bank today. Are you ready? Real-time, relevant communications require in-depth customer insights at each point of interaction. Turn customer insights into automated operational excellence with a segmentation process that lands segment codes on every customer record in your database.

Enhance each customer’s record with key insights about their banking behavior, lifestyle and lifecycle segment so that each interaction can be smarter, more relevant and valuable to your customers. Segments can be turned into smart messaging strategies for each type of interaction -– online banking, call centers and on the banking floor.

5.  Find business prospects more likely to move to your institution

The banking relationships of all small businesses are not created equal –- some small firms are highly profitable, while others have high requirements for customer service. Furthermore, the prospecting lists you may be providing your business banking sales team with may not deliver the volume of good prospects they need to hit their goals.

Bring the best lead-generation practices to your reps -- the ones that leading business-to-business organizations use. Make the effort to understand which of your small business customers are generating the most productive relationships. These insights can help efficiently identify the optimal prospect universe for each business banker and turn it into a sales pipeline that returns predictable, sustainable account growth. Work with B2B list providers to deliver actionable prospect insights to the desktop of each banker, or into their sales management system.

Considering the wide availability of more robust data and marketing technology tools today, more bank marketers -- even at the community banking level -- could be creating better customer experiences for their base.