In my book, The Breakthrough Banking Blueprint, I quote some of Tom Farrell’s research about marketing that has a lot to do with bank marketing:

Businesses think that 13% of their marketing messages are unsolicited, but contrast that to the opinion of consumers who believe that 85% of the messages they receive are spam.  Businesses believe that 81% of their marketing messages are useful. And yet, consumers and customers are saying that 84% of the marketing messages that they receive are not even slightly useful. Businesses believe that 75% of their communications are personalized, but consumers see it differently. They say only 17% feel that it is personal.

The problem is that we are still talking at people, not talking to them. We’re not bringing the value any more. We’re just trying to schlep our stuff. And those days are over. In today’s market, that can be seen as being very out of touch.

What Customers Want

We’re now living in a world where customers need information more than they’ve ever received before about how they can more effectively be running their businesses and managing their money. Your customers want information from you, but they don’t want to hear your marketing messages. So how do you convert those messages?

Well, one of our most effective bank marketing strategies is through “Smarketing.”

The problem is most bank marketing departments think that their job is to develop leads, and then they think their job is done. They believe that they are in a silo. The problem with that is that the lead has not yet paid for itself, and it doesn’t until that lead turns into a customer.

Marketing Has To Understand Their New Role

Until marketing understands their role and what they have to do to help convert that lead into a customer, we’re going to have a lot of low returns on investment from our marketing dollars. In fact, I would guarantee a negative return on investment from those marketing dollars.

We’re living in a new world where banking and marketing now need to be very one-to-one focused on the right people with the right messages and taken all the way to the end so that the lead becomes your customer.

– Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board.