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THE BANKING INDUSTRY IS GOING THROUGH SIGNIFICANT CHANGE. For many years, the industry addressed marketing and sales as a volume- and production-driven effort, founded on the belief that the more [...]

THE DEMISE OF THE TRADITIONAL BRICK-AND MORTAR BRANCH is again being predicted. The advent of ATMs elicited the first forecasts of branch obsolescence. During the tech boom of the late [...]

MANY MARKETERS STRUGGLE with how to get management to see the power of marketing. Have you ever felt dismissed as not strategic enough or branded a 'cost center' by members [...]

HERE ARE EXAMPLES OF MISSION, value and vision statements--respectively--from community banks: * 'The ABC National Bank & Trust Company of Our Town will provide our area with the highest quality [...]

HIGH-PERFORMING BANKS more or less use the same marketing practices to reach that elevated level. These practices are what we at our company refer to as 'Big M' marketing. Executives [...]

Are you under pressure to produce quick results--while keeping costs under control? If you are like most bank marketers today, the answer is 'Yes, and how!' I understand the challenge. [...]

The financial services industry is undergoing rapid change--the likes of which none of us has seen before nor is likely to see again. In just one month, Wall Street as [...]

Skip this article if you are managing one of those rare financial sales/marketing organizations that does not need effective teamwork to meet your annual sales goals. But ... if your [...]

Recall the first dance at the last wedding you attended. Unless the bride or groom was a professional hoofer, the choreography was probably rather ordinary. Now picture Fred Astaire in [...]

Measuring customer profitability for marketing purposes has long been problematic. Is one system better than the others? ABA Bank Marketing magazine spoke with experts who offered slightly different perspectives on [...]

Perhaps the greatest challenge in marketing is keeping up the momentum--maintaining a sustained effort over the long haul. This is particularly demanding for community bankers who often contend with limited [...]

The 48 percent of banks in the United States that are not using check imaging were recently given another reason to adopt the technology. The incentive was the enactment of [...]

Wells Fargo, Bank of America and other banks are trying to get Hispanic customers by signing them up at the Mexican consulate.

North American banks are becoming more attentive to midsize companies now that a soft market and fierce competition are cutting the profits to be made from serving big corporations. But [...]

The role of customer relationships in the marketing of equity derivatives by British commercial banks is discussed in detail. Relationships are relevant in the over-the-counter equity markets in the United Kingdom.

Customer satisfaction at the business-to-business level in the banking industry in Singapore is described in detail. Disconfirmation remains the model of business-to-business customer relations and satisfaction.

Businesses of all sorts provide their most profitable customers with special perks to encourage continuous patronage of the companies' services. This marketing strategy may also be used effectively by banks. It requires the identification of the bank's most profitable customers. This could be easily gleaned from the bank's computerized data on customers' transactions. The best customers are not always those from the highest socio-economic bracket. Once these customers have been identified, then the bank can develop products and incentives targeting these people., Remember that television gang from Beverly Hills? There was Jed, Granny, Jethro & Elly May. Remember the banker, Mr. Drysdale, and his secretary Miss Hathaway? They showed up in every [...]

The number of banks that have integrated custom magazines in their marketing strategies has steadily grown over the years. These periodicals allow banks to effectively disseminate information to their customers while providing them with various incentives to remain loyal. Some of the most popular custom magazines used by banks to reach clients include 'Acumen,' 'Clout,' 'Patterson Today,' Business Edge,' and 'Avances.', Remember when customers were loyal to their service providers? Back then, going elsewhere felt downright deceitful. Times have changed, however. Now consumers think nothing of leaving a provider when they [...]

The inbound telephone call can be an effective bank marketing tool. The banking industry's most popular delivery channels all have limitations, such as the huge costs of branches, the low response rates of direct mail and outbound telemarketing's potential to alienate customers if not managed properly. Aside from avoiding these problems, the inbound call makes customers more receptive to bank marketing efforts because they initiated the call and were helped in resolving service-related concerns. Furthermore, the inbound call enables the bank to gain valuable information about customers and products in course of providing service. Bank contacts initiated by the customers themselves may present good cross-selling opportunities.

Banks can achieve greater success in branding by drawing attention to the quality of the overall customer interaction that they offer. Unlike other branding techniques, 'experience branding' does not focus on the bank's image, product functionality and name awareness, but revolves around the totality of the client's exposure to the bank's products and services. Although the experience branding concept is currently practiced in only a handful of financial services companies, it is expected to gain greater acceptance simply because it is the most effective survival strategy in a changing and increasingly competitive marketplace. It can help banks survive by bolstering both customer service and customer relationships.

Your customers: you've sliced 'em, you've diced 'em, you may even have spliced 'em... But now, after worrying about where they live, after obsessing about what they think, after wondering [...]

Banks can take a number of steps to attract the attention of wealthy customers. These include venturing into the financial advice business; providing high-quality services; improving operational efficiency by integrating retail, trust and private banking services; offering appealing pricing and products; adopting a sales culture and making use of the most advanced technologies in marketing., Some studies suggest that the top 20 percent of a bank's customers not only bring in all the profits, but also support the losses of the bottom 20 percent. That's [...]

Direct marketing is now considered a standard operating procedure at most major banks. In the past, this strategy was used only occasionally in launching specific promotions to target customers. Banks are now using direct marketing channels to make savvy sales pitches to attract their rivals' most profitable customers. To succeed in this area, bank managers must develop the necessary skills, such as data analysis to generate leads and promote the development of new products and services, and marketing through telephone or direct mail. The challenge facing bank managers is to improve their direct marketing efforts by creating teamwork. There must be greater coordination among data analysts, product developers and sales personnel.

Banks that want to ensure their success in the coming years need to replace their internally-focused and transactions-oriented culture with one that is externally-focused and sales-oriented. Such a shift can be achieved by adopting a number of strategies, including getting top management support, creating a sales improvement council, forming sales teams, introducing short-cycle measurement and response, creating a sales support department, building sales improvement project teams and adopting a coaching approach.

Financial institutions are developing incentive schemes for their employees and their customers. Employee-targeted incentives boost sales and improve morale while customer-oriented incentives encourage loyalty. In establishing incentive packages, banks should observe simplicity, set realistic goals, define their objectives, establish a specific measurement or target goal, consider cost considerations, offer valuable rewards, and determine timeframe. Guidelines for setting employee targets and customer targets are discussed., Have customers you want to do more business with? Have prospects you want to make loyal customers? Have employees you want to set new sales records? Well, haven't you heard [...]

While the rest of U.S. scratches their heads about Generation X, bankers should be taking this up-and-coming group quite seriously. Understanding the foundations of Xer philosophy and the successes they are rapidly building for themselves can help bankers plan products and marketing to meet their needs and interests. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.), While the rest of the U.S. scratches their heads about Generation X, bankers should be taking this up-and-coming group quite seriously. Understanding the foundations of Xer philosophy and the successes [...]

Banks should realize that several factors affect the success of their database marketing efforts. Banks are urged to accommodate a number of product and customer contact issues in their database-based marketing programs. They are also encouraged to utilize their customer service, mass media advertising and branch locations as marketing tools designed to support their information technology systems. Banks that have not started a database marketing program should study those which have been implemented by monoline credit card companies. They are also urged to carry out a quantitative analysis on the benefits of database marketing in various banking operations and services such as the endorsement of personal loan checks and pre-approved credit cards.

Selling Checking Account Products Isn't Enough. Relationship-Based Products - a Checking Account Plus a Whole Lot More - Are Key to Forming Customer Relationships and Ensuring a Profitable Future In [...]

Five strategies are recommended to help community banks survive challenges posed by bigger banks and financial institutions. These are cost control, demographic study of its customer base, participation in community activities, provision of bank products that meet specific needs of customers and asking reasonable prices for services rendered. These strategies aid in providing better service to customers, thus enhancing community banks' hold on their customers. Furthermore, their nearness to customers will help them in providing more personal and immediate service., Consider the 'hot buttons' of 1997: alternate delivery; profitable customers; sales culture; enhanced MCIFs; et al. In the end, they're all just ways to stave-off the Darwinism of bank mergers [...]

Cross-selling products to customers poses a challenge to banks given the preference of many Americans to select financial services offering the best deal. National surveys indicate banks have not achieved much success in raising the number of products sold to each customer and in winning back market share they lost to the competition. Despite their apparent lack of progress, banks are intensifying their efforts to make their cross-selling programs a success and realize the potential benefits of this strategy. Cross-selling promises to reduce costs, since selling additional services to current customers is less expensive than looking for new customers, and to discourage customers from considering other service providers. Cross-selling campaigns require the following elements to succeed: information management, strong sales support and attractive products.

Perception is reality. For customers that perceive high risk in having one bank service all their needs, the perception is born out by having financial services products at several institutions to spread the risk. Whether or not risk is actually reduced, the perception is what can inhibit cross-selling efforts. It's a perception that may never be overcome, but can be mitigated. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher), Perception is reality. For customers that perceive high risk in having one bank serve all their needs, the perception is born out by having financial services products at several institutions [...]

Bank marketing entails a lot of creativity in order to attract customers. Sixteen different ways of being creative were given as guidelines in making bank marketing strategies. These guidelines would help in developing an effective marketing program approach in the competitive world of bank marketing. A first step to be creative is to act like a child wherein new ideas are formed., In the business of bank marketing, you're only as good as your last great idea. Uh-oh. Still staring at that blank sheet of paper? 'Aha!' . . . 'That's it!' [...]

Bank treasury services sales managers can take a number of steps to improve their department's sales. These include realizing that salepeople must perform the threefold task of cross-selling major accounts, improving referral closing ratios and searching for sales opportunities in the existing customer base. Managers must also adopt more stringent hiring criteria and set attainable sales goals., Editor's Note: Sometimes a revolutionary idea arrives quietly and in reasoned, measured tones. Such is the case with Christopher J. Lahoda's article on turning treasury services employees into a honed, [...]

Data warehousing provides a vehicle for information access in the banking industry. A data warehouse can integrate all information needed in decision-making, and allows users to access data through other technological applications. It differs from an operational system in terms of data storage, which includes marketing database as part of the many applications that can be accessed. Most organizations and financial institutions prefer data warehouses because they facilitate information access in the face of increasing complexities of operations., On the Net, FAQ stands for 'Frequently Asked Questions.' It's that crucial document that you download before wading more deeply into a subject area. Here's one on database integration - [...]

Bank marketing focuses on the alternative ways of contemporary media programs, where banks can effectively utilize their direct marketing strategies. The major components of the program are the availability of media formats such as card decks and inserts, and the significant role of technology and contemporary media, which led to the development of direct marketing partnerships. Strategic partnerships involve pooling assets together to achieve individual goals and objectives in fulfilling customers' needs., The classic direct-mail marketer goes it alone. But there's more than safety in numbers; there's cost-effectiveness, too. If you're looking for big results at low costs, 'Alternate DM' may be [...]

Success in the private banking business no longer depends solely on strong personalized relationships with customers. Bankers need new skills to deal with intensifying competition, increasing customer sophistication and changing methods of service. One banker has identified four determinants of success in the transformed private banking market: good marketing, in-depth product knowledge, service and performance. Also crucial to their success is the bankers' ability to help clients clarify their needs. The 'SPIN' approach to needs identification is discussed.

Even once-sequestered community banks are feeling the pinch of non-bank deposit poachers. Some are turning to third-party marketers to launch their own hometown securities efforts, but is their offense as [...]

Aggressive competitors are slicing into the small business market and many bankers are finding they have to serve up some attractive products and services if they are to hang onto [...]

Valley Independent Bank in El Centro, CA, has developed an effective Web site which can serve as an example for other community banks and even large banks. The bank drew website visitors by promoting the film 'Independence Day,' which was partially filmed in its own backyard. Information in both English and Spanish is provided for users doing business in the US and Mexico while a 'What's New' section features news on local events., Like desktop publishing, Web pages are great equalizers. Here's how a community bank showed bigger banks a cyber-thing or two. Mention the World Wide Web to a community banker and [...]

Bank marketers must realize that a successful marketing effort rests on the development of a marketing plan. Factors to be considered when developing a plan include the compatibility between marketing objectives and the bank's strategic initiatives and the relationship between marketing objectives and the bank's marketing mix. A cost/benefit analysis should also be included in the marketing plan while employees should be a part of plan development., More messages can mean less with a poor (or no) marketing plan in place. Use this checklist to see how your plan rates. A few weeks ago a colleague and [...]

Relationship banking, a marketing strategy which could have been a key player in financial development, turned out to be a failure as a result of the so called 'derivatives disaster' in the early 1990s. Trust relationship, a concept through which relationship banking revolves, suffered much from unethical marketing practices during 1994-1995. Consequently, customers have not taken derivative recommendations offered by banks. However, recent developments are undertaken to reestablish the stature of relationship banking.

For Colorado's middle class of banks, keeping up with Colorado National Bank and Norwest Colorado isn't easy. Realizing they can't be biggest, Bank One Colorado, Wells Fargo Colorado, Key Bank [...]

There is every reason for banks to cross-sell other products and services to their mortgage customers mainly because they have much more time available due to automation and bespoke software products and the resultant buildup of profitable relationships arising from the activity. The goal of enhanced customer relations in cross-selling is perfectly laudable as it focuses on long-term aims., Banking consultants have been saying for years that depository institutions often do not use the plethora of customer information they have to aggressively cross-sell additional products and services. This viewpoint [...]

Database marketing is an effective way for banks to attract wealthy clients. Five steps are essential to a successful marketing campaign. These are using different sources of data, considering individual wealth data rather than broad data, thoroughly editing the database, creating direct mail packages that foster an image of dignity and substance, and repeating mailings by as much as three times a year., As the song says, 'Everything old is new again,' and direct-mail marketing is back in a surprising new way: as an effective tool to reach the High-Net-Worth market. With so [...]

Banks commit 10 common mistakes when marketing to the high-net-worth segment. These include the failure to communicate the benefits of investment management, harboring the erroneous assumption that wealth preservation is the ultimate financial goal, inability to offer services not provided by the banks of prospective customers and the failure to establish an aggressive referral-generating system., TEN MARKETING TRAPS IN TARGETING THE HIGH-NET-WORTH SEGMENT The rich are getting richer - and an increasing number of banks are determined to grow their assets right along with this [...]

Their seductive economics hide many failures In-store bankers need to walk the aisles Key to success: banks' market power compared to partners What role in the retail strategy? Supermarket banks [...]

Bank-managed mutual funds implemented sophisticated marketing strategies to spur sales and counter a stagnating market. After initial early successes, banks marketing mutual funds found it tough to expand their funds' assets. However, sophisticated marketing techniques have helped banks expand the assets of their equity funds. In the 12-months ending June 30, 1996, bank-managed mutual funds assets increased to $434.1 billion, a 27.7% increase that exceeds the 27.5% growth rate of the entire mutual fund industry., Banks that manage mutual funds, realizing the days of easy growth are over, are looking to highly sophisticated marketing techniques to take them to the next level. After seeing their [...]

Successful community banks have been able to come up with a sales culture that involves a philosophy and practices that go beyond the traditional role of typical banks. Such a culture requires that banks extend banking hours, initiate advertising programs, deal with customers on a more personal basis, retrain employees in sales, develop employee incentive programs and come up with products and services that focus on relationships., Avis Rent a Car pledges to 'try harder' for its customers. Circuit City is 'where service is state of the art' in the retail appliance marketplace. Sony Theatres promises to [...]

Investment product retailing has become a top priority for banks looking to diversify their revenue sources and tap new growth opportunities. However, some financial institutions are endangering their success in this area by focusing too much on short-term gains. Their sales recommendations and disclosures are increasingly being questioned. Banks must try to bolster their profitability and improve their ability to meet their customers expanding financial services requirements in a manner that does not compromise their reputation for trustworthiness. To achieve this, banks must ensure that investment products are suited to customers, that investment product sales operation is integrated into a broader retail strategy, and that sales jobs and incentives are structured to motivate bank retail personnel in a positive manner.

The increasing competition in the banking industry calls for dedicated and skilled sales people and proper sales management. A bank officer call program should also be monitored in accordance with company objectives. Bank managers should allot time to interact and show interest in their customers' needs and not depend solely on impersonal advertising and database information. This will help in actually discerning potential customers and increasing profits.