Traditional banking services are not enough to hold the attention of today's customers. In order to keep up with evolving consumer preferences and desires, banks need to be prepared to offer consumers value-added content. Additionally, consumers have a growing interest in receiving financial advice from their financial institution. Bank marketers must also encourage consumers to take advantage of these new services and information through effective adoption strategies and content marketing.
Understanding consumer preferences in banking.
Recent research has shown that customers now want and expect more insight, advice and financial assistance from their banking providers. In fact, according to Accenture's 2014 North America Consumer Digital Banking Survey, 82% of customers are interested in receiving money-saving products or services from their bank, and 72% of customers say that access to such products and services would increase their loyalty to the institution.1 Of banking customers surveyed, millennials have the highest expectations for proactive financial advice from banking institutions, with 58% citing an interest in receiving product and service recommendations directly from their bank and 67% expressing interest in access to financial management tools.
How financial institutions can meet customers' needs.
Consumers surveyed have clearly indicated that they are interested in receiving advice and specialized financial tools from their banks. They have also indicated that these services could increase their loyalty to their financial institution. However, creating and offering these services isn’t enough to ensure customer loyalty on its own. Bank marketers can rely on a “build it and they will come” perspective. In order to leverage this trend effectively, financial institutions need to engage their customers with activation and adoption programs. Without an active engagement effort, consumers may opt for alternative services from other providers simply because they are not familiar or comfortable with the services available from their own financial institutions.
The purpose of activation and adoption programs is to draw customers' attention to the institution's new financial services and/or value-added content and encourage engagement. For example, the institution can send customized "reminder" emails to users in response to certain behaviors, such as abandoning a page, logging in but failing to complete a task or enrolling in an offered service but failing to use it. When customers receive these notifications, they will be more likely to engage in the desired activities.
Financial institutions can also send consumers personalized emails that contain links to value-added content they may find particularly helpful or interesting. Content marketing can help support consumer preferences for financial advice. While FIs might find it difficult to provide one-on-one financial advisement, content marketing can present information in a self-serve and economical format. Content marketing just might be a key solution for bank marketers to utilize to address consumers’ growing desire for financial advisement from their financial institution.
Case study on adoption marketing for online and mobile payments.
Online bill pay provider iPay Solutions recently turned to the team at Jacobs & Clevenger for assistance in promoting their own value-added services.2 iPay Solutions had created a new mobile banking application for financial institutions, and it wanted to launch its new app for customers to use. However, as with any unfamiliar tool, getting customers to adopt the app was challenging.
J&C created an aggressive adoption marketing program that could be customized by financial institutions. Thanks to the success of this campaign, adoption of the new mobile app increased dramatically. In fact, the video landing page had a conversion rate of more than 20% and our FAQ page had a conversion rate of more than 40%.
Based on the results of this case study, I think it's clear that an effective adoption program can successfully encourage customers to engage with online and mobile payment interfaces. Increased engagement will most likely lead to customer retention and transaction revenue growth. Bank marketers should embrace adoption marketing as a technique to preserve and grow revenue.
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Topics: Financial Services
