Last night I sat on the couch with my husband discussing a work related issue. I had been talking for about 5 minutes when he asked to me stop and back-up- “Wait, why are your cross-sell leads better?” I have to admit I was a little bit frustrated at first, and the thought crossed my mind, “what have I been talking about for the last five minutes?” Then I realized, when we refer to “a lead” at Micronotes it is vastly different from what the financial industry understands as a lead.

Big Data is hot right now, and everyone is trying to figure out just how to handle it. The Forbes article, Big Data -- Big Money Says It Is A Paradigm Buster  discusses various industries and big data methodologies. I came away thinking, yes!

I’ve been disheartened this week for bank marketers. I came across a blog entry on Optirate.com titled, “Correlation vs Causation – Crucial Distinction for Marketers in Banking industry” that implied that increased revenue cannot be linked directly back to marketers.

Bacon had it right in the early 16^th century.  Few bankers will dispute that face-to-face sales interviews with customers produce cross-sell results.  Financial products are relatively complex purchases when compared to most consumer products (e.g. it takes a little more work to select the right mortgage than it does to buy a pair of shoes – and the cost of getting it wrong is a lot higher too!  You can’t send your mortgage back if it’s the wrong size).  Most people would still like to talk with a competent human being before signing at the X. 

The banking industry is on the verge of change on all sides—retail, technology, security, customer landscape etc. As the banking industry transforms and adapts to technological advances and customer demands and expectations financial institutions have the opportunity to redefine their goals. The emerging banking environments are dependent on financial institution marketers and their vision for the future.  So what’s on the minds of financial institution marketers this year?

Towards the end of last year ABA Banking Journal published an article under the title, “DON’T JUST ASSUME YOU KNOW WHAT GEN Y WANTS.” As the title suggests the article debunks common perceptions of Gen Y priorities via the featured Farmers and Merchants State Bank.

Can Savings be social? This article imagines a future where banks will offer the opportunity to share your savings goals, and watch your friends spending patterns… interesting. Another article sites peer pressure as motivation to save more. It says that ING and Citi already have comparison tools that allow you to see how you stack up others..

I've been trying to figure out why our KulaX cross-sell application has such high conversion to lead rates (48% compared to low single digit for most digital media).  When I say lead, here's what I mean:

These leads are the output of digital sales interviews conducted by KulaX™ - Micronotes’ cross-sell technology.

Here are a few hypotheses: