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?

First Tech Federal Credit Union has a brilliant program called The Giant Ear, where customers can make suggestions and vote on the attractiveness of other members' suggestions.

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..

We are two days away from 2012, and predictions for the new year and reflection on the old are rampant. What will the marketing trends be? Will banks bring on more innovation? Will mobile payments catch on? What were the funniest stories?  Amidst the clamor of prediction and reflection I have found an anchor in good customer service.

Thanks to Jim Marous for his blog post entitled, “Bank Marketers Face Challenging Times With Great Opportunity.” It was thoughtful and pointed to IBM and Unica’s studies on CMO attitudes.   What jumped out at me were the multiple references around the inability to turn data into action – action leading to sales results, presumably.  Then I look in my wallet and think – maybe that’s why my primary direct deposit account holder doesn’t have my credit card, CD, or money management business; my own bank just can’t figure out how to get from the data they have on me to the cross-sell actions needed to sell me their other products. 

There has been so much buzz recently around the changes Financial Institutions are going to need to implement: mobile banking, online features, data integration, and social media insight just to name a few.  In particular I have tuned into the flurry of news and articles around FI marketing.

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: