There is a whole lot of noise being made about the best marketing tactics for financial institutions. The general consensus seems to be: get personal! Sean McDonald even titled his article, Marketing: Make it Personal, Touch the Soul! The FI that knows the customer best, will get more business. To impress the customer (ie show the most customer knowledge) and earn their business FIs need to follow three steps:

Discussions of new regulations for banks and credit unions are huge right now. I’ll be honest and admit that I don’t know all the details about the proposals being made, but I know that banks aren’t happy about more regulation. I can’t say that I blame them, but there is a flip side, as Alan Kline points out in his article, Regulation is a Fair Price for Government Support on American Banker.

The report, “Customer Cross-Sell,” produced by Capgemini clearly outlines one of the major problems FIs are facing in regards to cross-sell and highlights three essential areas for improvement. The report concludes that “challenges…related to increasing customer cross-sell penetration rates stem from the lack of an advanced analytics environment to generate customer intelligence.” The key to improvement is:

“Who are your competitors?” I’ve been asked this question by potential clients, friends, and colleagues. It is a seemingly easy question, but the answer is far less direct than you might expect. Micronotes is a new business, with a new idea, and to be perfectly honest we do not have any direct competitors (to our knowledge).

It’s no secret that banks and credit unions are looking for revenue sources. Cross-sell is a top priority in 2012 with financial institution managers and marketers dreaming of auto loans, mortgages, and sugar plums. While loan products may bring in revenue immediately, deepening customer relationships through financial advising sessions, bill pay enrollment, etc. should not be overlooked.

If you have it, you know it’s a problem, and if you don’t your customers are probably more satisfied—I’m talking about old, outdated legacy technology.  Financial Institutions are at a major cross-roads having to cut costs, find new revenue streams, and interact with customers through a multitude of different communication channels (twitter, facebook, online banking etc.). Many FIs are lacking the technical infrastructure to adapt to the changing environment. In effect FIs are being forced to upgrade their core systems, or fall behind the pack.

Bank of America needs to recover lost interchange and fee revenue, but are new fees really the best answer?

There is nothing like walking through the front door of your home after a long day at work or hard workout and being greeted by the aroma of dinner, realizing how hungry you are, and having dinner already cooked and waiting. Essentially what happens in that moment is that you are hungry and your husband, wife or roommate predicts your need and meets it before you are even fully aware it exists. Wouldn’t it be awesome if things like this happened all the time?

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!