When someone buys a brand-new car, what do they say?
“Well, mine was getting up in miles. The trade-in value was dropping, and I really wanted something with better gas mileage.”
This is the rationale.
“I wanted something with more safety features.”
“I needed more reliability.”
“Have you seen the trade-in deals lately? They almost paid me to get a new car.”
These are the logical facts we share so we don’t look like an insane person for committing funds to a quickly-depreciating asset.
So what was the reason?
If we’re honest with ourselves, here’s how we’d really answer: “I saw an ad on Facebook during my pre-bed-time doomscrolling. The ad made me feel better than all the disquiet I’ve been feeling, so I clicked through. Building out a car online, to my exact specs, made me feel even better. If a virtual shopping experience feels this good, I imagine a test drive will make me feel ecstatic!”
Once, I asked an “expert” used-car salesman why all used-car ads relied on insane gimmicks with a pitchman yelling at the camera. Almost all consumers say they hate this style of advertising, yet it keeps going, and people keep buying cars.
His response: “You have to realize that for about 72 hours around the purchase of a car, the buyer could be considered legally insane. They’re making completely emotional decisions. These ads play into this emotion. And they work.”
Emotional buying isn’t limited to cars or even large purchases.
Do you really think you buy M&Ms because they “melt in your mouth, not in your hand?” No. You’re probably not even hungry when you buy them. They’re not healthy. They won’t sustain you very long. There are few logical reasons to buy junk food. You could buy a whole bag of salad for the price of a small amount of M&Ms. We don’t buy junk food for any rational reason. We buy M&Ms because they make us feel better, even in a small way.
People make decisions based on emotion, and they backfill with logic.
My mentor, Duane Birch, repeated this axiom to me almost every day we worked together. He never told me who told him first—or if he picked it up in his multi-decade national brand experience. From Yugo to Yoo-Hoo, consumers proved to lean toward what they want before they make certain it’s what they need. This Harvard professor agrees.
Ok. ok. But what about banking?
As a general rule of thumb, bank advertising relies on rationale—the secondary side of decision making. This is based on features, logic, and math. Banks (generally) don’t seem to realize people make decisions on excitement—impulse—how the brand makes them feel (if the brand is good).
Perhaps banks drank the wrong Kool-Aid and believed potential customers couldn’t be excited about banks. Maybe they forgot banks, almost literally, perform magic—transferring funds from your strong brick building to a trendy retailer to complete a purchase—almost at the speed of light.
Either we forgot how magical—how helpful—banking is. Or, at the very least, took it for granted and forgot to tell people.
Banking is emotional.
Most customers who switch banks do so for two reasons: poor service or a mistake (which likely wasn’t handled well). The customer is angry—they feel mistreated or unimportant. They feel emotional. And they want to find another bank that will not do this to them. They want a bank that will not make them feel this way.
First, you must realize you’re not creating ads trying to convince satisfied people to leave their bank. As we covered in a past blog, only 2% of people are either Dissatisfied or Very Dissatisfied with their primary bank. You have a small potential audience who is ready to leave at any time. You must be ready with advertising messages created to speak to those looking to leave their current bank.
Second, you must build your message around a beneficial brand. To do so, you need to deeply understand the difference between benefits and features (and those features trying to be benefits). We cover that here.
Third, you must combine these into a consistent, benefit-based brand message. This is much easier said than done, but if it was easy to do, everyone would be doing it. Your advantage? Out of 5,000 banks, almost no one is doing this well.
How does that make you feel?
Your community bank is essential. You likely serve a group of clients that’s overlooked by larger banks. You’re part of a complex and stressful ecosystem. The balance is hard to strike—you must adopt the right resources to serve your clients without losing the human touch that separates you from other banks.
The days when “community bank” was synonymous with “small bank” are long gone. Consolidation and other outside threats loom. You must learn to create healthy growth without losing your bank’s identity.
On the merger and acquisition side, it’s an insanely complicated and trying process (especially your first time around). Simply put, it’s eat or be eaten.
So let’s concentrate on organic growth—marketing your bank to more clients within your footprint while slowly expanding those geographic boundaries. How do you strike a healthy balance of loan growth while controlling funding of deposits to maintain the yield that delivers profits to your institution?
The secret to marketing is simple: tell more people better. Good news—this doesn’t require a huge budget. It does require commitment, some experience, and at least a little expertise.
You can expand over time, but every minute you wait to start, you lose ground. Maybe you’ve started, but you’re stuck. You’re not beating the competition, and you don’t know where to go.
We see many, many ways in which banks are wasting money, time, and human capital. If you feel you’re squandering opportunities, you might be guilty of one (or more) of these 10 cardinal sins:
1. You truly don’t see the value of marketing.
The success of most community banks has been based on shoe leather and handshakes. Personal relationships are directly proportional to asset growth. But what happens when that stalls—when the big bank de-novos into your community, cuts loan rates, and boosts deposit interest? When you’ve pressed the flesh for your whole career (and it’s worked really, really well), it’s hard to see the value in increasing an expense line item.
I understand. You may not be adversarial to marketing. You simply don’t understand it.
Too many banks approach marketing by just checking the box. An admin person gets a “promotion” and a “budget,” then is expected to perform. Perhaps you send them to some training. However, the expense line item bugs you and you’d really like to see some ROI.
The fix:
Commit, but start slow. Understand that, in the beginning, a marketing department doesn’t run a P&L—it’s an expense. Allocate a budget you’re willing to spend. Set goals and determine a path toward accomplishing those goals. If you and your staff genuinely have no idea where to begin, hire some help. Yes, it’s self-serving for an agency to make this recommendation; but it’s just true.
2. You don’t know how to do it.
It’s hard to admit, but ignorance is the number-one reason for failures within bank marketing. It’s tough to get traction if you and your staff don’t know what you’re doing. Moreover, you’ll only make it worse because you will damage the belief in marketing as a valid activity.
If you fall into this category, I won’t beat you up.
The fix:
It’s simple (and a bit self-serving): find outside help. It doesn’t have to be Mabus Agency (but we are the best option). The money spent with a qualified agency can help you experience early wins that return revenue to the bank, fund future activities, and increase confidence in your efforts.
3. You convince yourself you don’t have the budget to compete.
Inaction is second to ignorance in creating failure within financial marketing.
Don’t psych yourself out. Being the underdog might be a better position than you think. In his book, “David and Goliath,” Malcolm Gladwell makes the point about the eponymous story, that David likely had an advantage over his larger opponent. Gladwell posits that David’s youth, stealth, and accuracy from practice with a sling made him the perfect enemy of the larger, slower-moving giant. Because David was not seen as a threat, he was able to get into position and fire while Goliath scoffed. (I highly recommend this book.)
David won because of his size. Not despite it.
Our work with banks proves that “bigger” doesn’t always mean “winner.”
The fix:
Concentrate your limited resources on your most significant opportunity. Everyone has less of a budget than they want or need. You must get used to concentration—and exercise the ability to say no to compelling opportunities that might seem like a decent fit. You must reject activities that spread your resources too thin.
4. You don’t want to poke the bear.
First-time marketers often worry about the consequences of their efforts:
“If I start marketing, will others just spend more money?”
“Will it escalate out of control?”
“Maybe the competition will drop/increase their rate.”
If you’re trying to fly under your competition’s radar, you’re probably flying under your potential clients’ radar, too.
This type of mentality is like punting on first down (we’re not even fans of punting on fourth down). You’re just saying, “If we don’t play the game, we can’t lose.”
Hopefully, it’s apparent that this is not a winning strategy.
The fix:
You don’t have to get in your competitors’ faces to advertise. Tell your story. Again, the trick is doing better today than you did yesterday. You don’t have to compare yourself to the competition, but if you have something that sets you apart, you can (and should) brag on that item. Regardless, you can’t live your marketing life in contrast with another financial institution. You must understand your competitive environment, then execute your own plan.
5. You’re too busy copying them.
They put an ad in the newspaper. Why aren’t we in the newspaper?!
They sponsored a community event. Why weren’t we the sponsor?!
They put their bankers in an ad. Why didn’t we?!
If you’re chasing your competition like this, you’ll never catch up. Bankers just like you, all over the country, face undue stress related to tactics like these. I believe this tendency is derivative of that same competitive letdown you feel when “they beat us for that loan.” It feels like a loss.
Marketing like your competition only depletes valuable energy and leads to homogenized advertising environments that are less effective for all financial institutions.
The fix:
Zig when they zag. When your newspaper rep calls and says, “…but every other bank will be in this publication…,” I want you to grit your teeth and say, “NO.” It will be tough in the beginning, but you must understand that it does you no good to be diluted amongst every other bank. You have to convince your bankers that you’re not missing out by being the only bank missing from a Chamber of Commerce welcome bag containing seven other banks’ promotional items. But it’s not about sitting on the sideline. Your competition is zagging. What are you doing to zig? Own a premium ad position in a key publication (that’s not littered with banks). Commit to a strong billboard message. Show up where you can stand out, and own that platform.
This is a real-world example. A Chamber representative brought this welcome bag to a branch opening. What good does this do any of these banks?
6. You’re buying what THEY’RE selling
I had an epiphany while attending a recent bank marketing event.
I walked through the tradeshow floor and surveyed the vendors.
Represented were a couple of sales tools (CRMs), personal financial management systems, and lots of digital signage vendors. All of these represented activities that start after a potential client engages with your institution.
Where was all the stuff that attracts a new client? Nonexistent. Absent. There were no digital media representatives. No traditional media. Only a bit of social media.
The problem is that we assume what we’re being shown is what’s important, and it’s what we should be considering.
If you engaged every vendor at the event, you’d still be missing a valuable component: how to attract new clients.
The fix:
Make sure you utilize techniques designed to attract new clients. Yes, it’s important to nurture clients and deepen relationships. However, you first have to make certain new clients are coming in. The great news for you? If your competition hasn’t adopted this philosophy, you might be the only one marketing in your trade area.
7. You admire them too much.
The relationships amongst bankers drive me a bit nuts sometimes. Bankers will compete like bitter enemies over a single loan or client relationship. However, when it comes time to market against the bank down the street, a banker will say, “I’m just not going to do that to him/her.”
It’s like a strange code of honor—one I don’t understand.
This attitude is shrinking, but it’s still around. I’m all for friendly competition, but competition is the keyword. Make certain you’re competitive.
The fix:
Play golf at the annual event with your competitors, but maintain a healthy marketing plan. You don’t have to denigrate your competitors to market, but you have to gain awareness amongst your potential clients.
8. You’re in the industry trap.
Bank-specific vendors do a great job scaring you to death about compliance and security. Then they turn around and charge you based on those fears.
Security and compliance are vitally important, but sometimes, the focus on financial-specific solutions obscures other solutions outside the “built-for-banks” marketplace.
There is a limited pool of bank vendors, so we all wind up using the same tools. Community banks are dependent on outside companies to develop software and solutions. The biggest pain point is when your institution outgrows its current solution, but you’re stuck in a contract.
The fix:
Vet thoroughly. When adopting a new software or solution, we suggest bringing in at least one potential solution from outside the financial world. Even if an outside-the-industry solution doesn’t fit, it might enlighten you to functionality you wouldn’t have known existed.
9. You think bankers are more important than brand.
Want to close the browser? Hang in here with me, because you need to read this more than anyone else. Bankers are infinitely valuable to the banking process. Absolutely. However, when stepping into the world of advertising, putting bankers in an ad is less important than building a brand.
I’ve seen banks spend thousands of dollars building the “brand” of an individual banker. Then that banker (along with his/her portfolio) was lifted out. The new bank didn’t have to pay to build that banker’s following—just a salary it was willing to pay anyway.
Also, bankers seem to think that consumers like to see bankers in ads. A consumer might value a personal relationship with his/her banker. However, a client appreciates a strong institution more than a relationship with a single banker. If you don’t believe that, you probably haven’t worked in one of those strong institutions.
The fix:
When you pay to build your brand, that investment persists beyond bankers who come and go. You build a foundation that communicates strength to a brand-centric culture. You can attract more bankers in the future. In short, you win.
10. That’s just not what community banks do!
Hahahahahahaha.
The fix:
Either shut the doors or sell. Otherwise, we’ll meet when one of your competitors hires us; and you don’t want that.
These takeaways will make or break your bank’s geotargeting investment.
Geotargeting and geofencing are two of the trendiest advertising activities enabled by the mobile revolution. More than that, they’re proving to be the next big thing on the advertising frontier. Understandably so—marketers move their dollars to where people spend most of their time. And today’s U.S. consumers spend at least five hours of their day on their mobile devices.
But both these activities come with inherent flaws. And they require a new level of analytical and creative rigor not yet fully understood.
That said, we’ve seen a number of banks make substantial use of geolocation to improve customer targeting—and that has yielded a wealth of lessons learned. Here are a few of our biggest takeaways.
1. Advertise where people are sedentary, on their phone, AND often managing their money.
Banks have long looked at major retail areas as the prime real estate for financial decisions. However, a bank’s physical presence at a mall doesn’t necessarily mirror decision-making in a digital advertising medium. People shopping at malls are busy and although they may check their devices, they aren’t making important banking decisions when buying a new pair of shoes or a cinnamon bun.
Don’t waste your digital dollars where people are active or using their phones for more intentional reasons. A better use of your geotargeting investment could be placement around pickup lines at school or large office buildings full of daytime workers. These individuals are stationary and often browsing their phones more casually. This is an opportunity for you to generate meaningful interest.
2. It’s not just about location, it’s about timing, too.
Think about those carpool lines at the elementary school. Don’t spend your money for a full day of advertising. Test time ranges between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. and 3:00 and 4:00 p.m. Consider the day of the week or the time of year when targeting those employees in the office building. Fridays, plus the 15th and 30th of each month are common paydays—when money is top of mind—and a great time to start a conversation about banking.
3. It’s not just about location and timing, it’s also about creative and messaging.
To properly target by location and timing, your creative and messaging should align with your placement. For example, you could remind those office building employees on payday that they can put a little money from their paychecks into one of your high-yield savings accounts. This is a timely, meaningful message. Anything else would be “just another bank ad” and quickly dismissed.
Keep in mind that your landing pages from these ads should also align with the creative and messaging. Don’t send these interested savers to your homepage. Send them to a page that shows how far a little saving can go. And allow them to take action there on the page to set up a consultation, send themselves a reminder, or open a new savings account on the spot.
4. “Geoconquesting” is a good idea, but not a silver bullet.
People go into banks most often for one of three reasons:
- To open an account
- To close an account
- To transact
All of these events represent an opportunity for you. But when geoconquesting—that is, a form of geotargeting that focuses on your competitors’ locations—you should temper your expectations. By the time a consumer enters a branch, many of the choices that go into opening a new account have already been researched. And your offer may not be strong enough to pull someone away from a decision.
It may sound like a promising opportunity to target a customer who’s in the act of closing an account. Keep in mind, though, these customers have often opened a new account at another bank many months before officially closing their old account. Again, your offer may not impact the decision.
Geoconquesting does offer a strong awareness opportunity, however.
Staying top-of-mind is difficult, and switching banks is rare. Meaningful, brand-boosting advertising will keep your bank fresh in a customer’s mind when they have any issues with a competitor or they decide they want to look elsewhere for another financial solution. To help solidify your brand, weave your bank’s story—and how you serve the greater community—into your more informational ads.
5. Reinforce sponsorships where you can.
Geotargeting local events where you have a presence can significantly enhance your success. If you’re a branded sponsor of the Fifth Annual Local Art Crawl, overlay the area with ads and drive visitors to your booth. Use the event’s topic to your benefit. If you have a presence at a business event, use the ads to highlight some of the other businesses you’ve helped. If it is a local arts fair, try raffling a local art piece at your booth and use the ads to promote it. Traffic will follow.
Don’t let your advertising end when you pack up your booth. Retarget the customers who have clicked on the landing page you use for the event. This can help you deliver relevant advertising to your booth visitors for months to come, moving them from casually interested to new client.
This was originally published at the ABA Bank Marketing blog.
After nearly a decade of financial marketing, we’ve noticed a single question that keeps turning up like a bad penny.
“How do I deal with compliance officers?”
Then again, guess what we hear from compliance officers.
We know that you, they, and everyone else in your organization wants to be compliant. After all, you’re all on the same team. And we know that you’re doing a fantastic job marketing your bank and its products to new and current customers alike. But in the midst of that progress, your compliance officer’s role becomes one, not unlike the parent of two siblings who each want something different for dinner.
Compliance officers need to have a very specific set of skills in order to do their jobs correctly. Each day, they make sure that everyone within your entire organization has been trained to follow its own policies and procedures across all facets of business operations. This is what’s known as institutional compliance. At the same time, they must also ensure that all existing financial regulations (and related ethical codes) are followed to the letter—while constantly uncovering, researching, and implementing new or changing industry regulations, of which the potential to run afoul is significant.
Sometimes, the rules and regulations they must follow are cut-and-dried while, at other times, your compliance officers must make judgment calls that will keep your organization free of issues that may put your bank at risk. And just because something worked before (or you did things a certain way in the past) doesn’t mean that will happen again—because the rules are constantly changing.
If you work with your bank’s compliance officers, we’re sure you’ve been frustrated at times. But so have they. Our goal is to help you—and your fellow employees—build better relationships with your compliance officers, one step at a time. And if you want to tackle all five at once, that’s even better.
1. Allow Your Compliance Officers to Do Their Jobs
Our first tip is the easiest one to actually follow. Simply put, your compliance officer has possibly the most underappreciated role within your bank. His or her main duty is to know the ins and outs of legal and regulatory requirements so that the bank operates with the highest level of integrity. Your compliance officer won’t make decisions based on profit potential or new product awareness, but on staying within the lines.
Although his or her recommendations might not be what you hoped to hear, failure to follow your compliance officer’s advice could be much more costly in the long run.
“Regulators aren’t just more aggressively pursuing institutions who break the law,” said Adrian Morrissey, manager of the compliance division at global, specialist professional recruitment consultancy, Robert Walters. “Higher penalties are being imposed on lawbreakers. Compliance has become a pivotal issue for banks, because failing to do their diligence on customers and transactions leaves a company open to scrutiny and litigation.”
2. Empower Them to Voice Their Expertise
Your compliance officer must be able to speak freely without fear of retribution or ridicule. So, it’s important for you to take time to empower those in compliance, and show them that their questions, opinions, and abilities to anticipate and solve problems have great value.
“Sometimes, it’s hard to feel like part of the team while convincing everyone around you that you’re doing a job that must be done so that your organization can maintain compliance and thrive,” said Brigham Young University-Idaho faculty member and compliance expert, CJ Wolf, in a recently published article at Healthicity.com. “You know what’s at stake, but sometimes it can feel impossible to get everyone on board.”
3. Help Other Employees Want to Comply With Compliance Training
Yes, official legal and compliance reviews should always take place. That’s a no-brainer. But, taking the step to ensure that your other employees have the opportunity to understand the rules and regulations guiding the financial industry will help improve both processes and efficiency.
“If you want 100% compliance (or 100% of your employees to complete the compliance training with a passing score), your training must be usable for all employees,” said Gauri Reyes, principal learning strategist and CEO at Triple Point Advisors. “For example, if using online training for compliance training programs, providing employees with desktop and mobile learning options lets employees choose when and where to learn.”
It’s also important to remember that training must be both ADA-compliant and, in many cases, available in multiple languages. The more your team knows, the less stressful the process will be for your compliance officers.
4. Perform Risk Assessments
Risk assessments not only let your compliance officers know where to focus their time, but they engage other bank employees, too
In Compliance 101: A Guide to Building Effective Compliance Programs, Lori A. Brown, Nikita Williams, and Christopher Miles advance the notion that risk assessments allow organizations to maximize the utility of scarce resources by directing them to the most significant compliance issues they face.
So, be sure to schedule risk assessments that not only focus on the most significant issues, but ones that also include those with boots on the ground.
“When individuals who have day-to-day administrative responsibilities participate in identifying compliance risks and developing mitigation plans, they’re more likely to actively participate in the compliance process,” said the book’s authors.
5. Fix What’s Wrong, and Make Things Right
When banks fall out of compliance, a common practice upon catching a mistake is to fix it, ignore the past, and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
“‘Correcting from now on,’ is a terrible attitude to have, when it comes to overpayments, but I’ve heard this from senior level management leaders,” Wolf said. “The whole purpose of a compliance program is to prevent or detect and correct noncompliance.
“We get it—nobody likes to give back money,” he said. “But in the case of overpayments, it’s not your money. You’re giving back money that’s not actually your money.”
Help all your employees feel a part of the solution—not just the problem. It will take your entire team to make things right, and that collective expertise might be just what your compliance officers need to assist them in getting your organization back on track.
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Finally—and this one’s a bonus—never, ever rest on your laurels, for that’s when disaster will strike. “We’ve always done it this way,” is never a suitable course of action.
“As a compliance officer, this is the worst excuse I hear, because if your process is non-compliant, and you’ve “always done it this way,” you might be facing some significant payback issues or other ramifications, given the longevity of the problem,” Wolf said. “Don’t wait until it’s too late.”
If all of your employees feel invested, not only in their positions, but in the organization as well, they’re more apt to take ownership. That culture of teamwork starts with you.
“We only advertise mortgages in the second quarter.”
“Why?”
“People don’t buy houses in the winter.”
I don’t think all bankers believe this, but I’ve certainly heard it enough to do the research.
Survey says? There’s something to it.
According to U.S. Census Bureau data, spring and early summer consistently boast the highest number of new home sales.
Don’t believe the U.S. Census Bureau? That’s OK, some people don’t. Here’s the National Association of Realtors existing home sales data from 2017.
Even with two graphs, you don’t see the whole picture. Dig a little deeper, and another story emerges—mortgage lenders who limit advertising during an idealized four-month window miss out on the vast majority of home sales.
More Homes Are Sold Outside the Spring Window
In 2017, more new, single-family homes were sold between March 1 and June 30 than during any other four-month period. That’s a large chunk of business but, in reality, March-June sales add up to barely more than one-third of the 608,000 sales made during 2017.
You see, every month last year, people collectively bought at least 43,000 new homes and 315,000 existing homes.
There’s no way around the numbers. In fact, according to my data, people have bought houses every month for the past eight years. The only reason I say eight years is because I didn’t pull older data. I figure eight years makes a strong enough point. The crazy thing is, during each of those months, people bought almost as many houses they did during any other month.
Here’s my point:
People buy homes all year long. Ignoring this fact when developing your marketing strategy can cost you significant revenue.
Limiting yourself to springtime advertising definitely gives you a shot at snagging some business during the industry’s busiest season, but not advertising during the other seasons will cost you much more. It will cost you more than half of the year’s home sales.
Un-Level the Playing Field
Before we go any further, let’s establish one key point:
The goal of advertising is to make your business stand apart from competitors.
If every mortgage provider in your market saturates a particular four-month advertising window, you’re all competing in an overcrowded marketplace for a limited number of eyes.
But, if most of your competitors have pulled their advertising campaigns by the end of June, you’ll have an empty stage and a captive audience.
When marketing mortgages, or any other parity product, you must pounce anytime the playing field is uneven.
You could be one of many lenders trying to close loans for the 61,000 in the spring, or you could be the only lender closing 43,000 loans in December.
Which scenario sounds more profitable to you?
Grow Brand Identity in Your Marketplace
Imagine getting a call for a favor from an old friend to whom you haven’t talked since the last time you helped him. Then another friend, who bought you lunch last week, asks you to help her, too. Who are you going to help first?
To the latter you may say, “Sure, just tell me when and where,” and to the former, “Nice to hear from you; where have you been all year?”
Coke, Walmart and Apple are top of mind because their advertising is pervasive. It’s why most of us think about them at some point every day—whether we want to or not.
Financial marketing is difficult because regulations won’t let us budge on the “fact,” so we have to find other ways to stand out.
You’d be surprised how often I hear people say, “Oh yeah, I think I’ve heard of that lender. Is it the green one or the blue one?”
Even if your marketplace completely dries up during the winter, I’d still recommend running some degree of “awareness” ads throughout the entire year. The best way to make sure a customer calls you when they’re ready to buy a home, instead of your competition, is to make sure you’re top of mind. You certainly don’t need to be obnoxious (though some studies show that works, too), but you need to be known.
So when other mortgage lenders enter their hibernation caves in July, consider ramping up your awareness efforts. These efforts will certainly translate into business during the fall and winter, but more importantly, it means your business will be top of mind come next March.
Drive Sales All Year Long
Simply put, refusing to advertise outside the spring window is refusing business. Maintaining a consistent marketing and advertising strategy that covers the entire year—rather than just four months—lets you invest consistently in your business and boost cash flow.
In the spring, you might imply your willingness to work faster than the competition. Then, in winter, you can encourage buyers to act while home prices are lower.
Do you want to be a little fish in a big pond, or do you want to be the only fish?
At Mabus Agency, we tell our clients to zig when others zag, but this is a case of zigging while everyone else stands still. If you want to increase loan volume and stand out from the competition, buck the trend and do something different this fall.
Features vs Benefits vs Beneficial Features
The battle of features versus benefits is as old as time—or at least as old as the advertising industry itself.
Features are the lifeless attributes of a product, service, or brand.
Benefits are the value a client should find in your product, service, or brand.
While most of us likely understand the difference and preference toward benefit, we rarely explore why benefits are better.
The core differentiator is around extrapolation—drawing conclusions. Benefits innately capture value. Some features might seem valuable (especially if you have a writer’s confirmation bias), but they require readers/listeners/viewers to apply their own experience.
Big is a feature. While “bigger is better” is a well-known phrase, we don’t all process “big” in the same way. For some, “big” can be overwhelming. For others, “big” is invigorating—a concept that brings options and potential to explore.
By simply saying “big,” you can’t expect a universal result. Therein lies the problem.
Benefits bridge the gap and make the intended connection for your audience.
This becomes into greater contrast in community bank marketing, though. Our features don’t necessarily evoke a natural benefit. We rarely have “big” at our disposal as community bankers. Instead, we must extoll the virtues of being small. We have to connect the dots for potential clients to understand why smaller is more accessible, nimble, and responsive.
There are added dangers. We can lean on words we often feel are naturally positive and beneficial.
Words like community, family, and personal permeate banking text. There’s nothing wrong with these words in and of themselves. But we must understand our perspective on these is not universal.
In the debate of features versus benefits, I call these words “beneficial features.”
They’re words loaded with meaning, but that meaning is not ubiquitous or universal.
We all understand the intent behind a word like “family.” It’s a single word that can communicate a tight-knit group who all act in one another’s interest—a loving group of people.
However, this isn’t the reality in all families. Not everyone experienced an idyllic version of family—for some, it is the opposite.
It can be the same with community. It’s not always a safe and positive environment.
These words, whose truth we hold to be self-evident, often don’t communicate with the volume of meaning and positive we want to confer. At their core, they’re just features—even if their leaning is beneficial.
I’m not just being a semantic devil’s advocate. And I am certainly not saying to avoid positive words because they might be negative to a certain group. You just cannot rely solely on the positive intent of these words without connecting the dots for your audience. You must know these words do not communicate enough on their own. They’re still features (no matter how beneficial or positive). With any feature, you must connect the dots to the benefit for your audience.
When we use phrases like, “We’re a true community bank,” we must follow up with explanation and meaning for much of our audience—regardless of their feeling of the word “community.” We use the phrase universally within the industry, but our audience doesn’t inherently gather the benefit. It’s up to us to connect those dots.
If your bank truly provides a family-like atmosphere or is a true community partner, visitors to the branch or your social channels shouldn’t even have to be told “family” and “community.” They should see these concepts in the photos, comments, and experiences. But you must make certain these visitors understand why family and community are benefits.
We must remember that any feature requires some connecting of the dots. Don’t make your audience work to determine your meaning. Make it clear for them. It’s worth the extra words, and it’s worth the extra time.
Aaaaooooooogaaaa! That’s the clarion call of “disrupt or die!” The horn has been blasted loudly and repeatedly from the mountaintops—mainly by those who get paid for their opinions and guidance moreso than those of us who have to do the work.
There is no wonder we hear we must change our banks from the folks who get paid to tell us to change our banks.
Implementation specialists
Change agents
Innovation consultants
I’m tired of them. And I’m tired of the talk about disruption.
It’s time to talk about discernment.
Let’s clearly acknowledge banks do, in fact, need to embrace change and become active participants in innovation. However, there is a time, place, and pace for everything.
I feel like, now, we’re in a crowded theater, someone yelled “fire,” and we’re in a mad, haphazard dash toward the exits—crushing one another on the way to an uncertain future.
Your job is not disruption. Your job is discernment.
No matter your role at the bank, your job is to determine what needs to change and when.
Disruption is Vogue
“Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Something interesting is happening.” ― Tom Goodwin, Digital Darwinism: Survival of the Fittest in the Age of Business Disruption.
This quote has been shared and misattributed countless times on LinkedIn and poorly-wrought conference PowerPoints. We’ve deified these companies who came along and created upheaval. Even Tom Goodwin has asked us to refocus how we frame these companies—especially considering how varied their paths unwound since the publishing of his book just a short time ago in 2018.
Watching Uber and Airbnb come to life is as exciting as watching an elite athlete put on the performance of a lifetime. It’s compelling to watch magic—someone achieving the impossible. That’s why the Michael Jordan documentary, The Last Dance, put up record viewership numbers. It showed peak Michael Jordan. And there’s only one MJ.
It’s exciting to watch disruption happen, but none of us expect to go out on the court and be like Mike.
Banks Need Change
Along with the excitement of disruption, banks need change. Somewhere along the way, though, we mistook a need for innovation for a need to disrupt.
We watched companies like Chime, Venmo, and SoFi march up to the gates of banking and bang loudly. Or at least that’s how it looked. They actually did something totally different. Yet banks rushed (a little too late) to capture the leftover market with products that don’t live up to the predecessor.
Banks are victims of the pendulum swing all the time. We wait and catch it on the high arc.
We feel like we’re late. We listen to the “sky is falling” consultants—who are also late to ring the bell. And we spend tons of money for marginal results.
Look at Venmo. They popped onto the world stage, and folks flocked to their service. We watched and watched and finally heard:
“Hey, this is a threat to banking!”
“Hey, you need to offer your own P2P. Don’t let others hold your cash!”
“Hey, you’re going to look uncool if you don’t have this!”
But there’s a problem. Venmo had already innovated. They captured the early adopters. They captured the second wave, which was influenced by the first wave. Who was left? Those that Venmo—the Michael Jordan of P2Ps—couldn’t attract. But consultants convinced us we should try our hand at capturing them anyway.
And we wound up with campaigns like “convince Dad to send his college-age daughter some cash” or “split the wine bill with your octogenarian friends.”
There wasn’t much audience left. They already made their decisions to go with technology or to be happy with folding money and checks.
The Incumbent Factor
We tend to look at the darlings of disruption from the wrong angle. We only look at their innovation in their given field. We don’t look at what was wrong in the first place.
Was Uber successful because it was innovative?
Or because cabs suck?
Both. But I don’t think we would care about the former if the latter was not only true but aggressively true.
I’m profoundly unsuccessful at hailing cabs on the street in New York City. I hate the queue at LaGuardia, where you march down the stanchions to get into the next cab. And, to me, the experience only gets worse when you get inside the cab. You’re surrendering your livelihood to a short-tempered person erratically piloting a yellow, foul-smelling sarcophagus on wheels.
My first experience with Uber in NYC was the exact opposite. I exited a plane, summoned a driver as I was walking through the terminal, and was told where to meet my car. He was waiting for me with a smiling face and a clean vehicle.
The experience couldn’t have been more different. But, at face value, Uber was really just “whelming.” A decent person with a decent car with a decent drive. Sure, the technology was cool, but when we think about it, it’s not THAT groundbreaking. It repurposed and repackaged the steps you’d go through to ask a buddy for a ride. But, when this experience is cast against the horrors of riding in a cab, Uber becomes overwhelmingly transcendent.
Disruption has less to do with how good you are and more to do with how bad the incumbent is.
It is well-known incumbents are hard to beat. Good incumbents are even more difficult.
Also, at some point, we were convinced banks are the challenger. You are not the challenger. You are the incumbent.
This perspective is important. It doesn’t mean you don’t need to innovate. It also doesn’t mean you’re always defending your position. But largely, we’ve forgotten we’re in the power position. It’s easier to sell you consulting when you feel weaker than you are.
As with Uber, disruption isn’t always about innovation. Most times, it’s about solving what is wrong.
So what is wrong in the industry that you and your bank can solve?
It’s actually probably not “the industry.” The place you can affect the most change is likely in the communities you serve.
Instead of listening to Chicken Little pundits who make money from “Sky is Falling” rhetoric, look closer to home.
Recently, I was speaking with a client at a restaurant. I’ve had a version of this conversation several times.
- Bank: “A new business is opening. What should we add to our product mix to attract those folks who are moving in?”
- Me: “We’ve never marketed to them. Maybe they really value what you already offer. Instead of coming up with something new, let’s look at what you offer and how you offer it. Most folks don’t want new bells and whistles. They just want their stuff to work.”
At this point, a random couple walks up. Somehow, they’d discerned the bank and listened in on the conversation. They owned a business and had commercial and personal accounts with the bank.
- Random Customer: “What we like is any time something is wrong we can call your bank. We can do most things ourselves through the app and online banking, but we really like that we can talk to a real person if we have a problem or a question.”
Yes, banks have worn out the “our people” message. And it is difficult to frame creatively, but the simple act of being available might be as disruptive in your bank’s service area as any new technology. It’s just not as sexy. And it might not be as expensive.
Discernment Simplified
Look at innovation through the lens of customer’s problems instead of coming trends from a cracked crystal ball. Sometimes this will require innovation. Sometimes this will require focus on what you already do well. But don’t let anyone outside set your pace.
I learned a simple axiom that added to my ability to discern change in my business. You have three options when it comes to innovation.
1. You can be early
2. You can be late
3. You can be right on time
Being early costs a bit more money and comes with more risk, but your potential for reward is higher. Being late costs less money and is less risky, but you lose opportunities. Being right on time is impossible. Once you stop considering this fallacy, decisions become a whole lot easier.
Maximize Wins and Minimize Losses with a Healthy Advertising Mix
Your bank needs deposits. Everyone from the top down knows it. After a spirited ALCO meeting, the bank agrees to roll out a high-yield CD to bring in the bucks. You get a special budget to create a 90-day campaign with new creative. You pull off the miracle of launching the campaign in the nick of time.
Across town, a person is opening her newspaper, and your ad catches her eye. She’s looking for a new bank, after all. But…it’s for a CD. She owns a business and is looking for a place to move her operating account—that holds about $500,000 on average. Even though she’s unhappy with her current bank, she breezes right on past your ad because it doesn’t fit her need. You see, she needs a business bank.
What’s this? Your bank is also a commercial bank?
Of course, it is, but you missed the opportunity because the mandate was to advertise the high-yield CD.
Ugh. It’s a bit of a gut punch, right?
It’s a mistake you might’ve made (and now you’re probably trying to think of how many times). The ad was too focused—when the business owner in question could’ve put a big dent in your deposit-raising goal with her operating account.
I don’t have a problem with CD ads. I don’t have a problem with product-based promotions. Each has its place in your marketing plan.
But this scenario reminds me of something I heard an old man relate once: “You can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be at the airport when my ship comes in.”
It’s maddening to be given a great product, executed a campaign, and know you still might’ve missed the proverbial boat.
The scenario outlined above plays out at banks all across the country—multiple times every day.
A person is looking for a mortgage when you’re running an ad for your new checking account.
A student is looking for a new checking account and receives a digital ad for mortgage.
Your audience is simply bigger, broader, and more diverse than most banks’ ad campaigns. There is no way to match the perfect ad with precise timing to the exact needs of a potential client.
Don’t despair, though. There is a solution.
Turning Tears into Tiers
Before we dig into the “how,” you must distance yourself from two core fallacies that hold back banks:
❌ The only way to attract a person to a bank product is to advertise that bank product.
❌ You don’t have enough resources to do what you need to do.
You have the distinctly difficult task of promoting an incredibly complex product mix to an incredibly complex audience. If you approach the project head-on, you’ll wind up going in circles. I’m sure there are resources that claim to match exact need with a perfect ad*, but there’s a more reliable technique.
You have to divide your advertising into three tiers:
1. Brand
2. Transitional
3. Product
Tier One: Brand Advertising
The core of your advertising campaign must be based on your brand. Many times we commit 40% or more of an entire advertising budget to this portion. There are two facets to brand advertising: the message and the medium.
“Branding” as a verb is often misused (unless you’re talking about pressing a hot iron to a cow’s backside). Some purveyors of creativity try to convince an audience that a logo or brand can be so good that it “verbs” an audience in some ways. Make no mistake, though, the Nikes, Cokes, and Amazons of the world would still be stuck at the starting gates if not for an investment in advertising that promoted their brands. Neither would their names echo in the vaunted halls of branding if they didn’t spend BILLIONS backing their position. Sure, they’re great brands, but never forget that they bought the affinity they enjoy.
Brand Messaging
You must commit to advertising that promotes your brand position. If you haven’t arrived at this position, check out this piece or just fast-forward and hire us.
The short version is this: your bank is very similar to 99% of the other 12,000-13,000 financial institutions also marketing to your audience. You must find that 1% and advertise the hell out of it.
Consider this Mabus Agency mantra:
The role of advertising is to facilitate word of mouth in two ways:
1. To get people to talk
2. To tell them what to say
That’s the role of brand messaging. You want to make sure as many people as possible add something like this to their daily conversations: “Hey, have you heard of Strong Bank? Yeah, they’re strong. That’s why I do business with them.”
Brand Media
Once you’ve arrived at your message and committed to sharing it, you have to pick a media mix that fits. While there are no hard and fast rules, we do believe there are media that better lend themselves to certain areas of marketing. For brand, television, billboard, and other broadcast media often carry the biggest brand punch.
No one can choose your bank if they don’t know it exists. You must increase awareness of your brand name, and these agnostic, unfocused media are great tools in your arsenal to spread news of your name. Keep in mind, your brand messaging is only part of the whole. We’ll need to layer in other messaging and tactics.
Tier Two: Transitional Advertising
Being a middle child is tough. One exists as a comparison to older and younger siblings. So is the case with the middle child of our brand-tier approach. You probably can guess that Tier 3 (Product) will be pretty straightforward. Like the youngest sibling, Product is often the baby. And, as we’ve already covered, Brand is the eldest—guiding all our actions.
Transitional Messaging
Transitional is just what the name conveys: the space between the two. But it is definable. Transitional ads outline, with more depth, what type of bank you are.
This could be focused down a line of business:
We’re a commercial bank.
We’re a retail bank.
We’re a mortgage bank.
Perhaps it’s more philosophical:
We’re a community bank.
We’re a bank that crusades for a cause.
We’re a bank that supports our community.
Whatever your bank is, you need to communicate that to your audience early and often.
Transitional ads translate what can be esoteric ideas into more digestible principles for your consumer.
And think of this generally—like the examples above. You can be multiple things in multiple media.
Transitional Media
Again, there are no hard and fast rules, but you can concentrate your Transitional messaging pretty easily. Magazines and specialty publications can be a great forum. If you’re an ag bank, look to your farming publications. Business journals can showcase your position as a business bank. While I’m not a huge fan of radio, there are opportunities (especially in ag territories) to match messaging with medium in powerful ways. Another often overlooked opportunity is events. You can sponsor focused events in agriculture, business, and real estate, or you can level up: make your own. It can be a bit tough to pull off, but there’s no replacement for building relationships. Instead of creating advertising to get someone to walk into your bank, create advertising to draw a farmer or business person to a low-commitment event with a highly valuable speaker. You’ll be thanked for your effort, and likely some of that appreciation will turn into business.
Tier Three: Product Advertising
You probably don’t need a lesson here. We’ve all done plenty of this. It’s the safe route. You’ll never get called on the carpet for promoting product. The only other safe option is putting bankers’ pictures in the paper, but we’re not even going to go there.
Product Messaging
As I said earlier, product advertising has its place. That place is using about 20-30% of your budget to sell a product directly. And when I say “direct,” I mean it.
When you have the properly tiered advertising strategy, you can go in hard on product messaging. You have to be a bit more clever than “Open a damn account now,” but not much. This is where you use your features (such as rate, cashback, etc.), but don’t forget to marry these with your brand benefit.
Product Media
You can advertise product in any almost any media, but you won’t be able to get everything you want in the proper mix. I would guess your biggest fear is how thin your budget is getting by Tier Three. Therefore, you must concentrate where you can.
At the end of the day, your success will likely be quantified in product conversions. To that end, pick media that are extremely conversion-centric. Think digital(ly). Digital display and pay-per-click are areas where you can concentrate strong, straightforward brand messaging. Beyond this, you must have landing pages that match the campaign creative, offer, and messaging. Don’t buy digital ads and drop them on your bank’s homepage. Don’t drop visitors on your standard account signup page. Create unique pages that provide continuity and context from the brand that intrigued the person to click.
Lean Into Your Audience’s Knowledge Understanding
Your audience doesn’t know how a bank works (as we explain here), but they do know what a bank does.
This is especially true of those whose need is the most critical. When a client needs a loan or a new checking account, they know they need a bank. And these are the people you need to attract most.
Think about it. When have you heard someone say, “I need a new checking account”?
It’s more like, “My bank’s app has been wonky for the past six weeks. I need a new bank.”
So which bank will they visit?
One Brand to Rule Them All
You must take a second, close your eyes (if you’re listening to the blogcast), and imagine with me: each of these items must be congruent in messaging, tone, personality, color, photography style—in short, brand. They must look alike. They must sound similar. They must match. Keep in mind, though, I said “congruent.” This means in harmony, but not exact. This is called “Brand-Tier.” Each tier must be ON brand, but you can also use the unique attributes of each medium to great effect.
Hyperfocused, Under-resourced, and Overreacting
All banks have limited resources. There never is enough budget to do everything you want. The result is usually a frantic catch-up game.
We need deposits! Marketing shifts all its focus, time, and money to deposits.
Holy cow! What happened to lending? We need loans! Marketing shifts all its focus, time, and money to loans.
God forbid another bank rolls out a competitive rate. Then you’ll chase them.
To stop, you need a plan, and the Brand-Tier approach is one way to do it.
You don’t have to, and shouldn’t, chase.
Because when you’re chasing, you might not lose, but I can guarantee you won’t win.
Footnote: Remember the lesson, “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”)
How much money do you think your household spends on subscriptions each month?
- You or your daughter probably spend $15 on monthly beauty samples from Birchbox.
- You’ve probably spent $10 per meal at Blue Apron for a while (and probably have a few weeks worth of forgotten meals in the freezer).
- You spend $119 each year with Amazon for guaranteed two-day shipping (on most things?).
- Your iCloud, account (which, do you even remember signing up for this?) is $3 monthly.
The average American spends $237.33 each month on subscriptions services (according to a recent Waterstone study)—from streaming video and wellness apps to food delivery and cloud storage.
I think it’s safe to say we are now a subscription based economy.
But for some reason, most banks are under the impression those same clients are unwilling to pay a few extra dollars for the common checking account. Lest you forget, it’s an almost magical product that offers 24/7 access to their money, $250,000 in insurance, and online and mobile banking—and it’s only offered by banks.
Why? We destroyed the value?
How? By giving it away for free.
StrategyCorps offers banks a new way to evaluate and package checking accounts with value-add subscriptions. One of the company’s partners, Dave DeFazio, put it best when he told me, “If we’re talking about not having value, free doesn’t have any value.”
“If we’re talking about not having value, free doesn’t have any value.”
Dave DeFazio
So how do banks offer value?
Banks were asking a similar question after the passage of the National Bank Act in 1933. The act banned banks from offering interest on standard demand deposit (checking) accounts.
This put banks in a precarious position. How could they attract new customers? They did it by giving their clients hip gifts—toasters, wall clocks, and other valuable small appliances. You have a toaster now, but at the time it was a bit of a duplicative extravagance. Everyone wanted one, but didn’t necessarily need it—sort of like an InstaPot today.
When banks couldn’t find a traditional way to show their clients value, they found less conventional means.
In the 70s, banks found ways to (sort of) circumvent the regulations with NOW (negotiable order of withdrawal) accounts, and in the 1980s, small banks began to advertise the gifts as an incentive to open free checking accounts so they could compete with larger banks. They stopped making the gift a part of the checking account’s value, and used it as an up-front lure. By the 1990s, the larger banks joined on the free checking bandwagon and the government even passed the Truth in Savings Act which, among other things, regulated free checking accounts.
Everyone was cutting expenses to compete and the checking account officially lost its value.
In 2011, the passage of Dodd Frank reworked Regulation Q of the National Bank Act, allowing banks to offer interest on checking accounts.
We didn’t have to give away toasters anymore.
But banks did what banks do: chased their tails (the status quo). Instead of evolving the product, we just gave out a new version of the toaster.
We didn’t listen to our customers and instead listened to fulfillment companies who told us to offer free checking with knockoff bluetooth headphones and cheap kitchen appliances.
We need to bring value back to the checking account.
It’s time to make a toaster transition.
I’d be willing to bet your bosses have probably told you (at least twice) to push deposit products in the last quarter.
And conventional thinking (at least in the financial world) is that the easiest way to drive deposits is to attract new checking account clients. And that same thinking says the easiest way to get new checking clients is to give the accounts away. But as we’ve said before, free offers no value.
Well, it’s time to change our conventional thinking. Because the conventional thinking is wrong.
What if I told you the clients who value their checking accounts enough to pay for them value their primary banking relationships more than clients with free accounts? In fact community bank clients with fee checking are three times more likely to have other accounts and products with that same bank (according to a 2018 study from StrategyCorps and Cornerstone Advisors).
Surprised?
The marketplace that once responded to “value pricing” is now more interested in “value added,” but we’re having trouble transitioning from toaster type thinking.
Conversely, 90 percent of community bank clients with a free checking account had no other products with that bank (according to the same 2018 study). Free checking clients don’t value their banking relationship.
So if toasters and wall clocks and knock-off bluetooth headphones are no longer valuable, what is?
The new value paradigm lies in subscription culture. And, I think StrategyCorps’s is providing the best value-add subscription checking product on the market with BaZing
BaZing
Renasant Bank recently partnered with StrategyCorps to create a checking account that features a number of eye-catching value-adds. The account is powered by StrategyCorps’ BaZing product, which bundles benefits—like roadside assistance and cell phone insurance, identity protection, accidental death coverage, a health savings card, and a discount app with more than 400,000 local and nationwide deals —with Renasant’s checking account, all for a subscription fee that ends up being less than most of the benefits would be on their own. Renasant Rewards Extra powered by BaZing was born.
“With BaZing, we find the providers of things that people are already paying for,” Defazio said. “We get good deals because of our buying power and then bundle those products and services and give them to banks for a better-than-market price.”
DeFazio said he is seeing fee-based, benefit-driven checking accounts become more and more popular as the marketplace gets younger.
So maybe you’re thinking, “How do I know what my clients find valuable?” You can start by simply surveying some of your clients. And if that doesn’t work, DeFazio and the team at StrategyCorps have already done a lot of the research for you—whether it means reading their whitepaper or partnering with them to offer a robust benefits account.
Not Convinced?
Free is costing you, and your clients.
Considering everything it takes to operate a checking account, banks spend anywhere from $200 to $500 annually to maintain each account. The problem, DeFazio says, is that, at a typical bank, 30–40 percent of client relationships aren’t profitable.
Not only are these clients costing the bank money, but your bank is also likely costing them. According to the 2018 study, more than a quarter of free checking clients paid ATM fees in the previous year. Nearly as many paid overdraft fees—and the list of fees go on and on, from NSF and debit card replacement charges to overdraft protection and stop payment fees.
Not only are clients who pay for accounts more likely to have more services with their bank, but they’re more likely to refer family and friends. Half of community bank clients who pay for a checking account referred family and friends to their bank, according to the 2018 study. That means your fee-based clients are more profitable, less likely to leave, and more likely to refer your bank to others.
“The buying public are good researchers and know a good bargain when they see one,” DeFazio said. “They also know that free checking comes with fees.”
You get what you give, right? If you give someone a one-time gift—a toaster for instance—you get toast. But, if you give someone ongoing, subscription-based value, you can expect an ongoing, valuable relationship in return.
The data is there, but you can’t get your arms around it.
Oh, data. You are so big. So bright. So beautiful. But like a perfectly curated Instagram post that is filtered to perfection, you often feel unattainable.
As with content, starting to develop a strategic approach to data mining, transformation, and analysis requires support across the organization and commitment to the activity over the long run. Also as with content, there are ways to earn “quick wins” — in this case, connecting a few systems as you expand your data aggregation to include more and more information over time.
Demographic data is often the first step. Ensuring you have an accurate understanding of the basic traits of your customers is baseline. This often comes from your core system, but can also be augmented by other platforms like online/mobile banking and rewards or loyalty platforms. Behavioral data is the hardest to build, but the most powerful by far. This data comes to life by combining email automation systems, website analytics, social media metrics, mobile and online banking behaviors, and transactional data.
The key? Start small. One system connected to another. One focused insight tested.
Discover who has used your mobile app in the past 45 days. Those are your true mobile customers. Determine the top three channels customers use (or doesn’t use) and inform them of alternatives. Uncover a customer’s best email by assigning a scoring system based on engagement with their multiple emails that often live across different systems within your bank.
It’s a long road. A commitment. But the insights you glean will inform your marketing, product decisions, and investments in customer experience for years to come.