Has your institution maximized it's investment in an MCIF?

Does your institution have a MCIF?

More importantly, if so, is your institution getting the maximum return from it's investment in an MCIF?

So often, the individual that championed the initiative to select an MCIF vendor and bring the technology in-house moves on to find a "new challenge." When this happens, it is not uncommon for the MCIF to set idle as no one else in the organization "steps up" and assumes responsibility for making the MCIF an integral part of the organizations marketing strategy. Consequently, the data doesn't get refreshed on a timely basis, management forgets why the investment was made in the first place, and finally, the system that houses the MCIF sits off in a corner someplace in the office "collecting dust."

If this has happened in your organization, the organization is missing out on a great opportunity to retain and strengthen existing customer relationships!

Let's assume you have an MCIF and it is being updated in a timely manner and you are using it to retain and strengthen existing relationships.

Have you taken the next step to maximize your investment in an MCIF?

Retaining customers and strengthening relationships is only "half the equation." In order for your organization to grow and prosper, you need to bring in new households.

Appending a segmentation code to every household in your database allows you to better understand the type of customer your institution serves. It allows you to see the types of products that they have a propensity to purchase, the channel they use to purchase those products, balances they are likely to bring when the product is purchased, etc.

Utilizing segmentation also allows your organization to find prospects that look like your most profitable customers, provides information on the best product to offer to initiate the new relationship, tells you the best media to reach out to the prospects, etc.

Bottom line - if you have an MCIF and aren't using it, get started. If you are currently using your MCIF to retain and strengthen relationships, but haven't appended a segmentation scheme, get started.

The April "Brown Bag" webinar was on "Segmenting Your Market." If you were unable to attend this session, contact Bruce Clapp at MarketMatch and he can email you the presentation complete with the Q & A that took place.

Have a great week/weekend!

Mike Witsken