Making it Matter...

Image from TippingPoint Labs

Greetings...

Marketers are challenged everyday with ensuring our dollar is invested in marketing strategy and tactical deliveries that work... in the end its all about three key letters-- R O I.

The return on investment is the holy grail that we MUST pay attention to and maximize.

The key is investing the "right" amount of dollars into the "right" strategies supported by the "right" tactics. 

Simple.  Right?

Well...it can be...

There are four strategies that a marketer SHOULD employ to ensure the marketing efforts pay dividends.   Here they are:

1. Content. Content. Content.  This is the king of all important elements. What we have to say is more important that how or where.  Good content is viewed, shared, discussed and actionable.
2. Relevant:  Our message, content and delivery need to be relevant.  Not to us, or our board, but to our target market.  Relevancy is in the eye of the beholder!
3. High Quality.  This means adding value!  A poorly written but relevant message may work...but a well written, added value relevant message is the key to the house!  "Well written" means brevity, crisp language and actionable word choice that intrigues the reader and has them wanting more!
4. Frequent (and recent).  I added the recency to the frequency because we both the maximized response is the intersection of frequently seeing your relevant message with the added power of recently being exposed to your message, too.

Here is a recent example of our Marketing Minute... monthly video vignettes that speak to a targeted message.  This is on the relevancy of your brand and how you can create followers that "wear your brand."  Enjoy!

Cheers!

Bruce Clapp


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MarketMatch is a full-service marketing consulting firm, dedicated to the credit union and community banking community.  We utilize knowledge-based strategies to help you FOCUS on the efforts that will generate MOMENTUM and yield the greatest RESULTS for your bottom line.

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Marketing: Defining Your Role

What role does marketing play? This is a great question that can be applied to many areas of your bank or credit union. And you may come to find that depending on who you are asking the answer may be different.

This year your marketing department may be tasked with a variety of objectives that include forming and supporting your brand, generating traffic, establishing value, encouraging customer/member loyalty, creating effective communication, developing product … and the list goes on. What is the priority for your marketing department? Assuming that you can answer this question, would your CEO, CFO, CLO, and COO agree?

Ask your executive team how they view the role of marketing in your organization. Is it what you expected? Because let's face it, until we know the answer to this question, we can’t begin to define or measure what success for the marketing team looks like in 2011.

Best,

Jamie

Finding a Way...

As you may know, I am a HUGE Ohio State Buckeye fan and also a Bengals fan.  To many, the success of the Buckeyes is great...and the pain of the Bengals is tough to take.  Both, however, have had equal shares of triumph and heartbreak...but recently they have also Found A Way!

My message is about finding a way...finding a way to victory even when the times are tough, the competition seemingly insurmountable and the odds stacked against you.

The Buckeyes and the Bengals both came back from heartbreaking last second defeats from a week ago...both have been pinpointed by many awaiting an even bigger failure. However, they both circled the wagons, talked about the team spirit and rode the wave to victory...DESPITE the odds, the competition and the neysayers...they found a way!

The economy is tough for bankers right now...the budgets are slim for marketers and the demands of customers never bigger...but YOU CAN FIND A WAY to victory.  It just takes three words to be repeated as often as necessary.  This will sound VERY trite, but it is true and it works...ready?

The three words are...

YES I CAN!

Yes you can....

• Make an impact with the budget you have
• Overcome the competition
• Make it through the fall planning sessions
• Grow you loan base
• Positively impact your attrition rates...
• and MORE!

You can do it!!  We have faith in you....but you need to take the 1st step....Repeat after me...

YES I CAN...

If you need a daily re-affirmation...call me...I would be glad to help!  After all, a Bengal's fan is used to saying "tomorrow will be better!!"

Cheers!

Bruce

Blog Series #2 -- Making Marketing Relevant

Relevance. Webster's defines it as "connected to the matter at hand. Pertinent." I believe relevance means that "it ties to my life." Relevance is also in the eye of the beholder. However, as a marketer, we know that we can influence relevance and that without it...we are a complete after thought -- if that much.

Being relevant starts with understanding who your audience is...from an internal and external perspective. Determining what their needs are (asking them) and then communicating in a manner that resonates. Resonates is an important word when it comes to relevance. Your message has to "hit home" to create relevance and connect to your target audience's life.

The concepts you need to analyze for your organization....

• who is our target?
• what is their need (individual and collective)?
• what is their reference point?

Once you determine these items...you can begin to craft a communication tone and message. the last item is perhaps the most critical...their reference point. This simple (yet complex) idea is that each of our customers and prospects has a reference point for us. It may be through a parent, their work, their friends, or through media. The reference point is the fulcrum of their balancing point with us...the starting point to creating, enhancing or cancelling a relationship with us. We have to know their reference point to better understand their needs, buying behaviors and the influences in their life.

The relevance of our marketing starts and ends with our communications. Facebook. MySpace. ING. Zappos. There are new breeds of communication delivery everywhere...some include a financial implication directly, but all impact us in some way. If we chose to target the millennials...and we decide to use Facebook. We could be committing a major misstep. The new communication tools come with a new set of rules. Get to know them.... talk to millennials that work for you, bank with you, or have a reference point with current customers of you.

The best relevance message includes:

• clear connection to the reference point
• clear connection to their need
• clear connection to the future

You have built the uniqueness of you, your organization and your brand....now take that uniqueness and ensure it is relevant to your target.

In these times, relevance matters. Being at the right place at the right time matters, too. Here is an article about being a community bank in today's economic times...this is the RIGHT place and RIGHT time for community bankers!

Cheers!

Bruce Clapp

Making Marketing Matter

Greetings...

I trust that everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving holiday with the mandatory activities of overeating, taking a nap and shopping!

I thought I would kick-off December with a series of three blog posts that comprise a visual that we use quite often...we refer to it as the "Making Marketing Matter" graph. As you can see from the image, we believe that there are three separate and distinct components.

Let's start at the beginning...being unique!

Uniqueness is banking...almost sounds like an oxymoron...unless you are a marketer! We know that our bank or credit union is different...truly different. Not just by having "the best staff" but by tangible differences. Maybe it is a shorter loan processing time period, perhaps we hand deliver check orders, maybe our monthly statements come with a 48 hour delivery guarantee. Whatever the tangible differences are we know them, right? Well, if you said yes, proceed forward! If you answered, well?? Then you need to take an honest assessment of your institution, your staff, your products, your competitive marketplace, and refine and define your true differences.

Uniqueness, in our thought, has to have an edge to it. Have a definable characteristic, be measurable. The uniqueness also has to be true to your organization. One that truly is reflective of "who" you are and "what" you deliver, all balanced against the reality of can you do it repeatedly and consistently! We believe these are two fundamental variables that many people undervalue. Consistency and repeatability define a brand and also then define the organization and its people. As you know, it is also the other way around...the organization and its people define it consistency and repeatability!

Your challenge...find your uniqueness, quantify it, ensure it is consistent and repeatable and then get EVERYONE on board to understand what it is and why it matters!

Being unique is one thing...making sure that uniqueness has value in the eye of the customer is something else. That is relevance...we will get to that one is my next post!

Cheers!

Bruce Clapp