Great Marketing: It Slices, It Dices...

Hey, friends. Are you tired of your marketing budget getting slashed every year? Are you embarrassed because your CEO looks at Marketing as the Arts and Crafts Department? Well friends, have I got the answer for you…

The Seg-O-Matic … It slices, it dices, it improves your response and blows up your ROI.


Alright, I know I sound like a bad '70's, Ron Popeil infomercial. But, hey ... that cat knew how to sell!

Seriously, folks ... segmentation is all about slicing and dicing. Here's an example:

We have a client who is rolling out a new interest checking account. Like many other smaller institutions, they previously only offered Free Checking and are now expanding their product line with the hopes of acquiring more checking, increasing retention and increasing services per household.

In the span of a 10 minute conversation, we had 7 target segments:

1. Members who qualify for new product - Move them into it
2. Members who qualify by balance but missing ancillary product - Motivate them to open more services to step into the new checking (this segment could have been more than a dozen individual segments is we focused on exactly what they were missing)
3. Those who are close in average balance - Increase balances/retention
4. Members who have required balance in deposits but no checking - New checking/retention
5. Non-checking with loans - New checking, focus on convenience of online banking
6. Non-checking without loans - New checking
7. Acquisition - Self explanatory (this could also be countless segments, but this SEG-focused institution has access to a very targeted list)

So there you have it, an instant strategy for product roll out by simply considering who the product affects, what each segment needs and what those needs have to offer to your objectives.

This client has fewer than 8,000 members, so it would have been easy to create a postcard to sound the trumpets and proudly proclaims the coming of "The Greatest Checking Account in the History of the World." (Could you hear the echo when you read that?!?!) 

We could have printed 8,000 pieces, used "Dear Member" as the salutation, mailed them out, sat back and counted new accounts. But our clients (and your members/customers) deserve better than that.

Segmentation goes far beyond the "haves" and "have nots." Consider your target's needs, how they use you and how you want them to use you. 

The more targeted you get, the more personal you get. The more personal you are, the better you can:

• Speak to specific needs
• Focus on specific calls to action
• Address different objectives in one campaign

The goal is to get as one-to-one as possible. In our example, there were only about 50 members who qualify for the account today. They could easily be called at home in a few hours.

Once you've sliced and diced and analyzed your segments, you'll have a better feel for what tactics you can use to communicate with each. Does your culture fit an external call effort? Can you trust your team to send personal letters? Can you create a process that looks more personal but still takes the responsibility off the front line staff? Should you?

I believe that everything can be prioritized. Once you have a feel for the quantities in each segment and how those segments like to use your institution, you can use this list as a guide:

Hierarchy of External Conversations

1. Personal phone call 
2. Personal letter from relationship manager
3. Postcard direct mail/email specific to the segment
4. Mass media

But Wait … There’s More!
How much would you pay to increase your response rates? 

But wait ... there's more!

Not only does the Seg-O-Matic give you personalized conversations and more meaningful calls to action ... it also allows for better campaign tracking. Yes, my friends, you get it all ... a one-to-one conversation, more objectives met, the power to know which segments respond and which you need to tweak.  Now how much would you pay?

But hurry, this strategy is not sold in stores. It's available to you only for a limited time. Call today!

For more lessons from infomercials click here.

We bring these marketing philosophies to credit unions and community banks nationwide, and would love to bring them to your institution too. Contact us to see how.

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MarketMatch is also a nationally and internationally requested speaker. Contact us to bring our marketing ideas to your next conference.

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Know Your Audience Better

Our July 16th Brown Bag Lunch session on One-to-One Marketing talked about how useful certain tools like MCIF and CRM are. It also talked about the power of Claritas P$ycle data to better segment and understand who your target audience is, what they do, what media they use, and where they live.

Click here to learn more about our FREE Brown Bag sessions.

More importantly, we talked about how you can still have a robust one-to-one culture even without the tools in-house. That caused me to think, about how you can still have the power of P$ycle-style data on a more conservative budget. It is possible!

Though not as robust as P$ycle data and not as efficient to complete multiple segments, if you can identify a key strategic segment or two, you can collect your own lifestyle information through research. The key is to create a brief survey that touches on your target's hobbies, entertainment preferences, preferred media and financial goals.

Click Here For a Sample Survey.

You have several choices to collect this data. Since this does not, necessarily, have to be a blind survey, you can expect a better than average response rate from a phone survey. Of course, an email (like the above sample) would be faster and cheaper. You can also conduct branch intercepts or have a focus group to dig deeper into each question.

With this data, you can better create lifestyle or life stage marketing, or create a mirror modeling strategy to acquire more customers that resemble your best customer. You can be more strategic in your media buys and more targeted in your grassroots efforts. You'll also have relevant data on a strategic segment to have more intelligent one-to-one conversations about products and services that match their immediate financial goals.

MarketMatch has already made the investment into the Claritas ConsumerPoint system so that you can tap into the valuable data and also benefit from the expertise of our strategic team driving the process.

Of course, MarketMatch can be your resource for all of this. To learn more, email us at egagliano@marketmatch.com, or call 866-501-2233, ext 106.

Spend less, grow more.

Call it what you want: one-to-one marketing, segmentation, target marketing…

Regardless the terminology, with shrinking budgets and more savvy consumers, you need to focus your marketing efforts. The goal here is to: filter everyone “into” a group versus out of groups, to maximize response & activity and to get the highest ROI for the greatest impact.

MCIF, CRM and Claritas system can all definitely help here, but are certainly not the only answer.

You’ll want to base your segmentation, ultimately, on: your bank or credit union’s financial goals, your existing customer-base, any regional factors and what your competition is doing.

Certainly you want to be strategic in your planning, but don’t suffer from “Analysis Paralysis,” while you’re planning your attack (or picking up the phone to have us help you), here are some segments to consider approaching:

• Checking/debit card without online banking
• More than 5 POS activities with no loan
• 5 or more CDs with no investment services
• 2 or more installment loans with no LOC
• Installment loans maturing within 24 mos.
• Equity LOCs booked 5+ years ago
• Equity LOCs with more than $5K available
• Checking, Savings and no Money Market
• Checking, CD and no Money Market
• Homeowner with no HELOC
• HHs close to balance thresholds
• HHs with open LOC space
• Homeowner with no HELOC
• Grandparents/Parents/College grads (select any life-stage that generates specific financial needs)
• Small business without retail

Consider how you will approach these folks. What do they look like? What ultimately is motivating them to need your services? How aggressive should you be? Once they are in your front door, how will you identify them? What will you say? Will you have to offer them a special, or simply demonstrate how you can help them?

The bottom line is that smart, strategic, targeted marketing demands a larger investment of your time, but can save your budget and ultimately show better results.

Take care,
Eric