You'll Never Get Everyone to Love You!

This blog is going to go against your every human instinct. Though it will logically make sense, many of you will disagree. That's good, I'd love some good ol' fashioned argument here -- change my mind!

We all have an innate need for the approval of others. We want people to like us. Many of us take it personally if even one person doesn't find us groovy.

"It's not personal, Sonny ... It's strictly business."

~ Michael Corleone

But as marketers, it isn't personal ... it's strictly business. Yet, we focus so much of our attention and energies on trying to make sure that every single person in our communities love us. Seriously, how many times have you discussed changing a policy because 3 or 4 people complained?

“Criticism is something you can easily avoid by 

saying nothing, doing nothing, being nothing.” 

~Aristotle

Aristotle ... if nothing else, THAT cat knew branding!

From a branding perspective, we are trying too hard to be all things to all people and trying so hard to avoid criticism that we become branding's brown paper bags.

So, here's the beautiful truth ... as a public service to help you sleep better at night.

In most larger markets, if you have only 30% market share, you will be the largest institution in town.  With only 15% market share, you'll typically be #2.

Whew! Think about the weight that just lifted! If 1 in every 3 people like you enough to do business with you ... You win! If 1 in 10 like you, you're doing GREAT!

To have an impactful brand, stop trying to appease everyone and be something meaningful to a focused group of people.

So now that we know that not everyone will ever love us, who do we focus on?

Check out these blogs on segmentation:

• 8 Life Stage You Should Market To
• Mirror Modeling and Birds of a Feather

Identify who your desired target is, learn what they want from you, determine if you can provide it, then make darn sure that you are THAT thing down to your very soul. With every interaction, every new hire, every policy and every message.

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.

Nearing 240,000 visits worldwide, we hope that you enjoy this blog.  If you find it helpful, please share it with your colleagues. Also, check out our YouTube Channel for short video blogs about financial marketing.  

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

Here are the conferences where you can find MarketMatch.

See our story here. (click)

Chat with me LIVE! (click)

Or email me directly (click)

937-426-9848

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The Art of War...and Marketing (Part 3)

The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military document attributed to Sun Tzu a high-ranking military general, strategist and tactician.  It is composed of 13 chapters, each devoted to one aspect of warfare. It is commonly known to be the definitive work on military strategy and tactics of its time. 

These writings have helped countless military leaders win land, riches and infamy … and in a wonderful twist of irony, we will focus on how it can help you win your customer’s hearts.

This is Part III in a series of blogs that breaks down each chapter.  The brief chapter summaries are from Wikipedia, but the marketing commentary is all MarketMatch!

To read Part 1, click here.

To read Part 2, click here. 

10. Situational Positioning looks at the general areas of resistance (distance, dangers, and barriers) and the types of ground positions that arise from them.

As you are continually measuring against your objectives, you may find that you are not tracking as well as you’d like.  What are the dangers and barriers to your success?

• Awareness: Are people aware that you exist, what you sell and what you stand for?
• Perception: Are you too small, too big or confusing to the market?  Does your brand align with market wants? 
• Access: Does your target pass several competitors to get to you? We have a client who is literally one block away from heavy traffic and has a hard time generating momentum.  What about your e-access?  If you have it, is it easy to use?  Do your customers know about it?
• Price: You don’t need to be the lowest price, but this is always a discussion criterion to consider and analyze.
• Attrition:Analyze the attrition of key products within each branch.  Are they new or old relationships that are leaving you? 

11. The Nine Situations describes the nine common situations (or stages) in a campaign, and the specific focus needed in order to successfully navigate them.

The 9 stages of a campaign as I see them are:

1. Set measurable objectives: Define what success will look like
2. Determine desired action: Know what you want your target to do.  What product, how quickly and what is the desired entry point?
3. Define target: Who best fits the mold for this product?  Be as specific as possible. Where do they live?  What do they want?  What do they think?
4. Determine how best to reach target: The goal is frequency, not necessarily reach.  How can you reach the best percentage of your target at least 3 times?
5. Create messaging: Be clear, stand out and differentiate.
6. Train staff:The worst thing that can happen is for an employee to hear about a new promotion from a customer.  Be sure that your team is aware of the message, what it promotes, who you’re targeting, what you expect and how they should communicate once the customer comes in or calls.
7. Launch: Make it happen
8. Measure: Don’t wait until the campaign is over to track.  By tracking progress along the way, you’ll know if you need to make any adjustments.
9. Adjust: If needed, tweak your approach.  Is a lower cost tactic pulling better than an expensive one?  Is the target misunderstanding the message?  Is the call to action clear?

12. The Attack by Fire explains the general use of weapons and the specific use of the environment as a weapon.

As a marketer, you have a lot of weapons at your disposal:

• Traditional: Newspaper, radio, TV – these are best used to build awareness with limited segmentation.  Usually your best cost-per-impression.
• Direct:Targeted direct mail, outbound calls, email, text – though more expensive per impression, these allow for a more one-on-one conversation.  By narrowing your target focus, you can speak to specific needs. Expect a higher response rate.
• Web-based: Pay per click SEO, web banners on partner sites, micro sites, QR codes – this category is evolving every day.  This allows for a more interactive experience.  Being electronic, this is typically also highly measurable.
• Guerrilla: This is where you can use the environment as a weapon. Guerrilla marketing hits the target when they are not expecting to be sold.  An example from the MarketMatch files is when we “lost” 100 wallets (in strategic locations) around a market.  In the wallets was a message to return the wallet to a given branch for a $20 reward.  The campaign was successful in driving new foot traffic, awareness and word-of-mouth.

An army of only tanks, though powerful, would not be successful.  For true success you need to control the air, the land and the sea.  Each tactic has it’s own strengths and weaknesses.  The magic is finding the right mix for the given target that fits your budget.

13. The Use of Intelligence focuses on the importance of developing good information sources.

We have talked a lot about the importance of measurement and analysis.  Where you obtain your data is as important as what you measure.  MCIF systems are very useful here, but not vital.  For most in-house data, you’ll want to buddy-up with IT and Finance.  Clearly define what it is that you want to measure and brainstorm with your team on how best to pull it.

Aside from in-house numbers, there are countless online resources and survey techniques to gather what you need.  The emphasis should be more on WHAT to measure than HOW.

Aside from basic growth numbers, you can also consider:branch-by-branch or market-by-market analysis, attrition in key products, accounts per customer/household, debit card usage, awareness/perception, product usage trends, percentage of referrals, web site usage/effectiveness, application-to-loan conversion ratios, profitability, media channel effectiveness, cross-sell per employee, referrals across business units.  The options are limitless and should be tied to completing your key objectives.  (See “What’s the Big R.O.Idea” for more info) 

There you have it ... how The Art of War can help you take over the marketing world.  Remember, with great power comes great responsibility.  I trust that you won’t go all Napoleon on us with this information!


With more than 130,000 visits worldwide, we hope that you enjoy this blog.  If you find it helpful, please share it with your colleagues.  Also, check out our YouTube Channel for short video blogs about financial marketing.  

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

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

Here are the conferences where you can find MarketMatch.

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MarketMatch is a marketing firm, dedicated to the credit union and community banking community.  We utilize knowledge-based strategies to help you FOCUS on the right story that will generate the greatest  MOMENTUM and prove the best RESULTS with our written ROI Guarantee.

See our story here. (click)

Chat with me LIVE! (click)

Or email me directly (click)

937-426-9848

Are We Spending Too Much Time on Social Media?

Many of us have spent numerous hours researching and learning about social media marketing along with keeping up with the trends, not to mention interpreting regulations, when in fact, only 22% of the time Internet users are actually on social media sites. (via Visual Economics) So what about other avenues of Internet marketing that can bring your company numerous benefits along with stretching your limited marketing dollars?

There are multiple Internet marketing avenues, including, but not limited to; remarketing, search engine marketing and various online ad opportunities. 

All of these tools give us many benefits over traditional marketing including tracking real-time results and instant conversion ability. In addition, you’re able to target your audience by demographics, geography (Geo-targeting), behavior and context, allowing you to place your message to a specific target in your specified trade area.

• Demographics – Age, gender, income, home ownership, and business ownership, are among a few of the options you can narrow down your audience target to include.
• Geo-targeting allows ads to be served based on a user’s geographical location whether by state, city, zip, radius to your branches, etc.
• Behavioral targeting is when ads are served based on the user’s behavior. These are based on a variety of online factors such as previous online purchases, searches, browsing history and can include demographic details as well. For example, if a customer recently visited a site looking for homes you could pinpoint this customer to receive your mortgage loan display ad.
• When ads are served based on related content a user is currently reading or browsing online, it is known as contextual targeting. For example, if you are reading an article on a news website about a bank charging for debit cards, you may see contextual ads for debit cards with no fees from other FIs.

Internet advertising is a smart option for you to consider stretching your marketing dollar and getting results. In addition, your cost per impression (CPM) for Internet advertising is lower than traditional media. If you haven’t targeted this avenue with your marketing campaigns, 2012 would be a good time to give this a try. The dollars you spend to get results will be less than you expect, often less than just one newspaper ad.

If you have questions or need help getting started, contact any of us at MarketMatch.

Cheers to you,

Melissa

Learn more here.

Chat with me LIVE!
Or contact me directly (click here).

Life is not about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but how well you bounce.  – Unknown

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.

Think Inside the Box #2

This week, I am meeting with a client in Florida to share our analysis of the MCIF data and review our recommendations for moving the information gained into a knowledge-backed plan!

The key has been helping them see that they have the information they need...but our "filters" based on experience and the expertise we have developed, has opened their eyes to what the knowledge they now have at their disposal to move forward in a very targeted, strategic manner!

Thinking inside the box!

Take a new look at what you have...and then extrapolate that information into tangible cannot-be-ignored knowledge that drives three levels of activities:

1. Organizational level
2. Product level
3. Point-of-purchase front line staff level

Each level in integral to the overall success of your marketing strategy and each level is inter-related to ensuring that the knowledge is moved into action!

in 2011, we are developing a Brown Bag Lunch Series session specifically addressing the "think inside the box" strategy and gives tips and hints into the exact items you need and what questions you should be asking to land at the 'cannot-be-ignored' stage.

Look for more information and the entire 2011 Brown Bag Lunch Series schedule coming out next week.

Cheers!

Bruce Clapp

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