The 27th...and counting

Greetings!

Seems like yesterday when we started the countdown to 2010...right after Christmas last year!

Well...the countdown is now on for 2011!  Its the 27th...the calm that arrives after the Christmas rush will quickly dissipate and return to a chaos of the new year.

Enjoy the last few days of 2010, reflect on the year ending and look forward to the year beginning!

Cheers!

Bruce

Merry Christmas

Tis the season!

May peace, prosperity, and happiness be yours throughout the holidays and new year.

I would like to personally wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

Enjoy the time with your family over then next few days.

Debbi

‘Can Social Media Marketing Work For Me?’

I get many questions from clients asking me how to leverage social media for bonding and sales.

I believe, like any marketing tactic, you must first evaluate if this ‘channel’ is right for your business. Depending on your target market and mission, social media may not be for you.
If you determine that social media is a viable channel to at least test, then there’s little tricks for optimum results:

Engagement. It’s all about creating a community, interacting with your ‘triple F’s’, that is, Friends, Followers and Fans, and cultivating a cyber-relationships. Post insightful, thought provoking, and powerful editorial. Ask probing questions. Exchange witty and fun comments. With social media marketing, it’s all about relationship building and bonding.

Friend and Guru. You want to come across as both a friend AND expert. This can be accomplished by posting quasi-personal information or photos of your life and letting your triple F’s take a little peek into your world. It’s also posting strong messages, articles or recommendations that are relevant to your field … you’re expertise.

Marketing and Advertising. Uploading banner ads, offering free reports to encourage sign ups, having text links to squeeze pages or promotional pages are all creative ways to try and monetize your social media efforts. It’s also a good idea to implement a special auto responder series or segmented social media conversion plan to help expedite the sales process.

One-on-One Time. When you can, make an effort to respond to individual posts as well as send direct messages to individual followers. As a question. Convey birthday wishes. Discuss sports, family or other interests. Share a funny story. Personal communication goes a long way. People feel extra special through direct dialog. It will help them remember you above the many others they may be following on Twitter or FaceBook.

Which leads me to my next question that I get asked a lot, ‘which is better, Twitter or FaceBook?’

Personally, I like the diversity and flexibility FaceBook offers as opposed to Twitter. Twitter posts are limited to small amount of characters which makes bonding harder. In addition, I’ve found FaceBook followers more loyal than Twitter. Many people on Twitter follow people just to get that reciprocal follow and build their following. It becomes more about reciprocation, than about relevance. And since many of your Twitter followers may not be ‘relevant’ or targeted (i.e. ideal prospects), conversion may never occur or take longer than average. For all these reasons I’ve found in my own experience that FaceBook triple F’s are of better quality than Twitter.

But your experience may be completely different…so I suggest you test both social media platforms for yourself and monitor your followers (who they are) as well as conversions.

Good luck!

Microsites

It's not secret ... if you want to reach the "Google Generation" you'd better be a few steps ahead on technology. Text alerts and mobile banking are as expected as ATMs and online banking.

You'd also better spend more time analyzing and improving your website than you do writing newspaper ads!

Lately, we've had a lot of clients interested in microsites. And they can be VERY useful in the right situations.

What is a microsite? (or minisite, or weblet)

It's a page or cluster of pages that supplement your main website. They are usually used to highlight a particular product or aspect of your organization.

Let me give you 2 examples.

We are in the process of completing a Mortgage-specific microsite for a client. While in this supplemental portion of their website, a user can find only information important to someone who's interested in buying or refinancing a home.

We also completed a microsite for another institution who wanted to focus on their new lifestage-based sales process. Here the user is drawn into information important to their specific lifestage. They then have the option of clicking on relevant financial products that will take them back to the bank's main site.

In short, it's a way to get a reader interested and to draw them to you. A microsite can differentiate in a very targeted way and generate qualified leads. It's also a much better marketing message:

"Come to our site with information important to you."

vs

"Come to our site all about our products."

What Makes a Microsite Successful?

Content.

The number one objective of your site should be to add value - not, necessarily to sell your products.

Where your main website is traditionally an electronic brochure of your "stuff," a microsite is successful because it draws a user to it for value - entertainment, knowledge, etc.

Many retail microsites use games to bring people in. We prefer to position or clients as experts and use value-added content.

Our mortgage site includes more than a dozen articles that are important to first time home buyers, experienced home buyers, folks wanting to refinance and moving and packing information. It also includes dozens of helpful links to anyone moving or remodeling. The entire site is designed to be a one-stop resource for everything important to you before and after you complete a mortgage app.

Our Lifestage site provides links and information for anyone experiencing specific life events, like childbirth, retirement, etc.

Of course, there are countless ways to link from the informative microsite to the "salsey" main site.

In short, a microsite should be a resource that a customer or prospect will want to bookmark and come back to over and over again.

Merry Christmas,

Eric

Forget What You Know…

If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we were to remember nothing.

-William James

This quote may come in handy when brainstorming new ideas. Certainly your experience is worth a great deal, but sometimes, when it comes to developing new, innovative ideas for promotions, product development, campaigns, or customer communication it helps to initially throw out “what you know.” Putting everything and anything on the table in a brainstorming session can be a great way to brainstorm new ideas.

Many times, we hear banks defending certain marketing tactics with the statement “this is how we have always done it.” Not a very compelling reason, is it? Customer and market perceptions are always changing, so even if you are considering to re-execute a past successful campaign, that doesn’t mean it will be successful when executing it in the future.

If you plan only to repeat successful promotions, you may be missing out on an idea that could be even more successful. Also, if you rule out all unsuccessful promotions, you may be ruling out a good idea that was poorly executed or a good idea that would have been more successful with different situational criteria.

In some scenarios, you can take your brainstorming a step further by removing resource restrictions. If money, supplies, people, and time weren’t limited, what would you do? The ideas you come up with might not be plausible, but they may cause you to uncover new ideas within your resource limits that can make a huge impact.

A healthy dose of “forgetting” is crucial for our ability to think big.

Happy brainstorming!

Jamie

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Around here it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! This picture was taken yesterday, Dayton, Ohio. With Christmas just a week away we would like to take this time to wish you a very happy holiday season.

Before you start using up those last vacation days before the end of the year, take a moment and reflect on 2010. Both professionally and personally. Here's hoping you accomplished what you could and have something to show for your hard work.

Happy holidays from the MarketMatch family!

Make it a great Friday. Enjoy your weekend and until we talk again.

Debbi

Shop Around...

It’s the holiday season and everyone has shopping on the mind. But what about shopping your competition - have you shopped them lately?

Touching base with your immediate competition on their advertising, products, access, and customer service is something your financial institution should consistently be doing in order to ensure you are maintaining your competitive advantage.

It may be time to take a look at the competition and see how you stack up in the following areas:

• Advertising: What products/messages are your competition promoting and how does your financial institution stack up?
• Products: Do gaps exist in your competitions’ product lines or within product features?
• Access: What are the features of their websites and is the website interactive and resourceful? Also, what other technologies can customers/members use to interact with the bank/credit union or access their accounts?
• Customer Service: Communicate with your competition in a variety of ways (email, phone, in person, etc.) to see how they stack up. Are there ways that they excel or fall behind?

Competitive research equips you with the information that you’ll need to uncover where your financial institution excels and may lags behind. Once complete, you will better be able to identify your strengths, correct any weaknesses, and capitalize on opportunities!

Happy shopping!

Jamie