The Race to Define Yourself

I roll to the red light as my engine settles to a low rumble. Glancing to my right, a perfect stranger ... now a 2-wheeled, mortal enemy ... who gives me an ever-so-slight nod of the head and rev of an engine. I return my own rev of approval. My pulse quickens. A bead of sweet sweat forms on my temple.

Our focus turns to our electronic taskmaster while we await its permission to unleash hell. When the cross light clickers from green to yellow I can sense our combined muscles tense, like TNT anticipating a lit fuse. I shift into first and back off the clutch as much as possible to shed precious milliseconds. 

The cross light flickers from yellow to red ... it's time. My hand tightens on the gear shift. My feet, light on the pedals. 

At green, our tandem of engines scream with excitement, like thoroughbreds released from their gate. My smaller, lighter foe pulls ahead with ease and I imagine his cocky, confident smirk just feet in front of me. My car, Sunny, and I are one as I listen and wait for just the right tone. When the engine hits that perfect note, I tap the clutch - scarcely long enough to slide into second gear. I pull even and sense my prey's smirk turn to scowl as he torques his throttle beyond its limits.

Our dance continues from second to third to fourth gear. Though Sunny and I are smooth through to shifts and united in our desire, we simply can't keep up. The Vespa scooter pulls away, not even looking in his rearview as he offers a triumphant wave.

With a sigh, I pat Sunny's dash in our own sense of victory. We putt down the road with the satisfaction that we've helped yet another person smile with this bright yellow classic convertible VW bug.

Sunny will never win any races with her 78 horsepower, 35 year old engine. She'll never take the prize in a car show with her dented trim and ripped rag top. But I've found in the year that I've owned her that she has a gift. When I pull her alongside the faster, flashier, more expensive machines at the local Friday night car show - she draws the crowd. More importantly, she demands smiles. Every single time I take her out, people point and flash a grin.

To be honest, Sunny fits me. She reflects my personal brand. Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather see myself as a drop-top '67 Camaro SS or a '63 split-window Corvette. From a running perspective, I can make a case for being a Jeep Wrangler - at home in the solitude of nature, ducking under fallen trees and splashing through rocky creek beds (heck, I wrote this blog on last night's trail run). But that's just me for a few hours a week. Every minute of every day, I'm quirky. More interested in having fun than being flashy or high-performance. Looking to make people smile. That's my '78 bug. We know who we are and we own it. Voluntarily trading trophies and ribbons for smiles and waves.

So, that's the branding challenge, isn't it? To set aside a Corvette dream that may not really fit you or a cooler Jeep persona that doesn't truly define you. There are hideous cars that win countless races and show-stoppers that spend more time on tow trucks than pavement. For yourself and your organization, know who you are, what you do naturally well, how it separates you, where that fits in the grand plan and work it like there's no tomorrow. 

Your brand isn't built in your imagination or in your Board room. It erupts from your soul.

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.

With more than 250,000 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

Follow me on Twitter @egagliano

Checking and Loan CSI - Know the Clues.

Bank of America, Citi, Chase and Wells Fargo hold about 39% of US deposits.  Seriously?  

With these guys holding the market share cards, if your community bank or credit union isn't showing account growth ... it's a crime.

But, if Gil Grissom has taught me anything, it's that ANY crime can be solved (usually in less than 45 minutes).

Lets take an Account CSI course on 2 key product areas - without the messy finger print powder or blood spatter.

Loans

To a certain extent, lending is a numbers game. Increase applications and all is well, right? Heck no!

Here’s an example: We had a one-branch client a few years ago where we conducted a loan promotion to the neighborhoods surrounding the branch. The campaign was successful in attracting interest and apps, but few were approvable – even though we used household income as a qualifier. What we really did was generate more work … not more loans.

Recently, a very close friend of mine said that, as a lender, her job is to read people. Totally true! Every time we fund a loan, we’re pushing our poker chips on the table. But, if you don't push chips out, you can never rake chips back in and build your stacks.

For lending, like poker, you need to be able to read the signs. If you're not seeing the loan results you want, of course you'll want to increase apps – but you MUST make sure you’re getting the most from each one. 

Lending CSI is about finding the clues in your process and patching the leaks:

• What is the trending in your applications?
• Number of apps?
• Dollar amounts?
• For which products?
• How many are you approving?
• Of those denied ... Why? How much opportunity are you missing?
• What were the credit scores of those denied? Are there ancillary circumstances?
• What would it take to approve 5-10% of those denied?
• What can we learn from this segment to better target next time?
• Of those approved, how many are funded? If not, why?
• This is often where the missed opportunities are hidden.

Checking

According to a 2011 FDIC Survey of un and underbanked, about 10% of US households do not have a checking account. Glass half full ... that means you have 90% checking penetration, right?!? Why not?!?

The "checking account" is your customer's access account. It's the lifeline to everything from their monthly bills to their morning skinny mocha latte - extra espresso. If you don't have it, someone else does.

Checking CSI is about finding clues that your customers and members leave:

• Awareness: It sounds a bit crazy from our side of the desk, but do your customers even think of you for checking? You'd be shocked and hurt by the answer most of the time. If they don't have an account with you it's often that easy.
• Competition/differentiation: You need to, at minimum, keeping up with the Jones'. Remember, this is an Access Account. It's more important for you to have all of the access tools than to offer rewards or even interest. How do you stack up against the other institutions?
• We sell trust: Every positive interaction should include a message about checking. Every product sold should be tied to checking. Build on your happy experiences.
• You cannot over communicate: The cliché     says that the only 2 sure things are death and taxes. My friends, there is a 3rd ... some day, in the not-to-distant future the big banks will tick-off their customers. When they do, you need to be top of mind. That doesn't mean planning quarterly campaigns ... it means drowning them in checking messages at the front line and at home. Just when you think you're over communicating - you're probably just starting to do it right.

Once you have the accounts, you need to keep them. There are almost always clues to who will leave you:

• Balance trends: Rarely will someone walk into a branch and simply close their account. There is typically a balance bleed off period prior to the closing. If you can, watch for balance decrease triggers and react with a phone call to make sure the customer is satisfied.
• Transaction trends: Having an account is one thing ... using it is something MUCH more important. Communicate with those inactive accounts.
• What access is connected?: The more the better. You don't typically ask if a customer would like checks with their checking account, right? So, why are we asking about debit cards? We need to assume some basic access points and ask the right questions to see how a customer prefers to use the product. Mobile? Online? Text? You don't know what to discuss until you know how they prefer to use it. Watch out for those checking accounts with few access tools.
• Analyze your attrition by account: You may not be getting folks into the right account type or you may need to consider making some product changes if one account stands out here.

You don't need to look good in a white lab coat or have a corny one-liner right before each commercial break to do this stuff. Simply determine what crime is being committed against your growth and look for the clues. Then cue the Who music and get to work.

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 245,000 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

Follow me on Twitter @egagliano

Using ROI to Evaluate Marketing Technologies

(Recently, I had the opportunity to write a guest post for the ADAM Software blog. ADAM is a provider of marketing execution software that encompasses digital asset management, product content management, catalog automation, video content management, and more. This article is a slightly edited version of my guest post.)

The ROI of marketing technology has received a good bit of recent attention. Ralph Windsor wrote two articles on the topic, one for Digital Asset Management News, and another for CMS Wire. Both articles discussed several flaws in the methods frequently used to estimate the ROI of digital asset management projects. Mr. Windsor didn't pull any punches, describing the ROI estimates provided by consultants, analysts, and vendors as, ". . . at best wrong and, more often than not, a complete work of fiction."

ROI has been the "gold standard" for measuring financial performance for decades. It first gained prominence in the 1920's after DuPont made ROI the ultimate metric in a comprehensive financial management system for companies and business units. More recently, ROI has been widely used to evaluate prospective investments, including investments in marketing technologies.

ROI can be useful for evaluating marketing technology investments, but like any tool, ROI must be used appropriately. Managers must understand what information is needed to produce an accurate ROI calculation, and they must also understand what an ROI calculation does and does not reveal.

The basic ROI formula is:  (Gain from Investment - Cost of Investment) / Cost of Investment

This deceptively simple formula masks several important issues that managers must keep in mind when using ROI to evaluate prospective investments in marketing technology solutions. Here are three of the more significant issues.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

ROI is a calculated value, and as with any mathematical calculation, the "answer" will only be as accurate as the inputs you use in the formula. When you calculate the ROI for a prospective investment, you're required to input the economic value of future benefits. Developing accurate estimates of these values can be a difficult undertaking, but if your estimates aren't reasonably accurate, the ROI you calculate will be completely out of touch with reality.

One way to alleviate some of this difficulty is to reduce the scope of your analysis. Instead of attempting to calculate a complete ROI for a proposed investment, your objective is to determine whether a prospective investment will produce enough benefits to make it acceptable to your company.

The key to this approach is something called the ROI Threshold. This is the minimum ROI that your company requires investments to produce. The ROI Threshold is typically equal to your company's cost of capital, or perhaps the cost of capital plus a risk premium. The cost of capital calculation can be fairly complex, but you can usually obtain the value from your company's chief financial officer.

Once you have the ROI Threshold, you can easily determine what level of benefits an investment must produce to meet the threshold hurdle. For example, suppose that your ROI Threshold is 15%, and you are evaluating a project with a cost of $200,000. You would calculate the required level of benefits as follows:

ROI         = (Gain from Investment - Cost of Investment) / Cost of Investment

15%         = (Gain from Investment - $200,000) / $200,000

$30,000   = Gain from Investment - $200,000

$230,000 = Gain from Investment

In this scenario, if you can identify benefits with a total value of $230,000, the project will meet your company's ROI Threshold, and you should be willing to move forward.

This approach can alleviate some of the difficulties of ROI analysis because some benefits are easier to quantify than others. When using this approach, you only need to quantify benefits until you meet the threshold level.

ROI Doesn't Consider Risks

The basic ROI formula does not factor in the risks associated with a proposed investment. The acquisition of a new marketing technology solution almost always requires the implementation of new business processes, and it also requires new learning by employees. Therefore, marketing technology projects always carry some risks, even when the actual functionality of the technology is not in question. In most cases, the most significant risk is that the project will not produce the expected level of benefits.

One way to account for the risks that are inherent in any significant technology project is to value benefits using both "best case" and "worst case" assumptions. You then perform an ROI calculation for each set of benefit values. This results in two estimated ROI values that establish the boundaries within which the actual ROI is likely to fall.

ROI Measures Efficiency, Not Impact

ROI is a measure of financial efficiency. It compares the financial benefits that an investment produces (or will produce) with the amount of capital the investment consumes (or will consume). ROI is not directly concerned with the absolute impact that an investment will have on company profitability.

For example, suppose that you are evaluating two prospective technology projects. Project A has an estimated ROI of 25%, and Project B has an estimated ROI of 15%. Using ROI alone, you would choose Project A over Project B. However, suppose that Project B will produce net benefits of $300,000, while Project A is expected to produce net benefits of only $75,000. Under these facts, you might well choose Project B despite the lower ROI because of the larger impact it will have on company profitability.

Conclusion

ROI is a useful tool for evaluating potential investments in marketing technology solutions. It is widely accepted by CEO's and CFO's, and because it provides a common framework for describing financial performance, ROI is particularly helpful for comparing disparate types of potential investments. However, ROI (even assuming that it is calculated accurately) does not provide all of the information you need to make sound investment decisions, especially when those decisions involve complex projects whose success depends on multiple factors.

On Hiatus Until Fall

Hello world. Sorry I haven't participated as much as I usually do both on this blog and in dialogue on other social media outlets. As I've accepted a new position as Managing Director of Milwaukee Repertory Theater, all of my energies have been focused on relocating to a new city and learning about my new theater. Looking forward to reentering the blogosphere in the fall, and to participating in conversations in the near future!

Chad

How to Boost the Performance of Channel Marketing

Every day, thousands of companies sell products and services through independent or quasi-independent channel partners such as franchisees, independent agents, or value-added resellers. Most companies that sell through channel partners operate in a distributed marketing environment. Distributed marketing refers to a marketing model in which both a corporate brand owner and channel partners plan and execute marketing campaigns and programs. The defining attribute of a distributed marketing model is that the "local" business organizations - i.e. channel partners - have some degree of autonomy when performing marketing functions.

Many B2B companies derive a significant portion of their total revenues from sales made by channel partners, and these companies face marketing challenges that firms with "regular" marketing operations don't typically encounter.

• Brand owners and channel partners often have different marketing priorities. Corporate marketers tend to focus on building the brand, while channel partners want to run marketing programs that will generate leads and drive short-term sales.
• Maintaining consistent brand messaging and brand presentation is extremely difficult when dozens or hundreds of channel partners are executing marketing programs.
• Many channel partners are small organizations that don't have the in-house expertise to create effective marketing campaigns and/or the resources to run campaigns as frequently as they should.
• Brand owners often have little visibility regarding the effectiveness of the marketing programs run by their channel partners.

Because of these and other challenges, channel marketing operations are often far less effective and efficient than they need to be, resulting in excessive marketing costs, poor response rates to marketing programs, and missed revenue opportunities for both brand owners and their channel partners.

To address the complexities of channel marketing, a growing number of companies are turning to a relatively new category of marketing automation technologies known generally as distributed marketing solutions.

A distributed marketing solution is a combination of technological capabilities and marketing support services that are designed to streamline and simplify marketing activities and processes for both channel partners and brand owners. At the most basic level, distributed marketing solutions are designed to facilitate two core marketing functions - the creation, execution, and measurement of marketing campaigns, and the management of marketing materials.

Distributed marketing solutions can provide brand owners and channel partners a range of important benefits. Specifically, they enable companies to:

• Increase the frequency of local marketing by making it easy for channel partners to create and execute marketing campaigns and programs
• Enhance the effectiveness of local marketing by making it easy for channel partners to create and use more customized marketing messages and materials
• Improve the consistency of brand messaging and presentation through the use of a centralized repository of marketing assets combined with controlled customization of those assets
• Reduce marketing support costs by eliminating the manual processes typically used to manage and fulfill requests for marketing materials and to manage materials inventories
• Reduce obsolescence waste by eliminating the need to acquire marketing materials in large quantities.

I've recently released a white paper that describes the challenges faced by channel marketers and explains how distributed marketing solutions work. The new white paper is part of our portfolio of marketing content resources for providers of distributed marketing/marketing asset management/web-to-print solutions. If you'd like to see a review copy of this white paper, just send an e-mail to ddodd(at)pointbalance(dot)com.

Want engaged employees? Be a better leader.

Want to hear a scary statistic?  According to a recent study by Dale Carnegie Training, nearly 75% of employees aren’t working fully engaged in their positions.  

That means three out of every four employees in YOUR organization are not giving you 100%. 

And a recent study by McLean & Company listed the following statistics that stated, in comparison to disengaged employees, engaged employees are:

• 30% more likely to agree that they regularly accomplish more than what’s expected of them in their role
• 66% more likely to agree that their contributions are very important to the success of the organization
• 109% more likely to put in extra hours to improve results

So how do you engage employees?  

It all boils down to being a good leader yourself and making sure that the senior management team and managers all the way down and across your organization are good leaders.  Also note that there are huge differences between a manager and a leader.  Managers may not necessarily be leaders, and leaders may not necessarily be managers, but the success of your organization depends on your managers being good leaders with their staff members.

What are the traits of a good leader in a management role?  

I’m so glad you asked.  Here are several:

Self-effacing and humble.  If you expect your employees to fess up and take ownership when they made a mistake, you have to be willing to do the same thing.  Admit when you are wrong.  Many managers think that doing this is a sign of weakness and will compromise employees’ trust, but it is really a sign of a strong leader and will actually increase your employees’ trust in you. 

Not threatened by brilliant ideas.  It is human nature to have the gut reaction of “why didn’t I think of that?”  But a good leader lets go of that thought and instead embraces that their team members are growing and succeeding as a result of their tutelage.  Good leaders are never scared to hire people who are smarter than them. 

Care about their people.  I mean truly care.  If one of your staff members gets married, ask them about their wedding and honeymoon instead of pretending its business as usual on their first day back to the office.  Yes, it may be 10 minutes out of your busy day, but that 10 minutes means the world to your employees.  People want to work in an organization – and for a manager – who they feel cares about them as a person.  This is an absolute must in a good leader.

Encourage honest feedback.  Poor leaders will squirm in their chairs when someone comes into their office with some honest feedback about a goal that was set or an initiative they think would work better in a different way.  Your organization will not thrive if everyone is telling you what you want to hear because they are afraid of the repercussions.  Honest feedback from employee to manager and manager to employee is the only way to build trust, which is the foundation of any organization.  And your organization can only truly thrive when everyone works in an honest environment where opinions are valued and shared.

Trust your employees first.  If you start out someone’s employment by giving them limited duties, expect them to do everything exactly the way you would, and don’t provide them with the autonomy and empowerment to take risks and make mistakes, then you aren’t trusting them to do their job.  Your front-line people especially deserve this as they are the ones who are taking care of your organization’s most precious asset: member and customer relationships.  If you trust them to take care of those relationships but won’t trust them on a new project, you need to answer one question: is it me who is scared to trust, or have they damaged my trust in some way?  Either way, fix the situation. 

Empower employees.  Ritz Carlton is famous for its “$2,000 Rule” that empowers any employee at any level to solve customer problems and spend up to $2,000 without having to go to a supervisor.  Risky?  Absolutely.  It doesn’t have to be $2,000, or even monetarily-related in your case.  However, if you trust your front-line employees with your company’s relationship with customers and members, then you can trust them and create an environment of empowerment and enable them to make the right decisions and do the right thing when it comes to taking care of those relationships. 

Challenge employees.  One way to do this is to give them what are known as “stretch” projects: things they’ve never done before and would like to learn how to do.  This “stretches” their professional and leadership muscles and ultimately makes them more valuable to your team and organization. 

Invest in your employees.  This takes many forms.  Benefits and compensation are the two most obvious parts of this equation.  Many studies that have come out through the recession clearly state that companies that pay their employees higher than average salaries in conjunction with a good employee development program have a higher success rate and overall better profit margin.  Another very important way to engage employees is by providing opportunities for professional development.  This is a financial investment, but it is one that ultimately rewards your organization because, if you invest in your employees, they will be more likely to invest back in the company. 

Recognize them when they do good work.  

“The model of ‘if you aren’t getting yelled at, you’re doing a good job’ isn’t going to cut it anymore.  Managers must switch their perspective of management from a job of ‘critique and assess’ to one of ‘teach’.”  -Dr. Jean Twenge, iGen Consulting

It’s easy to get up from your desk or place a call to an employee when an error has become apparent, but do you spend an equal amount of time (if not more) recognizing them for their outstanding efforts?  Recognition means more to employees than anything else because they want to know that their efforts are valued. 

Help them reach their own goals.  Make no distinction between professional and personal goals.  This is also where the honest feedback and caring about them personally comes into play.  You could have a great employee who is starting out in his or her career and, in your work on helping them achieve their professional and personal goals, they realize that they have a dream of owning a restaurant.  Yeah, this sucks for your organization, but helping your employees achieve their dreams is also your job in addition to taking care of your members and customers. 

There are many rewards to being a good leader, but the biggest difference will come to the success of your organization.  Employees will be happier and more engaged in their positions, overall organizational trust will increase leading to more great ideas, and everyone will be moving in the same direction – toward success.  

Amanda

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 245,000 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)

Or email me directly (click)

614-745-5503

Follow me on Twitter @amandalthomas

Why Your Technology Firm Needs a Content Marketing Strategy

The key to marketing success online is educating prospects. If a technology firm is going to have a successful online marketing campaign, it needs to revolve around the educational content being produced. Content is king.

Why, you ask? It is through content that many other online marketing channels flow best. If you are producing high value content, it is much more likely to spread in social media, attract links from other websites, and rank well in Google. All of these lead to more web visitors through social media and SEO.

Winning the Business
Anything and everything can be found online. More and more decision makers are looking to educate themselves before making a buying decision, and it is through your content that they learn. The firm that does the best job educating them is often the one that wins the business. This educational process replaces the old golf course method of developing trust. Online trust is developed through the educational process, and therefore the most trusted firm is the one that gets selected.

Building this trust, however, can take time and a lot of content. So how do you manage time and produce a regular flow of content? This is where having a content marketing strategy comes in. If there is no strategy behind the content you are producing, when you are publishing it, and what channels you are using to promote it, then your entire operation could fail.

What Types of Content Exist?
A content marketing strategy needs to focus on building trust and engagement over time using multiple forms of content. There are many forms of content available to a marketing team including:

• Blogs
• Premium content pieces (whitepapers, ebooks, guides)
• Books
• Research Reports
• Webinars
• Email marketing

The key to developing an effective content marketing strategy is getting all of your content to work together, creating a lead generating machine for your firm. Your content must be engaging right off-the-bat to pull the reader in, entice them to become a lead, and finally nurture them until they are ready to buy.

Typically blogging is used to achieve the first goal of content marketing – drawing visitors in. In your content marketing strategy, you must decide what topics your blog posts will be focused on and what keywords you will use to attract people to your blog from search engines.

Becoming a Lead
Once someone is on your blog, the next step is for him or her to engage with your brand. This often means the visitor is willing to give out their email address. In content marketing, this occurs when a visitor wants a particular piece of downloadable content and are asked to exchange their email address for the download. Your content marketing strategy must determine what these downloadable pieces of content will be about and how you will promote them on your website.

Nurturing Your Leads
The last piece of the content marketing puzzle is nurturing a lead once you have their email address. Most people on the web are still educating themselves and aren’t quite ready to by when searching for information. However, once you have an email address, it is vital that you continue to educate your prospects until they are ready to buy. Webinars are often ideal for nurturing because it allows prospects to get “face to face” with you without feeling pressured.

Every firm needs a tailored content marketing strategy to be successful. Focus on the tips above when putting yours together. And remember that without a strategy behind your content marketing efforts, chances are, you are seeing much lower results than what’s truly possible.

For more information on putting together a content marketing strategy, check out Hinge’s B2B Content Marketing Guide.

About the Author: Elizabeth Harr is a partner at Hinge, a branding and marketing firm that focuses on professional services. Elizabeth is an accomplished entrepreneur and experienced executive with a background in strategic planning, management, communications, and alliance development. She is also a coauthor of Online Marketing for Professional Services: Technology Edition.