23 Sep UX and Marketing Strategies for Banks
UX and Marketing for Banks
Corporations have extensive amounts on data about their customers. However, most corporations, especially banks, are not leveraging this data to their advantage. According to a FICO report 46% of established customers state that banks do not send relevant marketing material for future financial decisions1. Banks are witnessing a trend of discontinuity between them and their customers and although alarming, banks have the resources to fix and overcome the gap between them and their customers.
Big Data gives banks access to information about their customers relevant to understanding financial decisions they may make in the near future. With all the available data, banks must take advantage of the opportunity to enhance marketing efforts by making them hyper relevant. Millennials expect personalized product offerings that meet their financial goals; which are much different than other generations.
How Does It Work?
So, what could this look like? Say, for example, I am a recent college graduate in the market to purchase my first home. I have been researching neighborhoods, mortgage rates, and the different tax rates in the nearby cities around me. When I click on a bank’s main webpage, I should be greeted with a banner personalized to my interests. In this case, if I were to arrive at a banks homepage and I saw an advertisement for home mortgage options I would be more inclined to trust the bank than if the first advertisement I came across was for retirement savings. Banks have the opportunity to leverage cookie data to personalize their customers’ experiences.
Perhaps the hesitation to adopt personalized advertising has been because of the fear customers will feel their privacy is being invaded. Although a good point, some consumers are willing to give up their online privacy in exchange for personalized and better services and products. Younger generations such as millennials and generation z tend to agree that if a company is transparent about how they use consumer data, they will have less hesitation giving their consent to use it. Moreover, if companies provide meaningful, personalized experiences with the data they collect, customers won’t be hesitant, instead they will be excited. Transparency is key when using consumer data, 95% of millennials say they will be loyal to a company with transparency and business practices they can trust2. Banks have a large opportunity to gain loyal customers if data is used well to create emotional, relevant and timely messages.
How Can UX Help?
UX merges targeted advertising and smooth customer experiences. Excited at the opportunity for personalized marketing, banks may be inclined to bombard customers with repeated advertisements. UX professionals know that this is not the most effective approach and that the most impactful marketing efforts are end-user oriented. Customers should feel their experiences are personalized and should not feel overwhelmed; by leveraging healthy user experiences practices banks can harmonize their goals with their customers’ needs. Flawed customer experiences often come from ineffective communication between different fronts of a company. For example, the marketing, content, and data collection divisions must all work together to create a cohesive online experience. When communication fails between these different groups it manifests as fractured online experiences. A UX professional creates processes to ensure all groups work together to accomplish the same goal: attract and convert customers.
Conclusion
Banks must do a better job relating to their customers. Banks can no longer take a one size fits all approach to marketing, as newer generations of consumers look for companies that personalize their experiences. Marketing efforts centered around customer experience have the best success rates because they consider what the customer wants, and not just what the business needs. Creating a UX strategy may seem daunting at first, but is worth the investment to attract and secure customers. The Good Life Consulting has experience managing, implementing, and measuring UX initiatives with several international banks.
- https://www.fico.com/millennial-quiz/pdf/fico-millennial-insight-report.pdf
- . https://martechtoday.com/report-gen-z-millennials-more-willing-to-give-up-personaldata-in-exchange-for-personalized-experiences-223985