What’s more important in the current climate: Sticking to traditional messages that promote trust in your brand, or embracing innovative Web 2.0 marketing efforts? Can financial services marketers do both?
This is just one of the issues participants will be debating at this year’s Online Banking Review Marketing forum coming up in Sydney on August 28.
Ahead of the forum we’d like to open up the discussion to our audience. We'd love to hear your opinion on the current state of affairs in financial services marketing.
Is the current culture of online participation causing damage to bank brands?
Should marketers be re-directing the money they spend on TV campaigns to building better products & services that will then be spread via online networks?
How can financial services marketers get away from the current price-driven focus of online marketing activity?
Are we getting closer to the death of the campaign where activity is ongoing and integrated campaigns are less important?
We’ll be discussing these issues in more depth when we break for an interactive roundtable session being led by Hitwise analyst Sandra Hanchard at the forum.
Register for the forum before July 31 and you can take-advantage of our early-bird offer to bring a colleague for free. This offer will end on July 31, so let your colleagues/clients know about it today.
Speakers are already confirmed from Forrester Research, HSBC, Google, Ideal Interfaces, Commonwealth Bank, RaboPlus, and Citibank, with more to come.
I look forward to continuing the conversation..
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Merger madness grips banking industry
I received one of those outbound sales calls from a bank last week. Thanks to its apparently sophisticated CRM system, NAB has built a reputation for leading the pack at this.
To give NAB due credit the call was well-timed, but I was quite surprised by the sales tactics of the caller in trying to get me to switch part of my business banking from Westpac to NAB.
On hearing I was with Westpac the caller commented along the lines of “You don’t really know what’s happening with Westpac – with this St George merger who knows what could change.”
It certainly got me thinking – how many sales people and relationship managers are busy telling Westpac/St George clients now is the time to jump ship?
Mergers are certainly a distraction, and if handled poorly can lead to a mass defection of customers. Which is why Gail Kelly has been busy encouraging customers to write to her personal email address with their concerns and feedback. (Thanks to burningpants for the pic)
Personally I’d rather see this type of communication out in the open. Maybe its time Gail Kelly started blogging. At the very least I think customer survey submissions to the ACCC’s review of the merger should be made public.
NAB is rumoured to be considering a counter-bid for St George. If this is the case then the marketing and PR teams should already be working on the communication plan. That would make my sales caller look as if he was sitting in a glass house throwing stones.
Bank marketers need to consider what sort of message they want to be sending consumers about mergers. On the one hand we have senior NAB executives pushing for a removal of the four pillars policy, and on the other sales staff that won’t hesitate to tell customers mergers are bad for them.
It's a classic case of banks failing to serve two masters - shareholders and customers. Is it any surprise customers view all of the big 5 banks as the same?
To give NAB due credit the call was well-timed, but I was quite surprised by the sales tactics of the caller in trying to get me to switch part of my business banking from Westpac to NAB.
On hearing I was with Westpac the caller commented along the lines of “You don’t really know what’s happening with Westpac – with this St George merger who knows what could change.”
It certainly got me thinking – how many sales people and relationship managers are busy telling Westpac/St George clients now is the time to jump ship?
Mergers are certainly a distraction, and if handled poorly can lead to a mass defection of customers. Which is why Gail Kelly has been busy encouraging customers to write to her personal email address with their concerns and feedback. (Thanks to burningpants for the pic)
Personally I’d rather see this type of communication out in the open. Maybe its time Gail Kelly started blogging. At the very least I think customer survey submissions to the ACCC’s review of the merger should be made public.NAB is rumoured to be considering a counter-bid for St George. If this is the case then the marketing and PR teams should already be working on the communication plan. That would make my sales caller look as if he was sitting in a glass house throwing stones.
Bank marketers need to consider what sort of message they want to be sending consumers about mergers. On the one hand we have senior NAB executives pushing for a removal of the four pillars policy, and on the other sales staff that won’t hesitate to tell customers mergers are bad for them.
It's a classic case of banks failing to serve two masters - shareholders and customers. Is it any surprise customers view all of the big 5 banks as the same?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
