By Karen Kroll
Along with compelling taglines and eye-catching graphics, data is critical to a bank’s marketing efforts. Accurate, timely and relevant data allows bank marketing professionals to target their efforts and ensure their goals align with those of the bank.
At the same time, leveraging data can be challenging.
Information often arrives from multiple sources, ranging from transaction systems to email to social media feeds. It often remains siloed in different computer systems. Most raw data needs to be checked for accuracy and redundancy — it’s not uncommon for bank systems to fail to recognize that Diego Flores, who has an individual account, is the same Diego Flores who owns a manufacturing plant and has a business account.
Fortunately, bank marking professionals can address these challenges and use data to help their banks gain a competitive edge.
Esquire Bank, a full-service commercial bank, often competes with very large banks to reach a specific group of businesses: law firms, says Kyall Mai, SVP and chief innovation officer. Moreover, almost every potential client that Esquire approaches is already working with another financial institution. Many of these competitors have large budgets, deep data sources and physical branches, he says. Esquire is smaller and digital only.
To win new business, Esquire needs to communicate effectively and show potential clients it has superior products and services.
“We have no choice as a digital-only bank, (but) to have great data,” Mai says. “It remains a strategic competitive advantage that your bank owns.”
Aligning strategies
An essential starting point for leveraging data is ensuring the marketing department’s strategy aligns with the bank’s overall strategy, says Amelia Chen, head of marketing with Array.com, a provider of engagement and revenue generating products for financial institutions.
If the bank’s goal is to raise revenue by a certain amount, leads generated through paid display ads will also have to increase by a certain amount, which means the ads’ click-through rate will have to increase, as well. Having a direct line between goals makes it easier to identify the data points that are most relevant and ignore those that are not, Chen adds.
At Penn Community Bank, all major marketing initiatives are tied to the bank’s strategic objectives to ensure that they’re advancing the goals of the organization, says Bernard Tynes, EVP and chief consumer banking officer. Because the bank’s executive team understands that that marketing is strategic, Tynes’ department “has a seat at the table in the development of the strategic plan,” he adds.
Quantifiable goals
Along with understanding and working toward the bank’s overall goals, marketers “need to put a target on their backs,” says Amanda Swanson, senior director and practice lead for the marketing and growth practice with Cornerstone Advisors. That is, they need to work with the business line owners toward quantifiable outcomes that can achieve growth goals, she adds. In addition to measuring specific marketing tactics, like email and digital marketing, they should be able to measure how these likely led to new business, whether from existing or new customers. Ongoing, open communication with other departments helps ensure that marketing’s use of data truly is helping it pursue the bank’s goals, she says.
At Evolve Bank & Trust, a technology-focused financial services organization, Eric Helvie, SVP and director, marketing and communications, and his team regularly reach out to both Evolve division leaders and employees on the ground to determine how best to leverage data and marketing initiatives, and to ensure all goals align. When the bank’s Memphis branches received an award, Helvie and his colleagues talked with the Memphis and Tennessee division president, as well as branch employees to determine how to leverage the recognition. “They let us know, ‘Hey, this is what we’d like to see as a call to action.’”
Double-checking data
When he’s analyzing data from social media platforms, Google Analytics, and other online services, Helvie makes a point of keeping an open, even skeptical mindset and checking for any holes in the information. “I want to make sure that whatever data we’re using to make decisions is as accurate as can be,” he says. “Sometimes I have to throw out unusually positive data to get to the real story of what’s happening.”.
For example, if the data shows a spike in web traffic for a day or two, that doesn’t automatically mean more people filled out contact forms or walked into a branch, Helvie notes. Social media traffic often jumps after a bank employee wins an award. “It goes through the roof on multiple sites and gets shared everywhere,” Helvie says. However, that doesn’t necessarily translate to new business. “It’s just that people are excited about the win and celebrating the person,” he says.
Once Helvie and his team analyze data and identify opportunities, they tailor their content accordingly. Often this means drilling past basic demographic data, like age or gender, to leverage data like educational level and profession. He and his team will also consider potential life events. For example, because home sales tend to jump in the spring, Evolve may add information on purchasing a home to its social media feeds.
No magic wand
Some bank marketers look for a “magic wand,” in which a single data source provides everything they need, Mai says. This typically does not exist, he adds.
At Esquire, acquiring quality data from firms such as Dun and Bradstreet often is one step in executing the bank’s data strategy. But more work is usually required. The data might identify law firms to contact, and then Esquire will enrich the data with its own first party data. “Our customer data is our single source of customer truth,” Mai says. Esquire may also use data obtained from sites like LinkedIn to identify individuals to contact within each potential client.
Prioritizing data sources based on their validity, relevance and accuracy is critical, Mai says. For instance, registration data from a conference at which a bank presented often will be highly targeted to the bank’s audience, he says.
Esquire currently is using artificial intelligence to make content recommendations for its content brand, Lawyer IQ. When a lawyer who is known to the website visits it, the site automatically “hyper-personalizes” the content, Mai says. So, a lawyer focused on law firm growth would typically see content relevant to this goal, while one who is interested in financing would see different materials.
Esquire’s efforts to leverage data appear to be working. The bank has enjoyed a compound annual growth rate of 20 percent annually since 2019, Mai says.
Clear communication
Communicating data so that it’s clear and compelling is both critical and often more difficult than it looks. “Not everybody is a data analyst or numbers driven, yet marketers need to convey their stories so anyone can understand what is being said,” Chen says.
When crafting a presentation or marketing materials, it may seem silly to spend time moving a box or graph around until it’s perfectly positioned. “Ultimately it matters because you have two seconds to grab your audience’s attention,” Chen says. If an image isn’t visually appealing or is distracting, it may lose the audience, she adds.
Next to healthcare providers, banks probably have the most data on their customers, Tynes says. Penn Community Bank has continued to grow its use of data relative to its marketing strategy, and uses multiple categories of data, he says. Along with transactional, customer and demographic data, it also uses behavioral data, such as email interactions and website visits. Because it’s growing, and to comply with government regulations, the bank also uses geographic data, Tynes says.
Over the past few years, Penn Community Bank has begun leveraging psychographic data around lifestyle and values, Tynes says. And because the bank is located outside Philadelphia, in an active and crowded marketplace, competitive data is important, he adds.
Every campaign is unique, so establishing clear goals and metrics is essential for effectively tracking return on investment, Tynes says. He and his team align their initiatives with the bank’s financial priorities and strategic direction, he says. This could range from, for instance, immediate low-cost deposit acquisition or long-term household growth and brand loyalty, he adds.
At the same time, measuring every aspect of a marketing campaign is inherently challenging, Tynes says. While countless formulas exist to measure campaign ROI, Tynes suggest community banks prioritize a blend of qualitative and quantitative metrics. He will ask stakeholders: “What does success look like for you and your area with this campaign?’ To ensure the tracking aligns with their specific objectives, he adds.
Converting data into actionable insights requires not only tracking key numbers, such as the number of households a bank serves, but also understanding the drivers behind those numbers, including products, services, demographics and others. Multiple testing methods allow Tynes’ team to validate and refine their insights.
Tynes encourages his team to continually balance the science of data and the art of marketing, and to infuse creativity and empathy into its strategies. “By blending the art of storytelling with the science of analytics, a bank can leverage data analytics and A/B testing to optimize campaigns, while also crafting compelling narratives and visually engaging designs that resonate emotionally with customers,” he says.
Karen Kroll is a frequent contributor to the ABA Banking Journal.
