For all the talk of data bringing scientific rigor to marketing, it’s sometimes easy to lose sight of the fact that customers make choices both with their heads and their hearts — even when it involves the cold, hard math of financial services.
And that means considering both behaviors and emotional motivations in understanding what customers want from banking, insurance and other services, and why, said Todd McNab, Vice President of Client Strategy at Quad.
Speaking during an eMarketer webinar on Aug. 27, McNab urged financial services marketers to view data as a conduit to deeper, more meaningful relationships that allow their organizations to better anticipate the needs of customers.
Seeing it any other way, he said, is an invitation to fall into a “sea of sameness” given that competitors most likely are accessing the same data that you are.
“While data is great, people are better,” McNab said. “Taking a higher level of interest in your customers and prospects will help you separate from the pack, because if we don’t know how they feel, we’re going to have a hard time reaching them.”
Breaking through with personalization
Achieving that level of understanding requires that marketers push data scientists for real insights into “why our customers are behaving the way they are, because that’s ultimately going to lead to our success,” McNab added.
Any two customers, he noted, can have identical financial profiles, but vastly different motivations and goals. By understanding those differences, financial services marketers can create targeted, customized approaches to gain their attention.
This knowledge will help marketers become more efficient and effective as well, because the insights will show which audience segments most deserve your attention, McNab said.
The challenge in personalization is staying true to the audiences you’ve decided are key to your objectives, and to avoid expanding the target, which dilutes the impact. “How many times do we get pushed on a product launch to take lower deciles to increase the reach, even though it’s detrimental to our KPI?” he said.
The beauty of customer focus, McNab said, is that it also forces you to zero in on the channels your audiences prefer, rather than falling back on a “spray and pray” approach. Maintaining a sharp focus provides information “that you can use to deliver an experience that’s simpler for you and simpler for your customers and feels very personalized.”
Coordinating internal silos
All of this sounds good on paper, McNab said, but in reality it’s quite complicated. A typical marketing organization may have abundant data but can’t always make the most efficient and effective use of it due to various internal silos. “It takes so many steps to piece together technology, combined with the data, combined with the creative assets, combined with the legal approvals, to bring things to life,” he said.
But success breeds success, he added. Start small, with modest test campaigns that can reach completion quickly and build processes and internal credibility with key stakeholders.
“Keeping things focused on a couple of key attributes, with a couple of key tests, can help make your lives that much easier to justify a rollout or an additional investment, because it allows everybody inside the organization to see the impact,” McNab said.
Even for larger campaigns, it’s good to adopt a “surgical” approach, McNab advised. “Don’t try to be all things to all people. Find the two or three attributes that are most important to you. That’s what will drive your success.”
Yet, considering the plethora of stakeholders involved in any individual project, it’s not always easy to gain consensus, McNab acknowledged.
One way to embrace the challenge: Think in terms of categories. McNab’s suggestion is to choose the “critical two” performance indicators. “I would simply look at one business-related item and one kind of campaign or marketing effort, and have those be the two things you consistently report back on, so that you can show the impact you’re making.”
