Digital banking has received a tremendous boost around the world, being adopted with incredible speed. Customers have become much more agile, looking for individual products that match their needs, rather than whole bank structures that cover the full range, but provide less-than-optimum, or more expensive, individual services.
Several strong changes are influencing customer expectations, and banks need to tailor their marketing to keep abreast or risk a double-whammy of losing existing customers to more agile competitors and failing to recruit new business to keep growing.
Meeting the challenges on two fronts.
To counter the shifts, banks and financial service providers need to adopt a two-pronged approach. On the one side, they must have products at least as good as, if not better than, the opposition. On the other side, their marketing must be keeping their image current and pertinent. Having excellent products that nobody knows about is no solution. Shouting about your services when they are the same as everyone else’s is similarly not a solution.
It takes expert knowledge to keep ahead in this dynamic market. We can offer your company a complete range of Marketing and banking Public Relations services, with promotions, interviews, public exposure, posts on major internet media, and help build the right content. Let us be your partner in making your work easier and more effective.
What do your customers really want?
What consumers want from banks always varied by age, income and gender, where they live and how much they earn. But now, underlying psychological features are bubbling up to the surface due to the agitation wrought by the pandemic. Marketing according to the old rules of targeting by groups (age, income group etc.) is outdated. Personal feelings are a strong driver of banking preferences.
Loyalty to established banks is now a thing of the past. Banking is simply a means to an end. Satisfied customers want good value from each one of their banking products. They prefer to self-assemble their own banking products and services from multiple providers so that the bundle does the best in terms of convenience and cost.
People are happily accepting innovation. They only want to build relationships with their banks through digital and mobile channels. They already have a positive feel about digital money and seek to optimize their experiences.
There are exceptions to the rule.
Still, different markets contain significantly different mixes. In fast-growing markets like BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), there isn’t the inertia associated with well-established traditional bank consumers. This currently constitutes the biggest single population group globally. It could be a challenge for banks that fail to model at least part of their broader product offering to match this important sector’s needs.
There is also a paradox. Banks are forced to interface in an increasingly digital mode, but demand for personalized services is growing exponentially. Is it possible to provide the human touch in a digital world? As banks develop more sophisticated digital experiences for their customers, a pattern of similarity comes out. Banks need to build brands that stand out from the crowd rather than joining a race to be the lowest on cost.
In the end, being able to cope with change is now one of the most important capabilities for banks. The rate of change has accelerated enormously and isn’t likely to come back down in the foreseeable future. Getting competent advice on how to build the right product portfolio, and how to market it, is probably a critical component for ensuring any financial institution’s stability and success over these difficult times.
