You know what I love getting in the mail?
Holiday cards, magazines, the occasional picturesque catalog.
What I don’t open? Credit card offers, invitations to apply for loans and other financial advertisements.
Sorry lenders, but these generally go straight into my shredder. Your well-intentioned efforts were a waste in postage, printing and fulfillment costs, and I’m guessing my mail consumption habits are likely shared by millions of other Americans.
I’m a cusper, straddling the X and Millennial generations, and it’s no secret people like me have grown accustomed to living on our mobile devices, shopping online and managing our financial lives digitally.
While many retailers have wised up to the trends and shifted marketing dollars heavily into the digital space, the financial services industry has been slow to follow.
I’m hoping 2017 will be the year they adapt, because solutions are emerging to help lenders deliver firm offers of credit via email, display, retargeting and even social media platforms.
There are multiple reasons to make the shift to digital credit marketing.
- It’s trackable. The beauty of digital marketing is that it can be tracked much more efficiently over direct mail efforts. You can see if offer emails are opened, if banners are clicked, if forms are completed and how quickly all of this takes place. In short, there are more touchpoints to measure and track, and more insights made available to help with marketing and offer optimization.
- It’s efficient. A solid digital campaign means you now have more flexibility. And once those assets start to deploy and you begin tracking the results, you can additionally optimize on the fly. Subject line not getting the open rate you want? Test a new one. Banners not getting clicked? Change the creative. A portion of your target audience not responding? Capture that feedback sooner rather than later, and strategize again. With direct mail, the lag time is long. With digital, the intelligence gathering begins immediately.
- It’s what many consumers want. They are spending 25% of their time on mobile devices. Research has found they check their phones and average 46 times per day. They are bouncing from screen to screen, engaging on desktops, tablets, smartphones, wearables and smart TVs. If you want to capture the eyeballs and mindshare of consumers, financial marketers must embrace the delivery of digital offers. Consumer behaviors have evolved, so must lenders.
Sure, there is still a place for direct mail efforts, but it would be wasteful to not embrace the world of digital credit marketing and find the right balance between offline and online. It’s a digital world. It’s time financial institutions join the masses and communicate accordingly.
