Putting customers at the center of your credit marketing strategy is key to achieving higher response rates and building long-term relationships. To do this, financial institutions need fresh and accurate consumer data to inform their decisions. Atlas Credit was looking to achieve higher response rates on its credit marketing campaigns by engaging consumers with timely and personalized offers. The company implemented Experian’s Ascend Marketing, a customer marketing and acquisition engine that provides marketers with accurate and comprehensive consumer credit data to build and deploy intelligent marketing campaigns. With deeper insights into their consumers, Atlas Credit created timely and customized credit offers, resulting in a 185% increase in loan originations within the first year of implementation. Additionally, the company was able to effectively manage and monitor its targeting strategies in one place, leading to improved operational efficiency and lower acquisition costs. To learn more about creating better-targeted marketing campaigns and enhancing your strategies, read the full case study. Download the case study Learn more
For a credit prescreen marketing campaign to be successful, financial institutions must first define their target audience. But just because you’ve identified your ideal customers, it doesn’t mean that every individual within that group has the same needs, interests or behaviors. As such, you’ll need to use data-driven customer segmentation to create messages and offers that truly resonate. Customer segmentation example Customer segmentation is the practice of dividing your target audience into smaller sub-groups based on shared characteristics, behaviors or preferences. This allows you to develop highly targeted marketing campaigns and engage with individual groups in more relevant and meaningful ways. What role does data play in customer segmentation? When it comes to segmenting customers, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach that works perfectly for all campaigns and markets. However, regardless of the campaign, you’ll need accurate and relevant data to inform your segmenting strategy. Let’s walk through a customer segmentation example. Say you want to launch a credit marketing campaign that targets creditworthy consumers in the market for a new mortgage. Some of the most influential data points to consider when segmenting include: Demographics Demographic data allows you to get to know your customers as individuals in terms of age, gender, education, occupation and marital status. If you want to create a segment that consists of only middle-aged consumers, leveraging demographic data makes it easier to identify these individuals, refine your messaging and predict their future buying behaviors. Life stage Life event data, such as new parents and new homeowners, helps you connect with consumers who have experienced a major life event. Because you’re targeting consumers in the market for a new mortgage, using fresh and accurate life stage data can help you create an engaging, event-based marketing campaign relevant to their timeline. Financial Financial data segments go beyond income and estimate the way consumers spend their money. With deeper insights into customers’ financial behaviors, you can more accurately assess creditworthiness and make smarter lending decisions. Transactional Transactional data segments group your customers according to their unique buying habits. By getting to know why they purchase your products or their frequency of spend, you can gain a better understanding of who your most engaged customers are, segment further and find opportunities for cross-sell and upsell. Why is data-driven customer segmentation critical for your business? With data-driven customer segmentation, you can develop relevant marketing campaigns and messages that speak to specific audiences, enabling you to demonstrate your value propositions more clearly and deliver personalized customer experiences. Additionally, because customer segmentation enables you to tailor your marketing efforts to those most likely to respond, you can achieve higher conversions while cutting down on marketing spend and resources. Ready to get started? While data-driven customer segmentation may seem overwhelming, Experian can help fill your marketing gaps with custom-based data, audiences and solutions. Armed with a better understanding of your consumers’ patterns and journeys, you can start targeting them more effectively. Create highly targeted credit marketing campaigns
With consumers having more credit options than ever before, it’s imperative for lenders to get their message in front of ideal customers at the right time and place. But without clear insights into their interests, credit behaviors or financial capacity, you may risk extending preapproved credit offers to individuals who are unqualified or have already committed to another lender. To increase response rates and reduce wasted marketing spend, you must develop an effective customer targeting strategy. What makes an effective customer targeting strategy? A customer targeting strategy is only as good as the data that informs it. To create a strategy that’s truly effective, you’ll need data that’s relevant, regularly updated, and comprehensive. Alternative data and credit-based attributes allow you to identify financially stressed consumers by providing insight into their ability to pay, whether their debt or spending has increased, and their propensity to transfer balances and consolidate loans. With a more granular view of consumers’ credit behaviors over time, you can avoid high-risk accounts and focus only on targeting individuals that meet your credit criteria. While leveraging additional data sources can help you better identify creditworthy consumers, how can you improve the chances of them converting? At the end of the day, it’s also the consumer that’s making the decision to engage, and if you aren’t sending the right offer at the precise moment of interest, you may lose high-value prospects to competitors who will. To effectively target consumers who are most likely to respond to your credit offers, you must take a customer-centric approach by learning about where they’ve been, what their goals are, and how to best cater to their needs and interests. Some types of data that can help make your targeting strategy more customer-centric include: Demographic data like age, gender, occupation and marital status, give you an idea of who your customers are as individuals, allowing you to enhance your segmentation strategies. Lifestyle and interest data allow you to create more personalized credit offers by providing insight into your consumers’ hobbies and pastimes. Life event data, such as new homeowners or new parents, helps you connect with consumers who have experienced a major life event and may be receptive to event-based marketing campaigns during these milestones. Channel preference data enables you to reach consumers with the right message at the right time on their preferred channel. Target high-potential, high-value prospects By using an effective customer targeting strategy, you can identify and engage creditworthy consumers with the greatest propensity to accept your credit offer. To see if your current strategy has what it takes and what Experian can do to help, view this interactive checklist or visit us today. Review your customer targeting strategy Visit us