Tag: data-driven marketing

This article was updated on February 21, 2024. With the rise of technology and data analytics in the financial industry today, it's no longer enough for companies to rely solely on traditional marketing methods. Data-driven marketing insights provide a more sophisticated and comprehensive view of shifting customer preferences and behaviors. With this in mind, this blog post will highlight the importance of data-driven marketing insights, particularly for financial institutions. The importance of data-driven marketing insights 30% of companies say poor data quality is a key challenge to delivering excellent customer experiences. Today’s consumers want personalized experiences built around their individual needs and preferences. Data-driven marketing insights can help marketers meet this demand, but only if it is fresh and accurate. When extending firm credit offers to consumers, lenders must ensure they reach individuals who are both creditworthy and likely to respond. Additionally, their message must be relevant and delivered at the right time and place. Without comprehensive data insights, it can be difficult to gauge whether a consumer is in the market for credit or determine how to best approach them. READ: Case study: Deliver timely and personalized credit offers The benefits of data-driven marketing insights By drawing data-driven marketing insights, you can reach and engage the best customers for your business. This means: Better understanding current and potential customers To increase response and conversion rates, organizations must identify high-propensity consumers and create personalized messaging that resonates. By leveraging customer data that is valid, fresh, and regularly updated, you’ll gain deeper insights into who your customers are, what they’re looking for and how to effectively communicate with them. Additionally, you can analyze the performance of your campaigns and better predict future behaviors. Utilizing technology to manage your customer data With different sources of information, it’s imperative to consolidate and optimize your data to create a single customer view. Using a data-driven technology platform, you can break down data silos by collecting and connecting consumer information across multiple sources and platforms. This way, you can make data available and accessible when and where needed while providing consumers with a cohesive experience across channels and devices. Monitoring the accuracy of your data over time Data is constantly changing, so implementing processes to effectively monitor and control quality over time is crucial. This means leveraging data quality tools that perform regular data cleanses, spot incomplete or duplicated data, and address common data errors. By monitoring the accuracy of your data over time, you can make confident decisions and improve the customer experience. Turning insights into action With data-driven marketing insights, you can level up your campaigns to find the best customers while decreasing time and dollars wasted on unqualified prospects. Visit us to learn more about how data-driven insights can power your marketing initiatives. Learn more Enhance your marketing strategies today This article includes content created by an AI language model and is intended to provide general information.

In an era where record-breaking home prices and skyrocketing interest rates define the mortgage landscape, borrowers find themselves sidelined by prohibitive costs. With the purchase market at a standstill, mortgage lenders are grappling with how to sustain and grow their businesses. Navigating these turbulent waters requires innovative solutions that address the current market dynamics and pave the way for a more resilient and adaptive future.    Today, I’m sitting down with Ivan Ahmed, Director of Product Management for Experian’s Property Data solutions, to learn more about Experian’s Residential Property Attributes™, a new and exciting dataset that can significantly enhance mortgage marketing and mortgage lead generation strategies and drive business growth for lenders, particularly during these challenging times.    Question 1: Ivan, can you provide a brief overview of Residential Property Attributes and its relevance in today’s mortgage lending landscape?   Answer 1: Absolutely. Residential Property Attributes is our latest product innovation designed to revolutionize how mortgage lenders approach marketing and growth decisions. It’s a robust dataset containing nearly 300 attributes that seamlessly integrates borrower property and tradeline information, providing a more holistic view of a borrower’s financial situation. This powerful dataset empowers lenders to make well-informed, impactful marketing decisions by refining campaign segmentation and targeting. Our attributes group into five categories:  Question 2: As a data-focused company, we frequently discuss the importance of leveraging data and analytics to enhance marketing performance with clients. Considering other data providers that offer property data analytics or credit behavior data, what makes our capabilities distinct?  Answer 2: The defining feature of Residential Property Attributes is its integration with borrower tradeline data. Many lenders today focus primarily on credit behavior, but we consider property data analytics, a critical aspect, equally important. By merging these two components, we present lenders with a thorough and accurate understanding of their target borrowers. This combination is revolutionary for marketing leaders looking to boost campaign performance and return on investment (ROI).  Consider this scenario: On paper, two borrowers may seem homogenous, with similar credit scores, payment histories, and debt-to-income ratios. However, when you incorporate property-level insights, a striking disparity in their overall financial situations emerges. This level of insight prevents possible misdirection in marketing efforts.  Question 3: Could you share more about the practical benefits of Residential Property Attributes, especially regarding enhancing marketing performance?  Answer 3: Residential Property Attributes is instrumental in amplifying performance. It enables precise audience segmentation, allowing lenders to tailor marketing campaigns to address specific borrower needs. Here are a few examples:  Lenders can identify borrowers with over $100k in tappable equity and high-interest personal loans and credit card debt. These borrowers are ideal for a cash-out refinance campaign aimed at debt consolidation. They can use a similar approach for Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) or Reverse Mortgage campaigns.  Another instance is the utilization of property listings data. This identifies borrowers who are actively selling their properties and may need a new mortgage loan. This insight, coupled with credit-based 'in the market' propensity scores, enables lenders to pinpoint highly motivated borrowers. Such personalization improves engagement and enhances the borrower experience. The result is a marketing campaign that resonates with the audience, thus yielding higher response rates and conversions. The integrated view provided by Residential Property Attributes is the secret ingredient enabling lenders to maximize ROI by optimizing their marketing journey at every step.  Taking action  As we traverse today's complex mortgage landscape, it's clear that conventional methods fall short. As we face unprecedented challenges, adopting a holistic view of borrowers via Residential Property Attributes is not an option but a necessity. It's more than a tool; it's a compass guiding lenders towards more informed, resilient, and successful futures in the ever-changing world of mortgage lending.  Learn more about Residential Property Attributes

In a changing economy, banks of all sizes are more budget conscious, leading many to pull back on their marketing spend for new customer acquisition. But by making strategic marketing moves now, banks can uncover new opportunities and drive profitable, long-term growth. So, how can you find, engage, and win over high-value customers? Know who’s in the market for credit To build an effective bank customer acquisition strategy, you’ll want to be proactive with your campaign planning. Let’s say you’ve already defined your customer profile and have insights into their interests, lifestyles, and demographics. With predictive metrics and advanced tools like trended data and propensity-to-open models, you can further refine your segmentation strategies by identifying individuals who are likely to be in the market for your product. This way, you can reach consumers at the right time and personalize offers to achieve higher open rates. Embrace the digital era With today’s consumers increasing their banking activities online, leveraging digital channels in your bank customer acquisition strategy is imperative. In addition to connecting with consumers through direct mail, consider reaching out to them through email, social media, or your mobile banking applications. This will not only help increase the visibility of the offer, but also allow consumers to receive and respond faster. Another way to enhance your banking strategies for growth while meeting consumer expectations for digital is by making it easier and more convenient for consumers to onboard. With an automated and data-driven credit decisioning solution, you can streamline steps that are traditionally manual and time-consuming, such as data collection and identity verification. By providing seamless customer acquisition in banking, you can accelerate your decision-making and increase the likelihood of conversion. Make the most of your marketing spend While customer acquisition in banking should remain a high priority, we understand that driving growth on a tight marketing budget can be challenging. That’s why we created a tip sheet outlining ways for banks and other lenders to enhance their customer acquisition processes while effectively managing costs. Some of the tips include: Going beyond conventional scoring methods. By leveraging an advanced customer acquisition solution, you can gain a holistic view of your prospective customers to enhance predictive performance and identify hidden growth opportunities. Focusing on high-potential customers. Pinpointing consumers who are actively seeking credit enables you to focus your offers and resources on those who are likely to respond, resulting in a greater return on marketing investment. Amplifying your credit offers. Re-presenting preapproved credit offers through the digital channels that consumers most frequent enables you to expand your campaign reach, increase response rates, and reduce direct mailing costs. View the tip sheet to learn how you can make the most of your marketing budget to acquire new customers and drive long-term growth. Access tip sheet

To reach customers in our modern, diverse communications landscape, it's not enough to send out one-size-fits-all marketing messages. Today's consumers value and continue to do business with organizations that put them first. For financial institutions, this means providing personalized experiences that enable your customers to feel seen and your marketing dollars to go further. How can you achieve this? The answer is simple: a customer-driven credit marketing strategy. What is customer-driven marketing? Customer-driven marketing is a strategy that focuses on putting consumers first, rather than products. It means thinking about the needs, wants and motivations of the prospects you're trying to reach and centering your marketing campaigns and messages around that audience. When done well, this comprehensive approach extends beyond the marketing team to all members of a company. The benefits of customer-driven credit marketing One benefit of this type of personalized credit marketing is that you can target customers with a potentially higher lifetime value. By focusing your marketing efforts on the right prospects, you'll ensure that budgets are being spent wisely and that you're not wasting valuable marketing dollars communicating with consumers who either won't respond or aren't a fit for your business. Customer-driven marketing enables you to identify and reach the most profitable, highly responsive prospects in the most efficient way, while also engaging with current customers to optimize retention rates. When you create marketing programs that are customer-driven, you're not just selling; you're building relationships. Rather than being simply a service provider, you become a trusted financial partner and advisor. This kind of data-driven customer experience can help you onboard more customers and retain them for longer, translating to better results when it comes to your bottom line. Customer-driven marketing: How to get started Customer-driven marketing is less funnel, more spiral. You research, test, refine and repeat, all while taking into account customer feedback and campaign results. It starts with defining your target audience and creating customer personas. As you do this, think about all the factors that are involved in your target customers’ path to purchase, from general awareness and growing need to the final motivation that pushes them to commit. You'll also want to consider what their pain points may be and the barriers that may prevent them from buying. Next, develop a marketing strategy that aligns with your target customers' needs and outlines how and where you'll reach them. It may also be helpful to gather and respond to customer feedback to ensure the value propositions in your campaigns are aligned with customer expectations. These insights can help you refine your messaging, resulting in increased response and retention rates. Use the right data to extend relevant credit offers When you send credit offers, you want to ensure they're reaching the right prospects at the right time. You also want to make sure these credit offers are relevant to the consumers that receive them. That's where quality data comes in. By optimizing your data-driven customer segmentation, you can develop timely and personalized credit offers to boost response rates. For example, you might have a target audience of consumers who are both creditworthy and looking for a new vehicle. Segmenting this audience into smaller groups by demographic, life stage, financial and other factors helps you create credit marketing campaigns that speak to each type of customer as an individual, not just a number. Meet consumers on their preferred channels Nowadays, consumer behavior is more fragmented than ever. This is relevant not just from a demographic point of view, but from the perspective of purchasing behavior. Customer-driven marketing helps you interact with prospects as individuals so that the value propositions they encounter are a true fit for their life situation. For instance, different age groups tend to spend time on different platforms. But why they're on those channels at any particular time matters too. Messaging aimed at prospects in their leisure time should be different from messaging they'll encounter when actively researching potential purchases. Keep up with your customers This is one answer to the question of how to improve customer retention as well. Research demonstrates that it's more cost-effective to keep a customer than to acquire a new one. When you tailor retention efforts with a well-thought-out customer-driven marketing strategy, you're likely to boost retention rates, which in many cases lead to better profits over time. Importance of a customer-driven marketing strategy Putting consumers at the center of credit marketing strategies — and at the center of your business as a whole — is the foundation for personalized experiences that can ultimately increase response rates and customer satisfaction. For more on how your organization can develop an effective customer-driven marketing strategy, learn about our credit marketing solutions.

A data-driven customer experience certainly has a nice ring, but can your organization deliver on the promise? What we're really getting at is whether you can provide convenience and personalization throughout the customer journey. Using data to personalize the customer journey About half of consumers say personalization is the most important aspect of their online experience. Forward-thinking lenders know this and are working to implement digital transformations, with 87 percent of business leaders stating that digital acceleration has made them more reliant on quality data and insights. For many organizations, lack of data isn't the issue — it's collecting, cleaning and organizing this data. This is especially difficult if your departments are siloed or if you're looking to incorporate external data. What's more, you would need the capabilities to analyze and execute the data if you want to gain meaningful insights and results. LEARN: Infographic: Automated Loan Underwriting Journey Taking a closer look at two important parts of the customer journey, here's how the right data can help you deliver an exceptional user experience. Prescreening To grow your business, you want to identify creditworthy consumers who are likely to respond to your credit offers. Conversely, it's important to avoid engaging consumers who aren't seeking credit or may not meet your credit criteria. Some of the external data points you can incorporate into a digital prescreening strategy are: Core demographics: Identify your best customers based on core demographics, such as location, marital status, family size, education and household income. Lifestyle and financial preferences: Understand how consumers spend their time and money. Home and auto loan use: Gain insight into whether someone rents or owns a home, or if they'll likely buy a new or used vehicle in the upcoming months. Optimized credit marketing strategies can also use standard (and custom) attributes and scores, enabling you to segment your list and create more personalized offers. And by combining credit and marketing data, you can gain a more complete picture of consumers to better understand their preferred channels and meet them where they are. CASE STUDY: Clear Mountain Bank used Digital Prescreen with Micronotes to extend pre-approved offers to consumers who met their predetermined criteria. The refinance marketing campaign generated over $1 million in incremental loans in just two months and saved customers an average of $1,615. Originations Once your precise targeting strategy drives qualified consumers to your application, your data-driven experience can offer a low-friction and highly automated originations process. Alternative credit data: Using traditional and alternative credit data* (or expanded FCRA-regulated data), including consumer-permissioned data, allows you to expand your lending universe, offer more favorable terms to a wider pool of applicants and automate approvals without taking on additional risk. Behavioral and device data: Leveraging behavioral and device data, along with database verifications, enables you to passively authenticate applicants and minimize friction. Linked and digital applications: Offering a fully digital and intuitive experience will appeal to many consumers. In fact, 81 percent of consumers think more highly of brands after a positive digital experience that included multiple touchpoints. And if you automate verifications and prefill applications, you can further create a seamless customer experience. READ: White paper: Getting AI-driven decisioning right in financial services Personalization depends on persistent identification The vast majority (91 percent) of businesses think that improving their digital customer journey is very important. And rightly so: By personalizing digital interactions, financial institutions can identify the right prospects, develop better-targeted marketing campaigns and stay competitive in a crowded market. DOWNLOAD: A 5-Step Checklist for Identifying Credit-Active Prospect To do this, you need an identity management platform that enables you to create a single view of your customer based on data streams from multiple sources and platforms. From marketing to account management, you can use this persistent identity to inform your decisions. This way, you can ensure you're delivering relevant interactions and offers to consumers no matter where they are. WATCH: Webinar: Omnichannel Marketing - Think Outside the Mailbox Personalization offers a win-win Although they want personalization, only 33 percent of consumers have high confidence in a business' ability to recognize them repeatedly.4 To meet consumer expectations and remain competitive, you must deliver digital experiences that are relevant, seamless, and cohesive. Experian Consumer View helps you make a good first impression with consumer insights based on credit bureau and modeled data. Enrich your internal data, and use segmentation solutions to further refine your target population and create offers that resonate and appeal. You can then quickly deliver customized and highly targeted campaigns across 190 media destinations. From there, the Experian PowerCurve® Originations Essentials, an automated decisioning engine, can incorporate multiple external and internal data sources to optimize your strategy. *Disclaimer: When we refer to “Alternative Credit Data," this refers to the use of alternative data and its appropriate use in consumer credit lending decisions, as regulated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Hence, the term “Expanded FCRA Data" may also apply in this instance and both can be used interchangeably.

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

With an abundance of loan options in today’s market, retaining customers can be challenging for banks and credit unions, especially small or regional institutions. And as more consumers look for personalization and digital tools in their banking experience, the likelihood of switching to institutions that can meet these demands is increasing.1 According to a recent Experian survey, 78% of consumers have conducted personal banking activities online in the last three months. However, 58% of consumers don’t feel that businesses completely meet their expectations for a digital online experience. To remain competitive in today's market, organizations must enhance their prescreen efforts by accelerating their digital transformation. Prescreen in today's economic environment While establishing a strong digital strategy is crucial to meeting the demands of today’s consumers, economic conditions are continuing to change, causing many financial institutions to either tighten their marketing budgets or hold off on their prescreen efforts completely. Fortunately, lenders can still drive growth during a changing economy without having to make huge cuts to their marketing budgets. How? The answer lies in digital prescreen. Case study: Uncover hidden growth opportunities Wanting to grow their business and existing relationships, Clear Mountain Bank looked for a solution that could help them engage customers with money-saving product offers while delivering a best-in-class digital banking experience. Leveraging Digital Prescreen with Micronotes, the bank was able to identify and present dollarized savings to customers who held higher-priced loans with other lenders. What’s more, the bank extended these offers through personalized conversations within their online and mobile banking platforms, resulting in improved digital engagement and increased customer satisfaction. By delivering competitive prescreen offers digitally, Clear Mountain Bank generated more than $1 million in incremental loans and provided customers with an average of $1,615 in cost savings within the first two months of deployment. “Digital Prescreen with Micronotes supplied the infrastructure to create higher-quality, personalized offers, as well as the delivery and reporting. They made prescreen marketing a reality for us.” – Robert Flockvich, Director of Community Outreach and Retail Lending at Clear Mountain Bank To learn more about how you can grow your portfolio and customer relationships, read the full case study or visit us. Download the case study Visit us 1The Keys to Solving Banking’s Customer Loyalty & Retention Problems, The Financial Brand, 2022.

Financial institutions have gone through a whirlwind in the last few years, with the pandemic forcing many to undergo digital transformations. More recently, rising interest rates and economic uncertainty are leading to a pullback, highlighting the need for lenders to level up their marketing strategies to win new customers. To get started, here are a few key trends to look out for in the new year and fresh marketing ideas for lenders. Challenges and consumers expectations in 2023 It might be cliche to mention the impact that the pandemic had on digital transformations — but that doesn't make it any less true. Consumers now expect a straightforward online experience. And while they may be willing to endure a slightly more manual process for certain purchases in their life, that's not always necessary. Lenders are investing in front-end platforms and behind-the-scenes technology to offer borrowers faster and more intuitive services. For example, A McKinsey report from December 2021 highlighted the growth in nonbank mortgage lenders. It suggested nonbank lenders could hold onto and may continue taking market share as these tech-focused lenders create convenient, fast and transparent processes for borrowers.2 Marketers can take these new expectations to heart when discussing their products and services. To the extent you have one in place, highlight the digital experience that you can offer borrowers throughout the application, verifications, closing and loan servicing. You can also try to show rather than tell with interactive online content and videos. Build a data-driven mortgage lending marketing strategy The McKinsey report also highlighted a trend in major bank and nonbank lenders investing in proprietary and third-party technology and data to improve the customer experience.2 Marketers can similarly turn to a data-driven credit marketing strategy to help navigate shifting lending environments. Segment prospects with multidimensional data Successful marketers can incorporate the latest technological and multidimensional data sources to find, track and reach high-value prospects. By combining traditional credit data with marketing data and Fair Credit Report Act-compliant alternative credit data* (or expanded FCRA-regulated data), you can increase the likelihood of connecting with consumers who meet your credit criteria and will likely respond. For example, Experian's mortgage-specific In the Market Models predict a consumer's propensity to open a new mortgage within a one to four-month period based on various inputs, including trended credit data and Premier Attributes. You can use these propensity models as part of your prescreen criteria, to cross-sell current customers and to help retain customers who might be considering a new lender. But propensity models are only part of the equation, especially when you're trying to extend your marketing budget with hyper-segmented campaigns. Incorporating your internal CRM data and non-FCRA data can help you further distinguish look-alike populations and help you customize your messaging. LEARN MORE: Use this checklist to find and fix gaps in your prospecting strategy Maintain a single view of your borrowers An identity management platform can give you a single view of a consumer as they move through the customer journey. The persistent identity can also help you consistently reach consumers in a post-cookie world and contact them using their preferred channel. You can add to the persistent identity as you learn more about your prospects. However, you need to maintain data accuracy and integrity if you want to get a good ROI. Use triggers to guide your outreach You can also use data-backed credit triggers to implement your marketing plan. Experian's Prospect Triggers actively monitors a nationwide database to identify credit-active consumers who have new tradelines, inquiries or a loan nearing term. Lenders using Prospect Triggers can receive real-time or periodic updates and customize the results based on their screening strategy and criteria, such as score ranges and attributes. They can then make firm credit offers to the prospects who are most likely to respond, which can improve cross-selling opportunities along with originations. Benefit from our expertise Forward-thinking lenders should power their marketing strategies with a data-backed approach to incorporate the latest information from internal and external sources and reach the right customer at the right time and place. From list building to identity management and verification, you can turn to Experian to access the latest data and analytics tools. Learn about Experian credit prescreen and marketing solutions. Explore our credit prescreen solutions Learn about our marketing solutions 1Mortgage Bankers Association (October 2022). Mortgage Applications Decrease in Latest MBA Weekly Survey 2McKinsey & Company (2021). Five trends reshaping the US home mortgage industry