Tag: social media

"Out with the old and in with the new" is often used when talking about a fresh start or change we make in life, such as getting a new job, breaking bad habits or making room in our closets for a new wardrobe. But the saying doesn't exactly hold true in terms of business growth. While acquiring new customers is critical, increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can increase profits by up to 95%.1 So, what can your organization do to improve customer retention? Here are three quick tips: Stay informed Keeping up with your customers’ changing interests, behaviors and life events enables you to identify retention opportunities and create personalized credit marketing campaigns. Are they new homeowners? Or likely to purchase a vehicle within the next five months? With a comprehensive consumer database, like Experian’s ConsumerView®, you can gain granular insights into who your customers are, what they do and even what they will potentially do. To further stay informed, you can also leverage Retention TriggersSM, which alert you of your customers changing credit needs, including when they shop for new credit, open a new trade or list their property. This way, you can respond with immediate and relevant retention offers. Be more than a business – be human Gen Z's spending power is projected to reach $12 trillion by 2030, and with 67% looking for a trusted source of personal finance information,2 financial institutions have an opportunity to build lifetime loyalty now by serving as their trusted financial partners and advisors. To do this, you can offer credit education tools and programs that empower your Gen Z customers to make smarter financial decisions. By providing them with educational resources, your younger customers will learn how to strengthen their financial profiles while continuing to trust and lean on your organization for their credit needs. Think outside the mailbox While direct mail is still an effective way to reach consumers, forward-thinking lenders are now also meeting their customers online. To ensure you’re getting in front of your customers where they spend most of their time, consider leveraging digital channels, such as email or mobile applications, when presenting and re-presenting credit offers. This is important as companies with omnichannel customer engagement strategies retain on average 89% of their customers compared to 33% of retention rates for companies with weak omnichannel strategies. Importance of customer retention Rather than centering most of your growth initiatives around customer acquisition, your organization should focus on holding on to your most profitable customers. To learn more about how your organization can develop an effective customer retention strategy, explore our marketing solutions. Increase customer retention today 1How investing in cardholder retention drives portfolio growth, Visa. 2Experian survey, 2023.

Generation Z has money on their minds, and as their appetite for personal finance grows, financial institutions better be ready. Accounting for 40% of all U.S. consumers, Gen Z is comprised of digital natives with little to no memory of the world as it existed before smartphones, social media and the internet. Aside from growing up in a tech-saturated world, Gen Zers are also socially conscious and determined to take control of their financial futures. According to Credit Union Times, Gen Zers wield a purchasing power of more than $143 billion, which is projected to increase by more than 70% in the next five years. What do these insights mean for financial institutions? As the newest and soon-to-be largest cohort of consumers, Gen Zers represent an enormous opportunity for growth. While establishing a relationship with Gen Z now is key to creating lifelong customers, the same approaches used to capture previous generations may not be as effective with this younger cohort. To successfully reach and acquire Gen Z consumers, financial institutions must recognize their unique needs, preferences and experiences. Here are some key trends and preferences to consider: They live and breathe social media. According to Mintel, 99% of Gen Z adults and teens are active social media users. Despite this percentage of Gen Zers on social media, credit card issuers spent 94% of their media budget on direct mail from January 2019 to May 2021. This highlights the need for financial institutions to recognize social media as a powerful and necessary marketing vehicle. As a fast-growing consumer group with massive spending power, Gen Z makes for valuable customers, but are being missed by current marketing strategies. While direct mail is popular among millennials, financial institutions must recognize Gen Z’s preference for social media and pivot themselves to effectively reach them. By leveraging both social media and direct mail, financial institutions can dramatically increase their reach and acquire a wider pool of consumers. They want to be financially literate. Concepts like budgeting, investing and credit building can seem daunting to Gen Zers, especially if they lack the proper guidance and resources to get started. According to a NerdWallet survey, 41% of Gen Zers feel anxious about their personal finances, while 40% feel nervous and confused. To add onto their worries, older Gen Z members may have witnessed their parents struggle financially during the Great Recession or have seen millennials burdened with student loan debt. For fear of facing the same challenges as their predecessors, Gen Zers have shown great interest in taking control of their financial lives and becoming financially literate. In response to this desire for financial education, many banks and credit card issuers have taken an educational approach in their marketing by using infographics and ‘how-to’ guides to teach Gen Z about the basics of personal finance. Offering educational resources not only gives Gen Zers the confidence to make financial decisions, but it gives financial institutions the opportunity to build an early connection with this consumer group. Many banks and credit card issuers are also positioning themselves as companies Gen Zers can “grow with.” By not limiting their products to a specific life stage, these financial institutions seek to grow alongside the consumer so that they remain loyal customers even when their needs and lifestyles change. They care about what brands stand for. According to Mintel Trend Buydeology, Gen Z consumers are passionate about the causes close to their hearts and are more likely than other generation to pay a higher price for brands that support the causes they care about. With this in mind, financial institutions must prove they are authentic, socially responsible and committed to serving their communities. To resonate with Gen Z consumers and align with their preferences, financial institutions should educate themselves about social issues, take part in meaningful discussions both on and offline, and develop innovative strategies to drive real impact and change. Ready to win over Gen Z? Financial institutions have a massive opportunity to build lasting relationships with Gen Z consumers and having a pulse on what this fast-growing segment wants is a must. To learn more, check out our efforts to help marginalized and underserved communities or join our upcoming webinar on November 3, 2021. Learn more  Register for webinar

Do more with less. Once the mantra of the life-hacking movement, it seems to be the charge given to marketers across the globe. Reduce waste; increase conversion rates; customize messages at a customer level; and do it all faster and more efficiently (read cheaper) than you did last quarter. The marketing challenges facing all companies seem to be more pronounced for financial institutions – not surprising for an industry with a reputation for late adoption. But doing more with less is not just a catchphrase thrown around by lean-obsessed consultants, it’s a response to key changes and challenges in the market. Here are 3 of the top marketing challenges creating business problems for financial institutions today. Budget constraints and misalignment As someone charged with the marketing remit in your firm, this probably comes as no surprise to you. Marketing budgets are stagnant, if not shrinking. Based on a 2018 report from CMO Survey, marketing budgets represent just over 11% of firm expenditures, a level which has remained largely constant over the last six years.Meanwhile, budgets at many financial firms appear to be out-of-touch with today’s ever-evolving market. In this Financial Brand report, virtually no financial institution committed more than 40% of their budget to mobile marketing, a stat unchanged from the prior two years. More channels mean even more segmentation Gone are the days where a company can rely heavily on traditional media to reach targets and clients. Now more than ever, your customers have access to a compounding amount of media on a proliferating number of channels. Some examples: In 2018, the Pew Research Center found most Americans (68%) get their news from social media. Cable companies recently followed streaming services to offer seamless service and experience across TV, desktop and mobile. Apple and Disney are two of several media juggernauts who are throwing their new streaming services and networks into the ring.This level of access is driving a shift in customers’ expectations for how, when and where they consume content. They want custom messages delivered in a seamless experience across the various channels they use. Shorter campaign cycles According to a recent study by Microsoft, humans now have shorter attention spans, at 8 seconds, than goldfish at 9 seconds. This isn’t surprising considering the levels of digital reach and access your customers are presented with. But this is also forcing a shortening of content and campaign cycles in response.   Marketers are now expected to plan, launch and analyze engaging campaigns to meet and stay ahead of customer need and expectation. Ironically, while there’s an intentional shortening of campaign cycles, there’s also a corporate focus to prolong and grow the customer relationship. It’s clear, competing in today’s world requires transforming your organization to address rapidly increasing complexity while containing costs. Competing against stagnant marketing budgets, proliferating media channels and shorter campaign cycles while delivering results is a formidable task, especially if your financial institution is not effectively leveraging data and analytics as differentiators. CMOs and their marketing teams must invest in new technologies and revisit product and channel strategies that reflect the expectations of their customers. How is your bank or credit union responding to these financial marketing challenges? Download Customer Acquisition eBook

In 2017, 81 percent of U.S. Americans have a social media profile, representing a five percent growth compared to the previous year. Pick your poison. Facebook. Instagram. Twitter. Snapchat. LinkedIn. The list goes on, and it is clear social media is used by all. Grandma and grandpa are hooked, and tweens are begging for accounts. Factor in the amount of data being generated by our social media obsession – one report claims Americans are using 2,675,700 GB of Internet data per minute – and it makes some lenders wonder if social media insights can be used to assess credit risk. Can banks, credit unions and online lenders look at social media profiles when making a loan decision and garner intel to help them make a credit decision? After all, in some circles, people believe a person’s character is just as important as their income and assets when making a lending decision. Certainly, some businesses are seeing value in collecting social media insights for marketing purposes. An individual’s interests, likes and click-throughs reveal a lot about their lifestyle and potential brand linkages. But credit decisions are different. In fact, there are two key concerns when considering social media data as it pertains to financial decisions. There is that little rule called the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which states credit must be extended to all creditworthy applicants regardless of race, religion, gender, marital status, age and other personal characteristics. A quick scan of any Facebook profile can reveal these things, and more. Credit applications do not ask for these specific details for this very reason. Social media data can also be manipulated. One can “like” financial articles, participate in educational quizzes and represent themselves as if they are financially responsible. Social media can be gamed. On the flip side, a consumer can’t manipulate their payment history. There is no question that data is essential for all aspects of the financial services industry, but when it comes to making credit decisions on a consumer, FCRA data trumps everything. In the consumer’s best interest, it is essential that credit data be both displayable and disputable. The right data must be used. For lenders, their primary goal is to assess a consumer’s stability, ability and willingness to pay. Today, social media can’t address those needs. It’s not to say that social media data can’t be used in the future, but financial institutions are still grappling with how it can be predictive of credit behavior over time. In the meantime, other sources of data are being evaluated. Everything from including on-time utility and rental payments, insights on smaller dollar loans and various credit attributes can help to provide a more holistic view of today’s credit consumer. There is no question social media data will continue to grow exponentially. But in the world of credit decisioning, the “like” button cannot be given quite yet.

According to Experian Marketing Services’ holiday peak week analysis, social media proved to be a key research tool for holiday shoppers and a crucial driver of traffic to retail Websites.