The Right Data to Grow Your Business
How do you focus limited resources on those opportunities that will drive profitable growth in a competitive marketplace? How do you identify those opportunities within your customer base and within your market?
In today’s highly competitive financial marketplace, you need a competitive edge built on strong analytics, sound strategies, and well-executed tactics. Analytics becomes “actionlytics” when the right data is integrated with your marketing and sales strategy effectively to achieve desired results.
Let’s explore the top three elements that are key to equipping your team with the actionable data they need to grow your business.
1. Customer Segmentation
Establishing a customer-centric marketing strategy has never been more important. It is vital to tailoring communications to each customer’s specific profile, as well as taking the opportunity to add a personal touch to every interaction. A fundamental step to get this edge is through effective use of customer segmentation in marketing and sales strategies.
Demographics combined with a household-based segmentation system that considers financial variables, purchase behavior, and social metrics enables financial marketing professionals to better understand buying preferences and more effectively target their promotions and product campaigns. Set up an onboarding campaign for new customers that is triggered the moment a new customer opens an account, and a suite of customizable messages that nurture the bank's relationship with them will be set into motion.
Customized communications can be streamlined and scaled through the use of customer segmentation and automated marketing campaigns. While this tactical approach helps to improve ROI and leads to better targeted growth, the strategic implications are of even more value to gaining competitive advantage and driving sustainable profitable growth.
2. Customer Profitability
Critical to strategic marketing planning is understanding your customers in the context of the marketplace you serve. Too often, growth strategies are not aligned with customer needs. Without a a full view of the customer’s data, including their relationships and profitability, banks are ill-equipped to offer personalized service.
Customer profitability adds yet another element, and when analyzed within the framework of your customer segmentation program, allows you to understand how your institution is able to drive profits. When it comes to profitability, for instance, looking at an individual account gives you too narrow a view. Instead, team members need insight into the entire relationship with the customer and their overall profitability.
By unifying data, banks can quickly know the value of their accounts and household relationships, and see customer ranking, trends, and month-to-date profitability. This allows salespeople to identify where the opportunities are and focus their efforts where it will have the most impact. For example, with increased visibility, banks can create programs for retaining top customers and growing the others. The last piece of the puzzle is understanding your market share and wallet share, segment by segment, product by product.
3. Customer Analytics
Demonstrating that you understand your customers’ problems and specific needs is no longer seen as a bonus, it is an expectation. As the demand for personalized service continues to increase, banks must harness their customer data to meet that demand. One of the best ways to communicate to your customers that you know them and understand their needs is to recommend the right products at the right time. Strategic planning and expansion planning efforts are enriched with a foundation of strong customer and market analytics.
Unified and robust customer data empowers everyone in the organization to act as the customer’s primary relationship manager which builds trust and loyalty. By using actionable analytics, your staff is better able to identify what products or services are appropriate for any given customer and customer service representatives are able to effectively cross-sell. Cross-selling, onboarding, and lead generation are easier and more effective, allowing you to focus your limited resources, both staff and dollars, where they will drive the strongest results.
Actionable analytics provides a foundation of strong customer segmentation so financial institutions can strategically evaluate their best opportunities for profitable growth and tactically implement sales and service initiatives to retain and grow their business.
If you are not taking advantage of the strategic and tactical advantages from using customer segmentation, talk to us about how 360 View can help you take your marketing to the next level.