As someone who lived through the savings and loan bailout of the late 1980s, I am blown away at the current financial crisis. In the space of three months, we have seen a number of respected financial firms and brands go down — hard.
Many bankers are justifiably shell shocked and looking to keep their heads down and make it through the turmoil.
For those in the online banking space, the questions start to swirl around how to serve the firm and keep your job.
How about some hints on what to online bankers should do:
1) Postpone mobile banking efforts: Mobile banking is not at an adoption stage where it is a must-have in the U.S. and there is no clear business case that mobile is going to reduce your cost to serve or increase your revenue. This is not 1995-1996 and not the start of the Internet boom/bust cycle.
2) Use interactive channels to talk to customers about the crisis: Now is the time to e-mail customers and provide interstitials to communicate what is happening with your firm. NetBanker Jim Bruene has a good example from Wells Fargo to get you thinking. Now might be the time to put some of your executives on a podcast. As a type, I am watching one of the nation’s largest banks get pummeled with rumors on whether or not they are going to break the firm apart. The CEO is silent and the employees are not allowed to talk — how about a 2 minute podcast for shareholders, customers, and the media?
3) Focus online marketing efforts on the solid paybacks: How about a focused effort to get customers to go paperless or pay their bill online? These are quick cost saves that can make a difference. What about tweaking your online account opening process to take advantage of turmoil in the marketplace.
For online display advertising, it probably best to revise your brand marketing down somewhat and to focus the message on the stability of the firm (hoping it is). In its place, your online display advertising for products should focus more on cost per action (CPA) performance, or at least cost per thousand (CPM) buys that are closely monitored and optimized, to minimize acquisition costs.
For Pay per Click (PPC) search advertising, it is time to rethink what copy and keywords are most relevant in the mind of the customer. The most relevant copy and keywords will change over time, and that is certainly true when economic conditions shift. Check out this example comparing the terms “Safe Bank” v. “High-yield savings. With the changes in the stock market, many would expect searches for high yield savings accounts would increase. Interestingly they have stayed about the same for 2008 — but check out the term “Safe bank” — searches have exploded during peaks of uncertainty.
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