Top 4 Things You'll Need to Consider Before Starting 2010 Planning

It’s that time of year again. As you sharpen your pencil to start 2010 planning and budgeting, consider the following:

4. Local Economy: By making a few simple clicks or calls to your city or county, you can quickly assess the local economic environment. Also try calling a local college economics department for local data. Consider:

• Are jobs growing or shrinking today in each of your markets? What will they be doing in the next 6-9 months? What businesses are doing what? Use this information to target your business development strategies.
• What are the overall local economic trends? Look at real estate, household income, employment, retail sales, etc.
• How does all of the above information drive Product Need? Are there specific products that you can focus on in 2010? Do you need to create new products or services?

3. Existing Customers: It costs far less to increase penetration with your existing customers than to acquire new ones:

• How are your current customers using your products and services? Look at services per household, checking penetration, loan penetration, available lines of credit, debit card usage, online banking usage, etc.
• Identify your most profitable customers and target those who look just like them.

2. Competition: You can hire an outside shopper or simply take a day or two and shop the competition yourself. It’s important to understand:

• What new competition has entered the area? Who’s left?
• Review your key competition’s Product Mix.
• How are they Packaging their products? Do they have Relationship Pricing? Are they bundling products?
• Make a list of all of your competition’s Advantages and Disadvantages.
• Use this to Differentiate yourself!

1. ROI: By truly understanding and reporting your marketing ROI, you can brand yourself and your department as the greatest profit center in the bank or credit union.

• Set measureable ROI goals for each promotion as well as overall annual goals. Track regularly - not just at the end - this will help you know if you need to deviate from the plan.
• Look at everything: fee income, product profitability, brand equity, etc.
• Become your greatest spokesperson! Report everything … even the tactics that didn’t meet expectations and share what was learned.
• If your institution has one dollar to spend, show then that the highest return on investment is through marketing.

Take care,

Eric