9 Ways Marketing Can Help Acquire New Mobile Banking Customers

At a time when battle lines are being drawn in both the mobile banking and payments space, it is more important than ever to encourage customers to use the mobile channel.

According to research conducted by Fiserv Inc., organizations that actively market mobile banking have experienced an average adoption rate that is twice as high as institutions that did not promote the service.

So, how can financial marketers use the multiple communication channels at their disposal to promote channel migration? How do we encourage both the sign-up and utilization of the mobile channel that can help reduce costs and potentially generate revenue (see 'Monetizing Mobile Banking', Oct. 15, 2012). Below are eight ways institutions I am familiar with are promoting mobile banking.

• ATMs: One of the best ways I have seen mobile banking promoted was by Fifth Third Bank. Not only did they encourage sign-up for mobile banking on the ATM screen as many banks do, but they also included a QR code at the bottom of their transaction receipt. The use of a QR code appeals to the more advanced smartphone user while being a perfect way to electronically link to the appropriate app. The customer may decide to scan the code immediately or do so later when they reference the receipt to balance their account.

• Account Statements: Another very inexpensive, yet effective method of promoting mobile banking using QR codes in on customer statements or on the envelopes of standard customer communication. Chase bank does this very effectively, automatically directing customers to the correct app store for their device. In addition, statement inserts are a low-cost way to reinforce statement messages or branch promotions as done by SunTrust.

• Branch Communication: There are obviously many ways to promote the download of a mobile banking app in a branch as well as many ways to offer incentives to either the customer and/or branch employees for the completion of a download. The benefit of any branch-based promotion is the ability to have dialogue with the customer around the advantages of using mobile banking as well as providing a great opportunity to answer any questions or address any concerns the customer may have. Since customers almost always have their phone with them when visiting a branch, this is another channel where QR codes can be very effective, especially on brach POS materials and transaction receipts.
• Email: An email campaign is a great way to target online banking customers or customers doing a large number of balance inquiries monthly. Some banks are even targeting customers who use the branch extensively for check deposits, promoting the remote deposit capture function of mobile banking. The key with any email campaign, however, is providing a direct linkage to either the mobile banking location on your web site or to the mobile banking application itself.

• Web Banner: Using banner advertising as well as adding pop-up banners when customers are viewing your web site using their mobile device is a highly effective targeting technique that can promote your mobile banking application. With banners, various tests can be done at a relatively low cost, with learnings applied to more expensive channels such as direct mail. As with most other electronic and digital marketing, it is important to provide a link to either a mobile banking landing page or to the appropriate mobile banking app. Recently, most banner ads focus on the benefits of mobile check deposit as done by Citi below.

• Direct Mail: With the vast expansion of smartphone ownership and the potential economic and competitive benefits of mobile banking migration, several banks are using direct mail as part of a multichannel strategy to increase mobile banking penetration and usage. While more costly than many of the channels above, the lift from adding targeted direct mail to the marketing mix has offset the higher costs of this channel, increasing the net volume of qualified users faster than direct mail or electronic channels alone.

• Social Media: Don't forget fans and followers when you are building a mobile banking marketing strategy. Avid social network users are some of the most prolific smartphone users, making them a great target audience for the benefits of mobile banking. Make sure your Facebook and other social pages are optimized for mobile viewing and they include easy links to your mobile banking application jump pages or the correct app store.

• Traditional Media: While not used as extensively as other channels, traditional print advertisements are still used to reinforce the benefits of banking via the mobile channel. Usually focussing on mobile check deposit, mobile rewards programs or new applications such as an ATM finder, this channel is an effective way to display market leadership in mobile banking.

• SMS Text: More and more financial institutions are beginning to ask for mobile phone numbers as part of the new account opening process to enable better communication with customers. If you have SMS permission, this channel can be effective when used with an incentive for mobile banking sign-up along with a direct link to the download page in the app store. While this channel needs to be used judiciously, there is also the ability to integrate the message with your bank's rewards program offer of points or discounts on merchandise.

Integrate Mobile Banking Message Now

A recent Juniper Research report entitled 'Mobile Banking: Handset and Tablet Market Strategies 2013-2017', finds that mobile banking is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 18 percent to eventually reach one billion consumers in the next five years. This growth is being supported by many of the major banks increasing their investment in the mobile channel and by significant promotion of mobile banking through various media. As a result, it is more important than ever for every financial institution to grab their share of the mobile banking pie before it is too late.

According to Steve Shaw, vice president of Strategic Marketing, Digital Channels and Electronic Payments for Fiserv, "The focus of marketing mobile banking should be on educating the customers. If customers understand how they can benefit from the service and how to get started, the convenience will compel them to extend the relationship with their financial institution through their favorite devices."

As you acquire new mobile banking customers, it is also easier to extend the collection of insight from the customer such as their email address (if you don't already have a current address) and even their Facebook page or Twitter handle. The more data you have, the easier it will be to expand communication through additional channels. This can also be done at the point of sale as branch personnel are signing customers up for mobile banking.

Are there any other successful ways to market mobile banking that I missed? Are you using all of the channels possible to migrate transactions and inquiries to your customer's mobile devices? 

Let me know.

Marketers Not Aligned With Consumer Marketing Channel Preferences

Technology is rapidly changing the way consumers interact. We wake up each day to a barrage of messages coming from both traditional and new media. We check our Facebook posts and text messages at the same time we watch television, read the newspaper, listen to the radio or conduct work online. 

Marketers have long recognized the shifts in media consumption that are redefining how customers absorb information and offers. However, recent studies indicate that marketers may not be in total alignment with consumers as to how the new media is consumed and their degree of reliance on various media for making buying decisions.

A new research study by Acxiom entitled, Tug of Love: The Changing Relationship Between Consumers and Brands found that more than four in five people (82%) believed they were in control of the relationship between themselves and their brands (with 'control' being defined as receiving the information they desire, when and through the media they want). This was more than 50% higher than marketers thought, indicating that 'push' broadcast marketing is quickly being replaced with 'pull' marketing where the individual is in charge of message consumption.


Interestingly, the perception of having the ability to filter messages that were either inappropriate or not of personal interest increased with age, possibly due to less messages being sent using electronic channels and due to improved targeting available for older households. Older households also benefit from having longer relationships with their brands, resulting in less bombardment of messages occurring.

Despite feeling in control, however, one in four households still say they receive 'inappropriate' marketing communications, while marketers feel they do a better job of targeting. Even with this ability to screen messages, only 27% of consumers believed their brands understood them or communicated with them appropriately. The good news is that some of the best numbers were recorded for financial services communications, even though less than half believed they were understood and communicated with well.

One of the most surprising findings in this study and in a recently published study from the European Journal of Marketing entitled, Comparing Perceptions of Marketing Communications Channels (Vol. 45, No. 1/2, 2011, pp 6-43), was that although email is well established and widely used by marketers, the traditional channels of television, radio, newspapers and to a significantly greater degree, direct mail retain historically favored attributes of trust and reliability. Conversely, some of the newer media such as SMS and mobile received much lower rankings than marketers believed they would, making these channels less powerful or accepted by consumers of any age category. In fact, direct mail was reported by both customer and prospect groups in both studies as being in the top two marketing channels preferred next to email.

In the Acxiom study, 71% of current customers cited direct mail as an appropriate way of reaching them, with 57% of prospects preferring direct mail. These acceptance ratings were far above what marketers thought who were asked the same question. Only 35% of marketers thought prospects would welcome direct mail. They were much closer with customer perception, noting that they believed 75% would be positive about direct mail. Email acceptance was 77% for customers and only 52% for prospects, still significantly higher than other newer media. In fact, only 12% of consumers felt mobile advertising was appropriate, with the figure for SMS being only 9%. As could be surmised, marketers believed the acceptance rate on these media options would be much higher. Despite the industry focus on and massive growth of interactions through social media, only 4% of consumers wanted to be reached using these channels.

Customer Acceptance of Alternative Marketing Channels (Acxiom, 2011)

Prospect Acceptance of Alternative Marketing Channels (Acxiom, 2011)

The European Journal of Marketing study dug deeper into the perceived attributes of the different media channels as determined by both the sender and recipient. As could be expected, channels that were considered annoying or irritating included SMS, phone, door-to-door and email. Consumers found direct mail to have the qualities of being informative, reliable and trustworthy, while they found most mass marketing to be informative and enjoyable.

Perceptual Mapping of Marketing Channel Attributes - Recipient (European Journal of Marketing, 2011)

'Senders' as defined by the study had a pretty close correlation with recipients regarding most marketing channels except they viewed email in a significantly more favorable light than consumers. Part of this bias may be caused by the lack of measurement between the stages of clicks and consumption of the email opened. The chart below illustrates the perception of the senders of marketing messages on the same dimensions as the above graph.

Perceptual Mapping of Marketing Channel Attributes - Sender (European Journal of Marketing, 2011)

Regression analysis found, not surprisingly, that a marketing offer is more likely to be successful if the recipient regards the information as important. In addition, higher involvement with the product or service is also more likely to result in greater engagement. Finally, it was found that receivers are more likely to be persuaded by the marketing offer in a particular channel if they find communications in that channel to be enjoyable and entertaining, and if the channel that has a reputation for reliable information. Again, this illustrates why some traditional channels such as direct mail and, to a lesser degree, email continue to perform well.

While the Acxiom study was conducted in Europe and the European Journal of Marketing Study was conducted in Australia may impact the specific numbers, but most likely dramatically change the trends found. Both of these studies and a recent white paper published by The Winterberry Group entitled, The Multichannel Revolution: New Media, New Approaches, New Opportunities also emphasized that no single channel strategy will be enough in today's multichannel world. Instead, marketers need to develop a long‐term, audience‐driven multichannel strategy, gaining insight into customer attributes, demand drivers and response cues that are the key to optimal budget allocation.


Finding that right balance of media (and having the courage to respond quickly to its changing dynamics) will
prove essential to growth in tomorrow’s competitive marketplace.

I would like to hear from you. How is your bank's media mix changing as you plan for 2012 to reflect changing media consumption patterns, shrinking budgets and greater emphasis on ROI?

Differentiation Is Key Component To The Value of Rewards

Yesterday, it was announced that merchant-funded rewards leader, Cardlytics had signed a global strategic alliance with loyalty leader Groupe Aeroplan allowing for the expansion of transaction-driven marketing (TM) to Canada and abroad.

Unlike traditional rewards programs used by financial institutions that are points based and driven by the volume of transactions processed, the Cardlytics platform provides the ability to present highly targeted retailer offers to customers through a bank's online statement, mobile device or email based on the customer's recent transaction activity. Since the Cardlytics decisioning tool resides within the bank's firewalls, customer insight never leaves the bank and retailers never have access to proprietary customer information. In addition, as opposed to the points reward program being a cost to the bank, the Cardlytics pay-for-performance model not only eliminates risk for the merchant, but also can provide much needed revenues for the partner bank.

The Cardlytics solution has been so well received, that as many as 70% of U.S. households could have such a program tied to their bank's debit and/or credit card relationship by Q1 of 2012, according to Scott Grimes, Cardlytics' CEO. This amazing growth and acceptance begs the question . . . if all the banks have the same program, how can differentiation be achieved and maintained?

In an interview with Lynne Laube, President and COO of Cardlytics earlier this year, I asked her how banks can leverage the Cardlytics platform and retail partnerships beyond simply offering the same offers as the bank down the street. She explained that while most bank clients will have many of the same nationwide retail partners, there will the capability to offer significant regional or even local offers. While some of these merchant partnerships might be initiated by Cardlytics, individual financial institutions can also link retailers to the platform.

For industrious financial organizations, the ability to offer current or prospective corporate, commercial or small business clients with highly targeted audiences who are prone to buy their products could be a strong business development and retention strategy for calling officers. It also would differentiate the bank's reward program from others across the country. By expanding the program's merchant partnerships, the retail and small business customers will also receive more targeted offers, making the program more valuable to the customer.

Another way a bank can differentiate a merchant-based rewards program will be to expand the channel integration of the merchant offers. Beyond simply providing the targeted offer as part of online statementing, the individual bank's ability to seamlessly integrate the offers into email, SMS alerts and even mobile channels will increase customer engagement and loyalty. Leveraging GPS capabilities could enable customers to receive onsite rewards at merchants they frequent or merchants within a defined radius.

According to an eMarketer study released today, while mobile coupons still represent a small portion of digital promotions, popularity and usage is growing at a rapid pace. It is believed that mobile couponing may grow by as much as 80% over the next two years fueled by the growth of smartphone users. Banks' ability to take advantage of this mobile trend will be the foundation for future rewards program growth.

Potentially most powerful from a differentiation perspective, Laube mentioned that insights from ongoing transaction monitoring can provide valuable behavioral insights that can assist in customer and household segmentation and even financial product cross-selling. Banks could leverage merchant rewards as a 'virtual currency' for different segments of customers or could provide merchant offers as an incentive for consolidation of relationships. As banks begin to introduce more advanced PFM and other money management tools, this type of rewards platform can also be integrated into the customer dashboard.

In a world filled with offers from Groupon, Living Social and more than 600 other competitors, the marketplace for untargeted offers may be reaching a saturation point. According to research firm, Lab42, while 44 % of households use deal websites, 55% feel overwhelmed by the number of offers filling up their email box. Given this mixed landscape, the ability to provide highly targeted, timely and valuable offers will be the key to effective differentiation.

What do you think?: How else do you think banks could differentiate themselves using merchant-funded rewards?

Chase Introduces Instant Action Text Alerts to Allow Customers to Avoid OD's Immediately

In the February 2010 Javelin Strategy and Research report on financial alerts, some of the major flaws of current alerts included difficulty of setting alerts up, lack of timeliness, not actionable enough and poorly marketed. In addition, the research found that one of the highest utility features from both a customer and bank perspective is the ability to alert and respond to potentially insufficient funds.

Expanding on their very popular low balance alert mobile banking feature, Chase Bank just introduced a new feature that addresses many of these flaws by allowing customers to easily respond to a low balance alert from the bank by immediately transferring funds through text messaging.


The new feature will allow customers to transfer funds from any eligible checking, savings or money market account simply by typing the letter "T" followed by the dollar amount of transfer desired (for instance, to transfer $100, the customer simply types "T 100"). If the customer has more than one eligible account with adequate funds, both accounts with the balance available to transfer will be shown, along with the option to use either account to fund the low balance account.

To be eligible for this service, a customer simply needs to be a Chase Mobile customer, have the ability to send and receive SMS texts, and sign up for the Instant Action Alerts. As an added benefit, the customer can even set the time they want to receive notification during the day.

While not promoted on the Chase homepage as of this writing, an animated landing page (shown above) is being used in conjunction with Google AdWords using search terms like "overdraft alerts" and "mobile banking alerts".

Payments innovation is becoming more and more commonplace with Chase Bank as indicated in several of my Blogs this year, including the introduction of Chase Blueprint. These innovations in most cases enhance the customer experience while also reducing operating costs. It will be interesting to see what other innovations are on the way from Jamie Dimon's team.