Gearing Up For BLACK FRIDAY...

Black Friday is almost here and whether you are someone who can’t wait to fight the crowds for a great deal or plan to avoid the commotion at all costs, Black Friday will mark shopping highlight of the year.

Many retailers have already crafted deals to drive sales and push their sales numbers into the black. And it’s time for credit unions and banks to get in on the action… here are a few ideas on how to get involved:

• Create Black Friday specials on mortgages, savings accounts, and certificates of deposit. Consider extending a modified offer through the New Year.
• Promote your customers’ debit card usage through the holidays with a holiday drawing that requires a debit card swipe for every entry.
• Position your CDs or savings accounts as a holiday present. In the current economy, the gift of savings is most likely more useful than a sweater!
• Open early at 6:00 a.m. to accommodate shopper’s cash needs.

End this year in the black... and gain momentum to continue throughout 2011!

Best,

Jamie

Are Sales Campaigns Making You Pushy?

Internal Sales Campaigns are often a useful tool to provide focus for staff, track results, and manage progress toward strategic goals. However, when financial institutions create sales campaigns around a specific product or service, it is important that the sales staff don’t become so eager to meet a sales campaign goal that they sacrifice fulfilling customer/member needs.

For instance, if a prospect walks into your branch during a sales campaign, would your front line staff immediately discuss the campaign product with them, or would they talk to the prospect about their needs and make the best recommendation for their life? Talking about the campaign might have an immediate positive impact on your campaign results, but will likely cause a higher risk of attrition if the prospects needs aren’t being met. Clearly, if your sales staff has a discussion to create a customized solution for their prospect, the prospect will have a more positive experience and be more likely to remain a customer/member overtime.

Therefore, it’s important to keep sales delivery a priority during your sales campaign, here’s how...

• Training – Provide sales training focused around customer life stages. When you roll out a campaign, clearly communicate that the sales delivery must be maintained.
• Set Appropriate Goals – Ensure that your goals are not counter-productive to customer needs. Keeping goals specific to new households, cross-sell ratios, or general product lines will provide your staff the flexibility of choosing products that are the right fit for customers/members and also counting towards a campaign.
• Prequalify – Continue to have conversations during a campaign around your product, but make sure to prequalify customers. You can prequalify customers through an MCIF system, core system, or simply through a discussion.

Campaigns come in all shapes and sizes, but when you’re determining your campaign specifics, make sure that campaign goals will not be met at the expense of customer/member needs. Doing what is right for the customer will help to strengthen your relationship and increase retention.

Best,

Jamie

TGIM...

TGIM.

That's right...Thank God its MONDAY!

Changing my opinion of Mondays and making 2010 sing!

In case you have not read it, Thank God is Mondays, by Roxanne Emmerich is a quality read. It simply helps you refocus on the important little things that make the important big things easy.

Its all about making the environment in which you work the best it can be...positive, focused, constructive and engineered for team success.

Its kind of like the Staples "easy button"....that was easy!

With the full and complete knowledge that it IS that easy...and at the same time it is NOT that easy. The difference?  Attitude. Confidence. Team Focus.

At MarketMatch we are all about Focus. Momentum. Results. Three key words that sum up our mantra and keep us all working on the same goals with clients and rowing in the same direction.

I encourage you and your team to find that same type of razor sharp focus for you and your team.

It WILL make the difference and help to create a FUN/PRODUCTIVE/ENERGIZED working environment that will be creating great results along the way....

Cheers!

Bruce

6 Ways to Pinch Pennies and Grow

Don't let a tight budget stall your growth.

As marketing professionals, you're being expected - ney, demanded - to do more with less. The good news is that it simply takes some creativity ... and who has more creativity than us marketers?

Here are 6 ideas (some creative, some not) to help jump start the ol' mellon and get those neurons firing. Please, please, please feel free to add more by commenting to this blog.

6 Penny Pinching Ideas:

1. Create a referral program

OK, it's nothing new, but your existing customers can be your best asset. And let's face it, no matter how big you are - you have a lot of customers. It can be as easy (and cheap) as printing small, pocket-sized cards offering $5-$25 for the customer and their referred friend. Make sure you offer an incentive to both.

I've had success printing a brochure-sized piece with 4 business card sized offers of $10 to each - saying: Earn up to $40 by spreading the joy. Quarterly, I'd include it in newsletter mailings to all customers and watch the spike in new accounts.

The keys: Keep it easy, Keep it trackable, Make it fun.

2. Internal promotions

Don't want to incentivize your customers? Use your NEXT best asset - your staff. Make a game of which branch can recruit the most new customers. Offering incentives to a smaller group of people (or teams) will be easier on the budget.

3. Get out of the office

You should, of course, participate in the local Chambers - but how many bank/CU employees are out on your behalf? At a minimum, all senior management and board should be expected to be active in the community and promote the institution.  

The key: From church elder, to scout leader, to chamber committee member, there are plenty of opportunities to contribute - just make sure that promoting the bank/CU (elegantly) is also being done.

4. Bank@Work

Many credit unions have already mastered this - but, with a community charter focus and limited resources,  many more have forgotten this art.

Whether you call them SEGs or Commercial Clients, you have customers who have employees. And those employees are prospects. Find ways to communicate with them.

The key: Make sure your commercial staff teams up with your retail staff and vice versa.

5. PR - or "Image Management"

Your institution has a wealth of interesting stories that are likely overlooked because, since you see it everyday, you don't look at them as newsworthy. I'll bet your local news outlets (hungering for good news - especially from local financial institutions) would disagree.

• You mean banks ARE lending?!?!: Let them know how much you've lent to date. Even if it seems small by your standards, to "Tammy the teacher," it will seem huge.
• Case studies: Have you saved a family from foreclosure? Helped a kid go to college? Helped a student afford a trip overseas? Your staff do amazing things for customers everyday - it's the beauty of their job. Collect and share those stories.
• Share your expertise: Few understand finances better than bankers (at least lets hope so!). Be the local resource for sound financial guidance. In this economy, you may be able to work out a deal to author an ongoing "Smart Finances" section - aim high!

6. Fish where the fish are

Focus your budget on your existing customers, there are fewer hurdles - so it's the smart spend.

• Focus on customers with only 2 or 3 products: Single service customers are likely single service for a reason - build the relationship with those that have multiple, but few products.
• Look at depositors with no loans - especially mortgages. Don't reprice existing, but try to get customers with other institutions mortgages to refinance with you.
• What about depositors with no checking: Get them to view you as their primary financial institution.
• What unused HELOC balances are out there?  Go get 'em.

For at least the next six months or so, we will have to work a little harder to maximize our budgets. You don't necessarily have to spend a lot to gain a lot - you just need to be creative, utilize your entire staff and have fun.

Take care,

Eric

Nothing Kills a Bad Product Faster Than Good Advertising

"Nothing kills a bad product faster than good advertising."

~ David Ogilvy

Even if you are the entire Marketing Department ... you're not an "Army of one."  

As a Marketing VP, I used to tell my sales staff, "I don't complete your annual evaluations, but you're in MY department."

As marketers, we need to step outside of the organizational chart and take responsibility for staff training ... after all, your sales staff must deliver on the promises that YOU make!

Provide The Right Tools

After completing hundreds of branch shops for clients all around the country, I've learned that the vast majority of financial institution "sales" is literally reading a brochure to the prospect.  Take a good look at the tools that you give your staff to use.

• Are they easy to understand?
• Are they focused on customer benefits?
• Do they speak to customer needs?
• Do they differentiate your institution and your product offerings?
• Do they package the products in ways that will help your staff cross-sell?

Set Service Standards

Customer service is objective.  What one person sees as great customer service, another person may see as average.

Unless we create a set of clear, measurable Service Standards we cannot expect our staff to automatically know how to act.  

The goal is to have the service be the same from branch to branch and from market to market.

• Put the standards in writing and come up with fun and creative ways to display them
• Keep the list short - no more than 10 standards.  Only include the most important aspects of your institution's service
• Do not focus on operational issues.  These are short service standards ... NOT an employee handbook or training manual. 

Make It Fun

Periodic internal sales promotions can work wonders.  Make a game of it.  Creating competition between your branches can help to build a team feeling within each branch.

• Create a traveling trophy that the winning branch can display until the next internal promotion
• Make sure that you focus on bundling products for extra points
• Offer meaningful prizes to standout branches and individuals

We'd love to hear tips on how you train your sales staff, provide the right tools and make it fun! Please reply to this blog and brag about your efforts.

Take care,

Eric