From General Colin Powell to Thomas Brown, the November 2008 BAI Conference had some pretty decent content, to wit:
You can’t fix stupid. Virtually every banking, marketing and behavioral scientist is emphasizing the importance of proactively positioning/reassuring/selling deposits via your customers now. When you consider that today 24% of your customers are not really sure if their primary bank is secure, and that the level of trust is the primary indicator for share of wallet, a head-in-the-sand communication strategy doesn’t seem too brilliant.
If your wallet’s fat, go shopping. Consolidation is an industry certainty, and there are some dandy acquisition options out there. Mutual of Omaha Bank’s growth strategy is buying troubled banks at a deep discount.
Folks are gullible. To the max. Showing a lock graphic at the end of an online application almost doubles the completion and close rate of applications. Sounds crazy simple, but why not do it?
The BofA Intranet… Includes BankWatch, a compendium of what competitors are doing, and MediaBuzz, an online staff resource with current banking/economy topics in talking-point format. It has quickly become the bank’s primary source for information and tools that drive productivity and revenue gains.
The word for ‘09 . . . authentic. Relevant brand behaviors create big market differentiation . . . which doesn’t sound too hard, but in shop after shop, we still see a lot of poor execution on behaviors beyond order-taking. It’s not rocket science. Set service expectations and relentlessly coach and measure.
I firmly believe 2009 will be a deposit-rich bonanza for healthy banks with enough confidence to go out there and get the money. Folks aren’t looking for rates. They’re looking for someone to trust.
Why not you?
Best,
Becki Drahota
