5 Things Your Financial Institution Should Be Doing with Marketing Automation Today
Marketing automation can streamline and inject consistency in customer communication. Here are 5 things you should be doing right now.
Marketing automation is an indispensable tool for financial institutions. It is the doorway to scaling your meaningful interactions with customers and prospects. ABA Bank Marketing reminded us in 2020 when addressing marketing automation that “banks are behind most other industries in their uptake of marketing technology. What to do? The short answer is: don’t panic, but do something!” When it is about reaching more customers with a more personal and relevant message, it’s great advice. And the time to do something is today.
Whether you are new to marketing automation or an experienced user, here are five things you can and should be doing with your tool in the current climate.
1. Use automation during your onboarding process.
Using marketing automation during customer onboarding is a great beginning to ensuring the customer journey will be a success. There are multiple milestones in the onboarding process that call for automation. One example is to deliver a personalized acknowledgment letter for every new customer. Here you automate the timing, content, and method of communication based on the type of account a customer opens and their expressed preferences in communication medium (email, print, etc.). Other onboarding touch points could include a follow-up phone call prompted with an automated reminder or placing a surprise insert in a customer’s first statement.
2. Focus on automating for growth
Using marketing automation for business development creates more efficient campaigns with more consistent messaging and engagement. For example, you can qualify a prospect list, automate an email delivery, track if the email is opened, and automate a reminder to contact the prospects that showed interest. This type of automation elevates your marketing campaigns far above indiscriminate bulk mailings or unqualified lists of names to contact.
3. Focus on automating for retention
Keeping in touch with your customers is an important step in retaining their business. Structure regular interaction points where appropriate. For example, automate a mortgage touch-point process, which ensures that you communicate regularly with mortgage customers during the long-term payment process when it is easy to lose touch. When you communicate with them, ensure you are talking about matters that interest them and apply to them specifically, like automating a happy birthday wish through an email or print card via mail.
5. Don’t forget tracking
Tracking and measuring campaign performance is fundamental in understanding what works, what doesn’t, and how to do it better. For example, use tracking to know how many campaign emails are opened and how many of those lead to product usage. Measure every campaign’s results against the campaign’s initial goals to determine successes and ongoing strategic adjustments. And don’t overlook that tracking and the use of reminders is also a good mechanism for team accountability related to campaigns tasks.
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