Where does social, mobile and experiential marketing fit into your strategy?

It’s the beginning of a new year; and for many institutions, the New Year brings a new marketing strategy. For some, the strategy will simply be a continuation (or repeat) of last year’s strategy; and for others, new challenges will be met with new approaches, initiatives and expectations.

The cover story of the latest edition of Marketing News Magazine discusses 2008 as the year of social, mobile and experiential marketing. Certainly, awareness has been generated around these kinds of initiatives throughout the financial services industry over the last year – and we’ve seen a few institutions that have recognized the opportunities presented by these initiatives and have put them into play. A few examples that come to mind include: Wells Fargo, ING Direct and Umpqua Bank – but these institutions are far from the norm.

Take social media for example. Over the last year, we’ve talked to quite a few executives and marketers about the opportunities that social media presents to today’s financial institutions – specifically relative to marketing. And, one of the more interesting questions posed to us was: “When is this going to happen?”

Meaning, when is social media really going to start to have an impact on us – as a financial institution? The answer is now; it’s already happening. Whether you’ve given any thought to incorporating social media into your marketing strategy, it’s playing a major role in the way consumers interact with one another and with the companies with which they do business. An example of this can be seen in Wells Fargo’s series of blogs which provides information and an open forum for interaction between the bank’s customers, potential customers and employees.

While we’ve heard the word “mobile” talked about quite a bit over the past year, I think we’re more likely to see a push for mobile banking (Bank of America and Chase come to mind with their big mobile banking pushes) as opposed to mobile marketing in the financial services industry.

While I can certainly see the benefit in banks and credit unions incorporating social and mobile marketing efforts into their strategies, I would say that experiential marketing initiatives will probably have the greatest impact of the three in 2008. In an industry where products are so easily replicated and there is little that distinguishes one institution from the next, those institutions that can create a meaningful experience for their customers and target customers are more likely to stand apart from the competition and attract the customers that can appreciate their unique value added.

The Marketing News article credits Larry Deutsch, Managing Director at Jack Morton Worldwide – a New York based consulting firm specializing in experiential marketing with saying:

“The ideal experiential marketing effort is an ownable, sensory brand experience, a way to make customers feel like a product or service is theirs. Those motivated customers influence family, friends and coworkers to try the product.”

If 2008 is indeed the year of social, mobile and experiential marketing, where do these initiatives fit into your strategy? Traditional marketing initiatives (i.e. advertising, direct mail, etc.) will undoubtedly continue to be the focus of marketing strategies across the country, but marketers must adapt to (or at least pay attention to) shifting consumer behaviors, needs and preferences. Because while companies in other industries incorporate social, mobile and experiential marketing into their strategies in response to these changing consumer behaviors, financial institutions looking to remain relevant need to do the same.