Is your institution committing a “deadly marketing sin”?

The latest issue of BAI’s Banking Strategies magazine features the article Six Deadly Marketing Sins – Financial marketers need to get out of their rut to break through the market’s clutter.

Many of today’s marketers definitely do need to get out of their rut; they need to break through the clutter. And while I agree with the six sins outlined in the article, it doesn’t discuss what I would consider to be an underlying factor of each: the overall lack of meaningful and strategic points of differentiation.

When you have clarity about what distinguishes your institution from the competition, and those points are both meaningful to your target and are leveragable against your competition, you should be able to avoid each of these six sins. As an example, sin #2 is “an avoidance of marketing messages with some personality and attitude.” True points of differentiation convey the unique personality and attitude of your institution. At the end of the day, your marketing messages should all link back directly to your points of differentiation. This linkage allows people to easily see the value added by your institution; and should make it easy for your target market to chose your institution over the competition.

The other sin from the article that I really like is #6: “The illogical view that one print ad, one e-mail or one piece of direct mail is capable of gaining quick attention. The fact is, you need repeated, high-impact communication to build awareness.” While we know that some ads are capable of capturing quick attention – a single print ad isn’t likely to generate the results that many institutions hope for; this is especially true when we’re talking about sustainable results. When we talk about “meaningful” points of differentiation, we’re talking about the kind of points that can be used to develop “high-impact” communications – the kind that build awareness and lets people know exactly what your institution stands for. Another point to be made about this sin is the fact that “repeated” communication shouldn’t translate into simply placing more ads or sending more emails and direct mailers. Rather, your points of differentiation should be reflected in everything from your marketing collateral to your customer experience; from your products & services to your community involvement - giving your customers and the community repeated exposure to your message through multiple venues.

Think about how your institution is different from the competition. Are those points meaningful to your target market? Could they be leveraged as an advantage over your competition?