Blow Up Your Marketing at the ABA Marketing Conference

Earlier this week at the ABA Marketing Conference, I had the opportunity to join Jeff Stephens from Creative Brand Communications in an episode of his bi-weekly Banktastic podcast Blow Up Your Marketing. Take a look at what conference attendees had to say about the conference.



Blow Up Your Marketing episodes can be seen on the Banktastic blog. Check them out, and watch for future episodes.

Going Green: Social Responsibility vs. Marketing Tactic

On Monday, I had the opportunity to attend the round table discussion “Going Green” at the ABA Marketing Conference. And, having seen a number of institutions jump on the green bandwagon over the last year – I think the conversation missed some important points.

First of all, the complete name of the session was: “Going Green: It’s the right thing to do – so how do we do it right?” While many consider adopting green practices to be the right thing to do from an environmental standpoint, the session focused instead on it being the right thing to do so institutions don’t get “left behind.” As we’ve talked about before, making choices so you don’t get left behind only contributes to the commoditization and sameness we’re seeing throughout the industry. And, these kinds of efforts, especially when tied to “going green” (with the increasing awareness and sensitivity to greenwashing), can really do more harm to your institution than good – a point that was never made during the session.

During the conversation, the point was made that going green can be used as a competitive differentiator – in large part because most institutions aren’t pursuing such efforts. But, this conversation quickly shifted to emphasize the fact that institutions that don’t pursue green initiatives will be at a competitive disadvantage. Once again, rather than encouraging institutions to determine on an individual level whether green initiatives makes sense at their institutions – within the context of their markets and their brand positions, attendees were encouraged to pursue these initiatives as means to stay on a level playing field. This was a big red flag for me.

The most important takeaway from the session was: take incremental steps, and be honest and transparent.

I’d qualify this suggestion though – first, determine if becoming a green business makes sense for your institution. And second, recognize the important differences and implications associated with being a green business versus those associated with an institution working to become more environmentally friendly or sustainable.

While allowing customers to sign up for paperless statements certainly reduces paper and the environmental impact of shipping them (not to mention the cost of postage), it’s simply not enough to promote an institution as green. Take a look at institutions like New Resource Bank, Green Bank, and Alpine Bank (the featured bank during this session) as examples of those that have taken significant steps to become more environmentally sustainable – and they did so before promoting it in their marketing materials and campaigns.

Buzzwords at the ABA Bank Marketing Conference

Over the past few days at the ABA Bank Marketing Conference in Denver, we've heard quite a few ideas and concepts being talked about repeatedly. Some of what we're hearing includes:

• Experience - a concept that we heard a lot about at last year's conference is still on many attendees' minds. Joseph Pine's opening keynote discussed the progression from businesses selling commodities to goods; goods to services; services to experiences; and experiences to transformations. While some institutions certainly pay attention to the complete customer experience, many are stuck simply selling services or goods - which raises concerns regarding commoditization.
• Transformation - as I mentioned above, Joe Pine emphasized the importance of transformation in today's competitive environment; the idea was mentioned in many of the presentations. As Pine described it, beyond creating a customer experience, successful companies will be those that are transformational - those that are able to transform their customers' lives in some respect. The emphasis here raises concerns for me, as many institutions havn't fully grasped the concept of creating and managing the customer experience - which needs to happen before trying to become transformational.
• Differentiation - we've heard much more discussion around the issue of differentiation than we did at last year's conference - which is encouraging. While the marketers here seem to understand the importance, we are hearing a lot of frustration around how to convince senior management and boards that differentiation needs to be part of the overall marketing strategy.
• Segmentation - a topic we didn't hear much about last year, segmentation has certainly become a much more well-known concept, and one that seems to be working its way into many institutions' strategies. I'm impressed with the level that people are talking about the topic. As an example, people were talking about the many segments that make up Generation Y - where last year, the broad group of Generation Y was talked about very generally.

As attendees return home from the conference, I hope that these concepts can make their way into next year's marketing strategies. It's a departure from years past - as none of these concepts offer a turn-key solution - they will vary from market to market, and from one institution to the next.

It's Time to Own Your Market

It isn't easy being a bank or credit union today. Institutions are faced with a series of increasingly pressing challenges - from aggressive competition and shifting demographic characteristics, to changing consumer behaviors and the impact of commoditization within the industry. These challenges are complex; and they require that banks and credit unions think differently about their markets, their brands, and how each impacts their strategies for growth.

Recognizing these challenges, and the impact they have on today’s financial institutions, has prompted us to partner with Creative Brand Communications to offer banks and credit unions a new service called Own Your Market. Over the past few months, we’ve worked together to help a group of institutions take the first steps towards owning their markets. And today, we’re pleased to announce the formal launch of the new service for banks and credit unions.

Own Your Market is an innovative service to help forward-thinking financial institutions align market opportunities with brand strengths to develop market dominance. It is designed to help institutions:

· Understand their markets and their opportunities in those markets
· Create a brand that is relevant to their markets
· Position themselves for competitive advantage
· Convey value added through the customer experience

For more information about Own Your Market, please visit www.ownyourmarket.net