The Power of Brand Management
Does brand management really pay off for banks and credit unions? Or is branding just an empty and abstract concept propagated by consultants?
Articles by Ron Shevlin
Marketing Analytics Malpractice
Marketing Charts reports on a study from Duke University regarding marketers’ use of marketing analytics: “According to the latest CMO Survey from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, the percentage of projects that use marketing analytics has dropped to 29% from 35% at this time last year, while two-thirds of CMOs now say their companies […]
The Shelf-Life Of Marketing Data
The MIT Sloan Management Review recently asked Does Data Have a Shelf Life? According to the article: Creating insights from data is an important, and costly, issue for many companies. They spend time and effort collecting data, cleaning it, and using resources to find something meaningful from it. But what about after the insights have been […]
Marketing Is The New Customer Service
If I had a nickel for every time a credit union executive said his or her CU’s competitive advantage was its “superior member service” I wouldn’t be sitting here writing crappy little blog posts. I’d be flying around the world on my private jet, spending my billions of dollars. There are a number of issues […]
Going To College: The Difference Between Gen Yers And Boomers
Dropped the middle daughter off at college this week. A painful reminder of not only how old I am, but how my maturity level has failed to keep pace with my chronological age. I was also struck by how different the moving into/going to college experience is today from what it was like when I […]
Blazing New Trails In Financial Services (Or Why PerkStreet Failed)
Once again, I’m late to the blogging party, following on the heels of (yet another) great post from NetBanker, this one about the news that PerkStreet will be closing its doors: “My guess is they were done in by the problem that every financial startup faces: It’s really, really, really hard to get customers to […]
The New Phase In Bank Competition: Competing On Performance
One of the distinguishing financial services-related characteristics of Gen Yers is their awareness and understanding of the concept of the “credit score.” My generation didn’t know what a credit score was, let alone what our individual credit score was, when we were in our 20s (OK, that wasn’t really fair, since the FICO score wasn’t […]
Banks Need To Redefine Personal Financial Management (PFM)
As usual, NetBanker nails it with its post on Will mobile finally make PFM popular? In it, Jim writes: “Mobile is, and will be, a huge driver for specialty PFM apps. App stores help consumers find the services, and mobile makes them less daunting to use. But it’s not just the mobile platform driving usage at […]
Mobile Wallets: What’s The Value Proposition?
Mobile Payments Today reported on a Finextra study of banks’ mobile wallet plans. Regarding mobile payments, the study found that: “81% of banks are looking to add value beyond the transaction, including providing relevant offers to consumers at the point of sale.” My take: Add value to whom? To consumers? Really? You’ve got research that […]
Maximum Profit Per Customer And The 80/20 Rule
In a recent blog post, Don Peppers of Peppers and Rogers writes: “If your customer base has an 80-20 skew, then somewhere in [a] stadium full of 50,000 customers there are about 80 customers who do about 2/3 the amount of business done by the other 49,920 customers put together! So rather than paying to put […]
The End Of Monthly Bills
The typical American household receives about 15 bills each month. Water, electric, gas, cell phone, cable, landline phone, credit card, car insurance, home insurance, student loan, the list seems never ending. According to my highly acclaimed (translation: my mother liked it) 2010 report, US consumers pay nearly 15 billion bills each year. Many (though not […]
Credit Unions: Reinvent P2P Lending
Some university professors recently researched the effect of personal relationships on P2P lending platforms. They discovered three “effects”: Pipe effect. Friends of a borrower, especially close and off-line friends, act as financial “pipes” by lending money to the borrower. Social herding effect. When friends of a potential lender, especially close friends, place a bid, a “social herding” […]
Customer Segmentation Is A Game Of Tic-Tac-Toe
Remember when you were a kid — or maybe more recently with your own kids — and played tic-tac-toe? You started by drawing two vertical lines and two horizontal lines, which combined to create a nine-square grid. You then put your shape (X or O) in a box to claim it, alternating with your competitor […]
Do You Need A Minty Fresh PFM?
Intuit announced that it would offer banks and credit unions the opportunity to implement Mint as a PFM platform integrated with the FIs’ online banking platforms. As usual, NetBanker was all over this with it’s equally as typical excellent analysis. Jim Bruene’s list of pros and cons for FIs to consider regarding implementing Mint is […]
Future Trend In Banking: Gold Labeling
The practice of white-labeling — offering products developed by a third-party, but branded under the distributor’s name — is common in banking. No, I’m not talking about this: Although, come to think of it, that might be more common in banking than I realize. PFM providers like Geezeo and Money Desktop “white label” their offerings […]
Why Don't Banks Innovate?
There appears to be no shortage of opinions that banks don’t innovate (see here and here and here and…you can find the other 17 million references yourself). Rather than arguing whether or not this assertion is true, let’s assume for a moment that it is. The key question, then, is: Why don’t banks innovate (or why haven’t banks […]
The Holy Trinity Of Financial Technology Success
I was at the Association of Financial Technology conference this week, where I got to present some research and ideas about the future of retail banking. The key message I tried to leave attendees with (who were predominantly employees of financial technology vendors) was that the changes coming down the pike in the financial services […]
The One Key Question About Retail Banking's Future
In connection with its Retail Banking conference, American Banker ran an article titled Five Key Questions about Retail Banking’s Future which included the following questions: 1. How many branches should we close? 2. How many new branches should we build? 3. How many more people should we lay off? 4. How much revenue can we get […]
Stop The Underbanked Confusion!
An American Banker article titled Reaching the Underbanked? Try Offering Control makes the following claims: “The 37 million American adults who are underbanked have a tough time when it comes to basic financial activities such as paying bills. But banks don’t have to sit on the sidelines when it comes to the underbanked. There’s an opportunity to service […]
Consumers Don’t Really Want Portable Checking Account Numbers
According to a study conducted by BT and YouGov, 61% of US banking customers want portable banking account numbers. As reported by The Financial Brand: “The research, which surveyed more than 6,500 people across six countries, found most consumers agreeing that a portable account number — one allowing them to switch banks without changing account […]
5 Traits Of High-Performing Financial Marketers
High performing banks and credit unions grow checking accounts seven times faster and loans four times faster than everyone else.
Should Financial Marketers Measure Net Promoter Scores?
Marketers like the simplicity of net promoter scores. But do these numbers correlate with business performance orr are there other metrics?