As a technology marketer, I thought it was appropriate that I begin my blogging experience with a post about the role of both social media and technology in the financial services and banking industry. As mentioned in a recent HBR blog post, many traditional forms of marketing have been tossed to the wayside. In response to these changes in corporate communications, financial services firms and banks must find new ways to connect with customers in an evolving and competitive marketplace.
Companies like HSBC, Bank of America, Regions, and American Express are doing just that – applying digital strategies to extend the customer banking experience. Before I go into how financial services and banks are merging technology and social strategies for the banking experience, I thought I would explain why it should be top-of-mind for technology strategists and banking executives. I find these tactics to be very interesting and relevant to the direction of the industry.
What is Social Banking?
Gartner defines social banking as a way of meeting both social and a customer’s needs to access financial products and services. However, I disagree with the back-seat role Gartner defines for the financial institution in this model. What exactly should social banking mean to an institution? Under this social banking-services model financial services firms and banks, now more than ever, must be in the driver’s seat with technology strategies that focus on cross-channel marketing using customer segmentation data, assignment of offers, social media channels and more to stay top-of-mind throughout the customer banking experience and lifecycle of a purchase.
A Leader in the Social Banking Experience
A great example of a successful “digital persona” comes from American Express (AMEX). Aside from having the largest Twitter presence amongst US banking and related financial services brands, AMEX has developed an aggressive strategy to better track, measure, and control purchasing trends across their global network. Here are some great examples of their strategy.
- The Link > Like > Love behavioral targeting platform on Facebook delivers deals, access and experiences based on cardmember “likes” and interests.
- As card issuers look to find new ways to for members to spend reward points, the mobile space has lots to offer. The RedLaser comparison shopping app allows AMEX members to link their accounts for mobile rewards redemption.
- Foursquare partners with AMEX to offer discounts/credits to cardholders when they check in on their smartphone at certain shops and restaurants. After a test run at South by Southwest tech conference, AMEX found that on average, those in the program spent 20 percent more than those that didn’t have access to the deals.
- Supporting the earlier mentioned Twitter statistic, cardmembers can tweet special offer hashtags to load exclusive deals directly to their card, and save with an automatic statement credit when they make a qualified purchase. According to Marketing Vox, the campaign has generated more than 160,000 Tweets and approximately $7.2 million in card spending.
What Role Does Technology Play?
To better align with a social banking-services model, financial institutions and bank executives must adopt not only the right corporate strategy, but the right technology to support a strategy that embraces these tools that drive results, deliver value and help measure success.
Inspired by ideas like CRED, a proprietary financial credibility score developed by Brett King, CEO of Movenbank, financial institutions will continue to find new ways of adopting technology to support growth and enable productivity in a customer-centric banking landscape.
Stay Tuned for More
Over the course of the next several weeks, Michael Porter, Principal for Portal and Social Solutions at Perficient, will take a deeper dive into social banking with this blog series focusing on multi-channel digital strategies, enabling customer transactions, business intelligence and analytics, regulatory compliance implications and more.
