Financial marketing

Back to the 6 Ts

20th February 2016

There are 6 Ts of continuous improvement that will deliver us to that place where we can even start to compete in this new landscape: targeting, testing, tracking, tempting, triggers and testimonials.

Targeting
Have you captured the addresses for every single contact, whether direct or channel influencer? If you haven’t assembled the data for your entire universe mail or e-mail-ready for your next marketing campaigns, you’re not even in the game. In addition to targeted marketing in clearly focused trade magazines, this is the time for one-to-one marketing using email and digital print.

Testing
Controlled, real-time pilots enable you to gain an immediate view of the competitive environment and will help you predict the likely success of rolling out an integrated program for a particular product or service.

Tracking
Email marketing gives you the ability to track communications and specific content links in detail – and in real time. You’ll see precisely who opened the email, whether they re-visited it and what products and services are of greatest interest to them. You can, therefore, tailor your branded content specifically to meet their information needs.

Tempting
Be different! Find a way to offer something unique that cannot be found anywhere else. Your most important, unique, and least easy-to-copy point of differentiation should be the unique value proposition for your brand and serve as the basis for your pitch. Align your offer strategy to your core brand essence and promote it powerfully.

Triggers
Many financial brands are now looking to real-time data streams such as trigger data to inform the marketing process. The ‘what if?’ possibilities are endless and the benefits of customer satisfaction, loyalty, up-sell, cross-sell and product development are far reaching for the entire community. Early technology adopters have everything to gain.

Testimonials
Many prospective customers will want to see evidence of satisfaction from your existing clients, particularly from the same sector and regarding the specific products they are looking to buy from you. Much underplayed, industry-specific client testimonials underpin your ben- efits statements and build your reputation.

It seems odd to think that a recession might well prove to be the catalyst to make marketing more effective. In fact, We believe that it will result in a new era of best practice.

For those who keep their heads below the parapet in marketing terms, or worse still, risk burying their heads in the sand right now, the future will be all too crushingly certain. This is not the time for invisibility but rather a time when companies should work even smarter to stand out.