One Step Forward and Two Steps Back

In a recent article by The Financial Brand, publisher Jim Marous discusses some surprising statistics regarding the financial industry. The persona of most Financial Institutions (FI's) has begun to change as they, like everyone else, fully immerse themselves in the 21st Century – part of which is understanding and communicating better with customers.

Along the lines of communication, it’s no surprise that in the 2017 Financial Marketing Trends survey, when asked “Which of the following will be a priority for your organization over the next 12-18 months?” personalization, mobile marketing, cross-channel/cross-device marketing were all selected as “very important” by at least 50% of respondents with content marketing chosen by 49%, all landing the top spots in the list.

What makes this notable, are not what was selected, but the fact that data analytics/capabilities, marketing automation, and predictive modeling/mapping analysis all fell into the bottom half of the list.

FI’s have noted the shifts in marketing from traditional mediums to digital and have rightfully adjusted their strategic goals and objectives. What many of these FI’s have overlooked is the important role data analytics will play in helping them achieve these goals.

Personalization, mobile marketing, cross-channel/cross-device marketing and content marketing are nothing more than “buzz-words” if there are no analytics to back them up. FI’s that can first concentrate on a procedure to gather, analyze and interpret data (if they’re savvy they’ll work with some type of automated platform) are those who will see the greatest impact to not only their strategic goals and objectives, but also their bottom line.

Based on this survey, it seems FI’s have their eyes on the “right” prize… but they may find themselves working backwards and spending much more money, if they don’t use data along their journey.