3 Financial Marketing Stats that Might Surprise You – And Why Others Should Care - The Email Research Center

As marketers, we often look for industry specific marketing benchmarks and examples. As a consultant, one of the first questions I often get is, “What experience do you have working in our industry?” To which I generally reply, “Some, but my experience working with clients across a broad range of industries is more beneficial to you.”

Why? By knowing what works in one industry vertical we gain an understanding of the rules that govern our customers’ behavior that can be applied to other industry verticals.

Take financial services as an example. Here are three statistics we have uncovered in our research that might surprise you.

1) More than other industries, financial institutions are welcome to call and text their consumers. In the 2009 Channel Preferences Study, we found that the majority of consumers really don’t want marketers communicating with them via text or phone—these are considered personal spaces. Not surprisingly, people consider their finances very personal. As such, customers are receptive to these phone calls.

2) More than 20% of consumers believe their bank or financial institution does the best job of communicating with them as a customer. We recently asked consumers which companies do the bet job marketing to them. Wading through open responses, “My Bank” as well as specific bank references (e.g., Chase, Bank of America) were some of the most common companies mentioned. Think consumers are tired of marketing? Not if the subject is of deep personal interest.

Of course, both of these points revolve around the fact that financial institutions are set up for a unique and deeply personal relationship with their customers. People want these organizations to contact them, even interrupt them, with information that is pertinent to their lives. For those working in other industries, the trick becomes finding the angle to developing a similarly intimate relationship. Is it possible? I believe it is possible to develop this with superb customer service.

Last… 3) Financial Services are distributing their increased investments in marketing more than any other industry. Marketing is a complex ecosystem. John Wannamaker is often quoted, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.” According to the collaborative research with eConsultancy, marketers are shifting their budgets from traditional to online channels—at least part of which can be attributed to the ability to measure performance in these channels. While financial institutions are also increasing digital marketing budgets, they are slower to siphon money from traditional offline channels. Could it be that they understand something we don’t about how these channels work together? Given the first two stats, it’s worth considering.