How to get and use customer data insights to improve bank marketing

Data. Every financial institution has loads of it, but many don’t know just what they’ve got, how to use it and how valuable that data can be. Discovering how to uncover in-depth insights from data can assist in making better decisions about how and when to market financial products and services.

The data-driven marketing experts at Deluxe share why and how to use customer insight in marketing strategies.

What is customer insight data?

Understanding when and why customers take the actions they take isn’t magic, it’s simply a process of collecting and properly analyzing the right data. Some organizations start with the basics such as demographics and customer service data, but the true value can be found by going broader and digging deeper. Unlocking the following types of first-party data can help you get started:

• Customer reviews and feedback
• Market research
• Social media and website analytics
• Product purchasing data
• Service usage data
• Competitor research

All these and more offer treasure troves of information to help gain an in-depth understanding of how current customers interact with and view their financial institution. It also can be used to see what prospective customers want and need.

Working with customer insight data is a two-pronged process: Gathering the data and then putting it into action to improve your bank’s marketing campaign solutions.

Why customer insights are important to your brand

Customer insights are a powerful tool – they can help financial institutions gain insight into current and potential customers while identifying and applying innovative marketing and business growth opportunities.

A customer insights analysis helps banks understand their customers and focus on customer-centered strategies and growth. In fact, organizations that utilize customer insights frequently outperform their industry competitors by up to 85 percent growth in sales.

Customer data insights can aid financial institutions in improving their existing products and services as well as developing new services and expanding to new product lines. Additionally, customer data insights can be used to improve customer service and consumer experience by identifying what your bank is doing right and revealing areas needing improvement.

The more bank marketing and management teams understand their current customers and the needs of potential new customers, the better they’ll be able to create the products and services those people are seeking (or better highlight existing products and services). A customer insights analysis can also help meet customers where they are, ensuring that marketing efforts are hitting their mark and providing the right products and services, at the right times.

Still, the question remains, “How do I convert customer data to insights?”

Using customer insights to help financial institutions market more strategically

Marketing without a clear strategy is a waste of money. Developing and promoting financial products and services that customers may or may not need, poorly communicating those products and services and not understanding your target audience and customer base are all perils of marketing haphazardly. But many banks find themselves asking how to develop a customer insights strategy that avoids these missteps.

Customer insights and analytics can help banks reach new customers and communicate with existing customers in new ways. Customer insight programs can keep banks on the leading edge of consumer sentiments and trends and help adjust communications and messaging to ensure they remain relevant.

Converting customer data to valuable insights

When a bank has moved past the question of how to find consumer data, the next big hurdle to conquer is to utilize information effectively for the benefit of the financial institution. Here are a few examples of customer insights, and how to use them to your bank’s advantage:

1. Analyze the competition

It’s important for bank marketing teams to analyze competitors’ financial products, services and customer experience just as they would do for a self-evaluation. Identify competitors and conduct a competitive analysis to gather information about products and services, areas of specialty, geographic areas they serve and any promotions they run. What makes a competitor stand out and can potentially give them an edge

2. Improve the customer journey

Regardless of how customers interact with their financial institution – in-person, online, or via social media – each touchpoint is part of their customer journey. While each customer journey is unique, the most typical paths should be mapped out and used to optimize the experience current and potential customers have with the bank.

Customer journey analytics and gathering customer feedback directly can help ensure every step along the path is an opportunity to surprise and delight customers, while also capturing additional business.

3. Use insights to increase sales

Customer insight marketing is at its best when utilizing data gathered from current customers as well as widely from a target audience. When banks know what customers want and need, how they think, behave and feel, they can communicate with the right people and just the right time, converting these insights into sales and getting to a “yes” faster.

4. Personalize marketing efforts

Human beings are wired to respond to something that is unique and personalized to them. When we receive something different and special, tailored only to us, it catches our attention and often inspires us to take action. When financial services marketers can take advantage of this phenomenon and personalize their marketing outreach, the reward can be rich and has shown up to 40 percent growth in revenues.

Customer insights can improve customer experiences

For both businesses and consumers, banking often comes down the experience. To those outside the industry, many financial products and services appear similar. But the choice to work with one particular bank over another is frequently determined by the level of customer service and care shown by an organization.

In fact, across industries, 73 percent of companies with an above-average customer experience perform better financially than their competitors. Why? Financial institutions that can deliver superior customer service can better engage those customers. Better customer feedback and insights allow banks to develop and laser target new products and services, quickly address any customer issues and address customer pain points more effectively.

In short, customer insights guide marketing strategies toward success.

How to gather insights about your bank customers

The lowest-hanging fruit to gather customer insights is simply to ask customers about their experiences. Try utilizing these tools to unlock insights:

• Online reviews
• Surveys
• Social media listening
• Focus groups
• Being asked directly by front-line staff

Every piece of customer feedback is valuable to improving the overall experience and reputation of a bank.

As more financial institutions are saying goodbye to brick-and-mortar locations, website analytics are critical to understanding the digital customer journey. If customers are often leaving the website in the same place or are searching around for an important functionality that they’re not able to find, creating an optimal digital experience is key to keeping them engaged and satisfied.

Third-party data

What inspires a bank customer to purchase a product or service offered by a bank? That’s the key question that trigger data can answer. Most financial institutions don’t have access to the vast data resources that a third-party partner has, but the right data partner can help a bank understand customers in depth to reach them with the solution they need at the exact moment of decision.

Trigger marketing often centers around key events in the lives of consumers and the timelines of businesses.

Consumer event-based triggers:

• Moving to a new house – pre-movers and new movers
• Newly engaged or married
• Newly single
• Expectant or new parents
• Applying for a mortgage
• Applying for an auto loan

Business trigger events:

• Business launch
• New ownership or management
• New location

Behavioral data

Behavioral data is gathered from how customers use products and services as well as how customers interact with systems and applications. From visitor behavior while on the website to customer interactions in a bank branch, each piece is a part of the lifecycle of the customer journey at a financial organization.

Social listening

The average American spends more than two hours every day on various social media sites. Marketing teams should be paying attention to their customers and interacting with them there as well.

Social monitoring includes:

• Monitoring online reviews
• Reading and responding to social media comments and feedback
• Encouraging customer interactions through polls and engaging posts

Social monitoring can have valuable payoffs when customers provide feedback on how marketing efforts are (or aren’t) landing. It can also help in determining participant responses to events (such as annual meetings) in real-time and even in monitoring the social activity of competitors and industry-wide trends.

How to use customer insights and analytics in marketing

From subtle updates, such as voice and tone used in copywriting and social media posts, to massive shifts like capturing customers’ attention when making life changes, customer data insights matter most when the data is used. Here’s how:

1. Anticipate the needs of the customer

Nothing is better for anticipating customer needs than trigger data. The Deluxe Data-Driven Marketing team are experts at massively multi-sourcing data. In fact, Deluxe’s data covers seven times more pre-movers, four times more life events and three times more new movers than any other competitor¹. Deluxe data covers more than two million consumer life events every week. When choosing third-party data partners, the key is to work with the organization with access to the greatest amount of data combined with a deep knowledge of what to do with that information.

And, when it comes to responding to a triggering event, timing and speed make all the difference. Marketing responsiveness declines quickly, so rapid and consistent execution is key. Messages of congratulations, welcome to the neighborhood sentiments, mortgage offers delivered at exactly the right moment, opportunities for upgrading current customers and capturing new customers – all begin with data. 

2. Track trends

When banks can identify trends – not only overall industry trends, but more granular trends such as seasonality as well – they can capitalize on the information. If inquiries about home loans go up in springtime, then that’s the perfect time for general marketing campaigns that highlight an organization’s mortgage rates and special offers, for example.

3. Personalized communications

Whether it’s a simple birthday message or an offer for recent empty nesters including a customized URL and discount code, using customer insight data to personalize communications can positively capture consumers’ attention and inspire them to act.

Similarly, when banks reward customer loyalty and referrals, customers are more likely to continue these behaviors, remaining engaged consumers and inviting their own network to utilize your products and services.

Customer insight marketing, don’t go it alone

Most financial institutions know they need data to create effective marketing strategies, but those vast amounts of data can be overwhelming. That’s why it’s vital to partner with a third-party data marketing partner who can not only provide the information but has in-depth knowledge and experience putting the data to good use.

Why are consumer insights important? Financial institutions around the country trust Deluxe for their data-driven marketing solution to learn exactly why. Don’t allow the competition to have a data advantage, level the playing field and learn more about how partnering with Deluxe Data-Driven Marketing today can give you the upper hand.

¹ Deluxe internal campaign data