Between traditional and contemporary marketing strategies, the plethora of marketing tools available to financial institutions varies greatly. As a result, social media is often under-utilized and deserves greater attention. Ultimately, social media can be used to restore the onsite branch experience and establish the foundation for a higher level of interaction between the consumer and the business.
This interaction takes the form of a tailored social media strategy. This strategy should seek to be contemporary to the times, flexible in approach, and maintain relevance to current local, national, and global events such as COVID.
The stratagem should be centered around the consumer base, strive to create connections between the bank and the consumer, and demonstrate a clear understanding of the community around it.
A team of people should be devoted to social media engagement. They should remain on top of current trends, be responsive to any comments and questions, and work to develop new and engaging content.
Once a social media presence has been established, it can be used to increase engagement. This engagement may come through a contest, raffle, or giveaway that requires the consumer to provide their email address to enter. Their email then would be attached to a generated code.
After the consumer receives the code, he or she can visit their local branch to see if they are a winner. Ideally, there is a grand prize winner who either attempts to redeem their prize first or possesses the selected winning code.
Ideally, everyone that comes in will win and receive a small swag item, even if they don’t snag the main prize. The hope of winning creates an opportunity to visit the branch, thus achieving the promotional goal.
This unique code allows the branch to gauge the interaction that the promotion creates and gather insights into the individuals that enter the building. Due to the advancement in digital and touch technology, financial institutions can collect data about consumer likes and dislikes, visitation patterns, and even physical attributes. This allows for greater detail in customer profiles and helps the institution to understand their client base with greater detail.
While in the branch, consumers can take care of any unfinished business, and the financial institution can take the opportunity to discuss new developments within the branch.
Others may be experiencing the branch for the first time. It is up to customer service representatives to make the welcoming first impression that is key to establishing credibility.
The initial social media-based interaction needs to create positive recognition with the branch, build present and future opportunities, and at the primary level, get people inside and allow branch representatives to deepen the client connection previously established online.
Beneficial to financial institutions and consumers alike, the use and preparation of targeted social media should receive more emphasis as a way to build branch engagement.
As always, we encourage banks and credit unions to work with their compliance teams to ensure that any contests or giveaways are following the rules governing their institution.
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Written by Bryn Baldasaro for The Element Group. Edited by Scott Worroll.
Social media photo taken from unsplash.com, artist Gerogia de Lotz.
GIF created by Scott Worroll through Adobe Photoshop from Element’s Webinar Series.
