I am a Bank and I am Boring

The below article was published in Qatar Today magazine- Jan 2012 issue. The article is about how can banks manage customer relationships online without just talking about banking and being innovative. Click on the below pics to continue reading.

"Text Version" 

 I am a Bank; Iam Boring

Financial Institutions are perceived to be not innovative and creative when it comes to Online Media and technology. Due to certain regulations and reputation issues, they have been a step behind other industries to make their presence felt online.

Let us explore few ideas that can help you gain foothold in the Online Conversations and interact with your customers.

I recently attended a panel discussion, where a question was raised on how to deal with customer issues raised on your social media channels. Panelists were convinced on the methodology of trying to contact the customer to get details of the problem and acknowledge the issue. Post understanding the issue, commit on resolving the same.

What if your bank’s customer service still gets criticized online even though you have taken efforts to engage with your customers online? Well, then you have to investigate the case and invest in enhancing your customer service. Online media is just another channel to communicate with your customer.

A few more ideas: -

Don’t just talk about banking

If you expect to build a relationship with your customer, you need to talk about various other topics that can build a conversation on social networking sites. If a customer needs to know about your products and offers, they can always go to your public website.

You can use Social Media tools to change the mean and greedy perception of Financial Institutions.

Check out Lloyds Bank Facebook Page. They are talking about the upcoming London Olympics with a countdown ticker. This has got nothing to do with banking. These initiatives create friendly online conversation and interaction that may not be facilitated by a bank otherwise.

Be a Startup Mentor

Have you ever thought about nourishing the potential young talent to form large enterprises? How about offering some advice on launching a start up? A bank has the financial capability and the expertise to mentor start ups. Use your online channels to give tips to people interested in learning more about the enterprise world. Your investment banking arm may probably fund the next Google or Apple.

Show you CSR initiatives.

Have you done something for the community, how about informing people via your Social Media Channels? Do you want volunteers for a CSR initiative, ask for it on your Social Media Channels and watch the response. Check out the Bank of America Page, asking for people who would like to volunteer for their “Building Opportunity” initiative.

Many financial institutions are involved in charity initiatives that go unnoticed. Their projects are not covered in the media and an average customer is not aware about these initiatives. Social Networks are great online tools to tell your customers about these projects and strengthen your brand.

Giveaways for your Online Fans

Customers love participating in competitions. This initiative encourages them to follow your brand online. Host a few competitions for your Social Media Channel Fans. Check out the Citi Bank Facebook page. They are giving an opportunity for their fans to win cash or jam with their favorite band.

How about offering your online fans a $ discount or a coupon to dine at their favorite restaurant.

I wanted to get a feel on what do people expect from their banks in Doha on Social Media Channels. Following is a summarized version of various comments I got from people on Twitter in Doha.

People expect their bank to be more interactive and provide online support for issues. They want instant answers to their queries and special offers for following/liking the brand. Many twitteratis complained that the banks never responded to their queries. Surprisingly, few of them replied that they were not interested in having a conversation with their bank on social networks, as banks are only meant to manage their money, not their relationship. There lies an opportunity for the banks to show that they can manage human relationships and just not financial ones.

Online surveillance of social-networking sites is a new trend for traders dealing in hedge funds and big banks managing customer assets. Stocktwits is a social, stock micro-blogging service monitoring emotions of stock market traders. You will find a community of traders and investors sharing market insight, ideas, charts and news streaming in real-time. This is true engagement of Financial Marketing with Online Media. An investment company, Derwent Capital Markets, has launched a £25 million hedge fund that will use the sentiment of Twitter messages to help guide its trading strategy

As we look forward to 2012, Financial Institution will continue to heavily invest in the Social Media and Interactive Marketing, and work on the revenues.

There is a strong possibility of structural changes in many organizations, where by Digital Channels, e-Marketing and e-Business will fall under one umbrella.

Financial Institutions and Online Media - finding the right hook

The below article was published in Qatar Today magazine - July 2011 issue. The article summarizes various initiatives taken by banks to adopt Online Media to communicate with their customers. Click on the below image to contiue reading.

 

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Today most of the financial services companies are on a recovery mode and looking for optimistic signs in their books. While the financial pundits predict the possibility of economic recovery, I believe listening to your customers is what’s missing in most of the companies. Many financial and non financial companies are busy implementing what they want to but not what the customer needs.

In the era of Internet, Financial Institutions need to cautiously but firmly make place in the Online Media world to interact with the customer. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn are some of the many sites which can act as agents for these companies to spread their message.

Many banks have presence on Facebook, but lack of transactional capability may not attract customers to become a fan or member of that particular page. Having an information page about the products and services would be a good way to start with, but may not be immensely popular with the customers. Tapping Facebook will require banks to come up with a tricky formula of entertainment, sales and information in addition to providing a secure environment. Yet Facebook’s urge to go public with its user data may be discouraging for many financial intuitions to associate themselves with this website. To meet the legal and compliance requirements would be another horrendous task.

During my research, I came across an application on Facebook that allows users to perform financial transactions - Fiserv's My Money, which is now only available to credit unions, and may be offered to banks in the near future. Facebook users download the application, which helps them find and join a credit union, view account histories and balances, and make transfers.

Bank of America, Wells Fargo, ING DIRECT and First American Bank are among the many financial institutions using Twitter for marketing. Twitter is a tool which can be used to directly interact with your customers and inform them about the services. The online reply facility on Twitter can help a company obtain feedback or resolve customer issues.

The National Bank of Australia has managed to effectively use Twitter as a tool to deal with customer complaints and enquires. The bank gets 30 million calls a year on its Call Centre channel and Twitter may be an alternative to it.

Twitter can help banks build long term relationships and give more personal feel to it.

1. Reaching customers.

Public websites hold the transaction capability and remain the primary form of communication for the banks with customers. Increased communication and transparency, would help banks gain customer confidence and trust.  Having online presence would allow your customers to evaluate and discuss the bank’s brand and offerings. Direct feedback from customers would help banks improve those offerings and brand image. HSBC Direct, a U.K based bank uses its interactive website to get and publish customer feedback and discuss community issues. It uses blogs, Facebook and Twitter to interact with "Generation C," or the “Connected, Communicating, Content-centric, Generation."

2. Reducing costs.

Online communication would help the bank reduce costs significantly. Selling products, cross selling products to existing customers would help justify the online presence. Twitter as a communication medium is being seen as an alternative to Call Centers. It may not replace call centers but definitely help in optimizing call center resources. Usage of new technologies can help cut branch operations cost; for example, Deutsche Bank in Germany uses video chat for interacting with customers, thus reducing customer dependence on expensive channels like branches.

As I said before, financial institutions need to be Cautious with their presence in Social Media. One of the possible threats could be a fraudster posing as a bank employee and asking customer for credentials by setting up a similar profile. Online squatter could register themselves on behalf of financial institutions on social media sites and then negotiate with the companies to buy them back. Alternatively, phishing attacks are anyways looming on the Internet and you may be redirected to a site where there is possibility of compromising your personal details.

Banks are experimenting with this space but are yet to come out with a successful working model. Expecting a ROI on spend is not the way forward, as Social Media is still in its adolescence trying to develop such a model. This is just another form of communication tool available to reach to your customers which will ultimately in long term bring the dollars.

Internet v/s Social Marketing

The article gives a visual depiction of Internet v/s Social Marketing, published in Qatar Today Magazine - June 2011 issue.

Internet v/s Social Marketing 

In my previous post I had given few tips to convince your boss to adopt social media for commercial purposes. If you have managed to even partially convince your boss on introducing social/online media in your organization, the next step is to determine the possible ways of reaching your customers on the web. In the initial days of the web, one of the most common ways to advertise your product was by placing a banner ad on a website, or a pop up ad to get the attention of the website visitor. We have come a long way from those days and have more intelligent and less annoying ways of creating awareness for the product/services.

Internet Marketing is still one of the most popular ways to target your potential customers on the web. It is an enhanced traditional advertising campaign measurement with the addition of unique visitors, clicks, bounces, page ranks, keyword authority, link tracking etc.

Internet marketing is predominately focused around the following *terms: -

SEM (search engine marketing) - is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion

Cost per impression (CPI/CPM) - CPM for Cost per thousand impressions is another way to measure the worth of an online campaign.

Cost per click (CPC) - Advertisers pay the hosting service when the ad is clicked, to direct traffic to the respective website.

Cost per action (CPA) - the advertiser pays for each specified action (a purchase, a form submission, and so on) linked to the advertisement

SEO (search engine optimization) - is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via organic search results.

An online campaign is needed to spread awareness which can ultimately lead to sales. Some online campaigns are purely meant for awareness while other’s prompt the user to click on the banner ads, which direct them to a landing page that has a list of the products available for sale.

You need to help the internet user understand what he/she can expect post clicking an interactive banner. If the expectations are not met in the first few seconds, you have lost your prospective internet partner. You need to develop more interactive ads to get the attention of the person viewing the ad.

Internet has come a long way from Web 1.0 to evolving Web 3.0. We can associate these trends with the following terms: -

Web 1.0 = Content

Web 2.0 = Conversation

Web 3.0 = Convergence

At present we are in Web 2.0 but slowly progressing towards Web 3.0.

Social Media Marketing (SMM) is another form of communication with your customers. I feel it’s all about Conversation. As a product manager if you are successful in speaking to your online audience in their language, you have won half the battle. It is dynamic, vibrant, emergent, compelling and insightful. Hence, Social Media Marketing (SMM) is not just a medium of communication but a place for marketers to understand its target audience.

Social Media as a conversation is not organized, controlled or in a form of an advertisement.

It is the conversation that takes place between Customers, Marketers, Employees, and Investors and web surfers.  On a larger scale, it’s the appeal of belonging in the group as you take action together. “l am trying this brand so why don’t you try it as well?”

Some social media tools that you could use for engaging the audience with your brands

Blogs - I don’t need to define ‘blogs’ for you, however, ensure you regularly update it.  Most corporate companies host blogs on their website. Alternatively you may use popular platforms like Blogger, Wordpress or Typepad.

Microblogging – Twitter is a classic example of microblogging. You need to engage your customers within the 140 characters. Companies use it as a customer service tool.  Check out Jaiku which is another popular microblogging website.

RSS - It a syndication format that allows websites and blogs to distribute their content as feeds to users.  Instead of having to visit the website, users can sign up for the feed provided by the website or blog and using an RSS reader or aggregators like Google Reader, Bloglines to access the feed.

Photo Sharing - Sites like flickr, picasa are popular photo sharing websites. One common technique used by online community a manager is to ask their subscribers to upload photographs on photo sharing websites and ask their friends to vote for the best photographs. Such competitions help the brand to reach out to non-consumers through their existing users.

Podcasts – It is a digital audio that is distributed via the Internet for playback on a user’s computer or portable media device. Link your podcasts to different websites and your blog and make special announcements via it.

Social News and Bookmarking - Social bookmarking allows web users to share their bookmarks of web pages on the Internet. You must have seen websites offering to share their article on sites like Delicious, Digg, Reddit etc are typical examples.

Social Networking – Facebook being the most popular social networking site can be used to engage customers by creating corporate pages and groups. Some other popular social networking sites are Ranren.com (No 1 in China), Myspace, Hi5, Bebo.

Setting the objectives: The SMM goals will be different for every business or organization. SMM can create brand awareness or build idea, increase visibility, leverage existing social media sites to the company’s advantage, help in creating a multi-pronged marketing strategy attract & motivate through Potential Customer Experience etc.

One thing that many digital marketers face difficulty is in measurement and the first step to measure is to set RIGHT objectives. The objectives should be in the interest of the organization and community.

To conclude both Internet and Social Media Marketing have their advantages. To have maximum impact on a campaign combination of both the marketing techniques can be infectious.  

Mobification of your Website

The below article was published in Qatar Today's March 2011 issue (Qatar's No. 1 business magazine). Click on the images to read through.


*** Article Text***  Mobification of your website!

 When was the last time you spent more than 30 seconds on a mobile based website to find some content? You may try using your iPhone, Android or Blackberry to get a daily dose of news, social media or other information, however the experience may not be pleasant if the website is not mobile friendly and takes time to load? As new mobile devices, development platforms are introduced it is difficult to keep pace with the technology. A classic example is a Financial Institution planning to introduce mobile banking; however the management is not able to make up its mind on various options like -  Developing an iPhone Application

- Creating a customized mobile website for devices like Blackberry, iPhone, Android etc. A recent study by a Dubai based PR firm *Spot On Mobile Internet Usage proved that 45% of the MENA Internet users use mobile phones to access Internet This means there will be less dependence on the use of desktop computers as people prefer to access information on the move. The question is how your website will appeal to those 45% users who access it from a mobile device. Despite the fact that the expansion of a mobile web business has been on the industry list for a while; the dazzling adoption of smart phones will see it actualize in this decade. As per Mary Meeker, the managing director of Morgan Stanley and an active Internet analyst, the world is going through a 5^th major technology cycle within last five decades. The 60’s was a mainframe era, the 70’s was a mini computer era, and 80’s was the personal computing whilst 90’s was the desktop Internet era. The current cycle is the Mobile Internet era, as per Mary Meeker who was dubbed as “Queen of the Net” by Barron’s magazine in 1998. Let us see few bite sized tips which may help you catch up with the 5^th tech cycle and enhance your mobile based website: - Having the best of technology doesn’t guarantee traffic on your mobile website – With the massive influx of iPhones and other smart devices, users are migrating from desktop to these devices at a rapid pace. Some of these devices like iPhones don’t support the multimedia platforms like flash and others may have issues with JavaScript. Till date approximately 85 mm iPhone devices have been sold and your website may not reach these customers due to flash limitations. A few alternative programs like HTML 5 and CSS 3 can do the trick. Simplify your website – The mobile version of your site needs to be simple with minimal graphics. Eliminating graphics is an effective way to optimize your website. You may redo your website layout, menus, content etc. Develop an application for various platforms – As previously mentioned in the article; influx of various mobile development platforms has left many websites in a dilemma. Many organizations are not willing to pursue an app for various platforms/mobile devices. However it is wise to invest in the popular device like Google Android and definitely iPhone to extend your reach. Irrespective of the devices visitors are using, give them a link to access your standard website and vice versa. This can be done be placing a small link at the bottom of your application. Track your visitors – I am rather concerned but not surprised that many commercial websites don’t have metrics software installed to help them track usage. There are some good analytical software’s like Google Analytics and Piwik that can be used by your website to track number of visitors, daily traffic, etc at no cost. With the help analytical tools you can identify the pages that are frequently visited by the users. If the users immediately navigate away from your landing page, it may need to be redesigned. Another reason why you should consider launching a mobile website is because Qtel may launch Long Term Evolution (LTE) in 2011, which was announced in the World Mobile Congress, 2011. LTE is 4G technology which will result in: - High-Speed data connection can delivers speeds than can be 10x faster than 3G Lower operating and expansion costs for the operator may lead to reduction in customer usage prices. To conclude, mobile websites are here to stay and if you are new in the business ensure that your new website doesn’t get outdated before its launch.The mobile internet is so addictive that the embracing of the Apple devices is taking place at the rate of 11 times faster than that of AOL, as per Meeker. Helping to drive this is the 3G technology, which is expected to reach a penetration rate of 19% by 2011 E in Middle East and Africa. Wait and watch as the global mobile usage is expected to surpass desktop internet usage by 2013. 

Gamification of the Online World

The trend of neologism – creating new words – is on a rise in the world of technology. We need new words to interpret new ideas.  We had the Internet, Websites, Blogs, Web 2.0, Social Media, Tweet and now Gamification.

‘Gamification’ is the new buzz word and it’s coming soon to your gym, your job, your government and even your doctor. In fact it has already arrived in the world of financial services, and is used by marketers to engage customers online.

As defined on Wikipedia – “Gamification is the use of game play mechanics for non-game consumer technology applications (also known as “funware”), particularly consumer-oriented web and mobile sites, in order to encourage people to adopt the applications”

The corporate world is realizing that “gamification” is an effective way to generate business using the same mechanics that keeps gamers glued to their television/laptops.

Since the inception of videogames, people have questioned why gamers spend hours to reach to that final stage of the game, working towards intangible rewards. The study of human behavior shows that incentives offered for completing a task, tend to be addictive.

An outright example for this is location based website – Foursquare. The mobile app encourages people to share their location wherever they are. The users try to check in to locations several times to receive one of the several badges offered by the site.

The entire experience of achieving the “Mayor” status of a particular location gives users immense pleasure. The commercial side of this is that many retailers give their customers discounts/freebies upon achieving “Mayor” badge (or any other badge prescribed by the retailer). E.g. Dominos pizza in UK offers exclusive discount to anybody who checks into their outlet frequently and becomes the Mayor of that outlet.

Mint.com transformed the financial services into a gaming experience - Want to go to Bali for your next vacation? Select that option from drop down list of rewards on the website, and as you save your deposits toward achieving the desire target, a gauge fills, showing you how close you are to your next vacation. Mint is making managing one's money more fun with a unique approach.

A regional example is RAK Bank in UAE, who has recently launched games on their website to engage customers with the brand and indirectly inform them about their products. 

However, the Gamification is still in its infancy stage. The Gamification of services/products should not be just restricted to points like programs. The users may reject Gamification as any other loyalty program.

  

Points/badges are part of a game rewarded to customers for completing a task. Once this phenomenon is mature, a game itself must be able to give the player a choice to take a decision that will result into a reward. E.g. choosing a XM8 Lightweight Assault Rifle v/s AK 47 will help the player to win a game resulting in a reward.

If the "gamified" businesses, programs and products are implemented they will mutually benefit the company and the consumer. 

The above post was published on ICT Qatar's blog (Qatar's Telecom Regulator). Click here to continue reading the post.

Virtual Online Banks for Social Networks

The scope of the article covers banks for social networks and not Internet Banking.

Many banks have realized the potential of online social engagement; however, most of them are reluctant to connect with customers online. The concept of virtual online websites is not getting any younger. The realm of social media or online social engagement is growing with an estimated value of US 10 million in 2010 as estimated by Engage Digital Media.

In 2009 Mashable had reported that a user of Entropia Universe – an online virtual engagement website – bought a virtual space station for US $ 330,000. This transaction is registered in the Guinness book of world records as the most expensive virtual world.

People have got used to making online payments for goods on Internet and conducting their daily transactions via electronic channels. The comfort level now extends to social networking sites, where users are paying for virtual goods, and this builds a case for introducing financial services.

The scope of innovation in the world of online payment market is extensive. Once extended to virtual online world the scope is challenging. Some of the existing websites in the online social engagement world that facilitate financial transactions are: -

• Facebook, Secondlife, Entropia Universe – Purchase of Virtual goods 
• Purchase of Online Services – Facebook - Qtel Mobile Top up
• Online Social Lending – Virgin Money, Kiva

The above examples are an insight to various business opportunities that are yet to materialize. 

Mind Ark, the company which runs the Entropaia Universe became the first company to issue virtual banking licenses to real world banks in 2007. In March 2009, the Swedish Financial Authority, granted license to Mind Bank AB, that will allow it to function as a central bank for all the virtual world’s within Entropia Universe. Mind Bank will be able to process real money transactions for activities in the virtual world.

During my research, I came across an application on Facebook that allows users to perform financial transactions - Fiserv's MyMoney, a US based app, which is now only available to credit unions, and may be offered to banks in the near future. Facebook users download the application, which helps them to find and join a credit union, view account history, balances, and make transfers.

Banks are experimenting with this space but are yet to come out with a firm working model. Expecting a ROI on spend is not the way forward, as Social Media is still in its infancy stage.

Retargeting

If you run a website and have a primary business of selling products, every time a visitor who is browsing your website leaves without performing an action, may result in a loss. The average dwell time for a visitor on a web page is a minute. If the attractive ads on the webpage can’t get his attention we have lost him forever.

The most valuable asset in an online business is a repeat visitor. On an average the websites are able to convert only 1-2% of the visitors to sales, which means 98% of the visitors leave without performing any action. If you have to retain these visitors what should one do? In comes the technique called Retargeting. A technique performed in 3 simple steps: -

1) Drive traffic to your website – The online business thrives on traffic which can be driven to a website through various mediums like search engines, email shots, paid ads, banner ads etc. Once this is done we go to step 2

2) Track the visitors past and present – We need to track what activity is being performed by a visitor on the website. This is done by placement of a simple code in the website. The code tracks the web pages a visitor spends time on. If a consumer was conducting a transaction and decided to leave for some reason those pages will be stored on a temporary basis.

3) Retargeting in action - Now come’s the ultimate step. Next time the user visits any other website say like My Space.com, similar ads will be delivered on his page that were of interest to him. In other words the targeted ad will be delivered to him again. This will create an impact on the visitor. Some studies suggest that you need seven contacts with a customer to make a sale. Such form of advertising has made a difference for many online companies.

I recently came across a website called http://www.fetchback.com/ that has been in the retargeting business since Feb 2007. Fetchback serves up ads on many websites, including social networking sites like MySpace and news content sites like ESPN.com.

Check out this link which reflects how fetchback.com has helped a company increase their online sales by 20% with the use of retargeting technique.

http://www.internetretailer.com/internet/marketing-conference/44421-through-retargeting-hobby-lobby-wins-back-visitors-who-abandon-site.html

I believe fetchback.com is worth a try, check them out.

Cya for now…….!

K