Content Introduction 4 Delivering Data-Driven Unique Experiences 6 Peer Validation and Reassurance 8 Localized Targeting 10 Form Optimization 12 Identification of Visitors with High Lifetime Value 14 Omnichannel Marketing and Cross Selling 16 Churn Predictions from On-site Behavior 18 2 3
Introduction Few people are untouched by the financial services industry. Be it for the financing of our education, the purchasing of a car or a house, or the acquisition of a business loan, this industry is both ubiquitous and necessary in today s world. Consumers today have neither the time, nor the patience, for a generic service or product and are constantly looking for offers specifically tailored to their requirements. With their wealth of resources, banks are able to offer this level of personalization in real-time. Now, with the advent of online and mobile banking platforms and data tracking and analytics tools, there is an abundance of userlevel data available for both processing and acting upon. Startups are increasingly entering the lucrative financial technology industry and tech savvy entrepreneurs are introducing new ways of doing business in a field that has been largely unchanged for years. Few would argue that we ve entered into the age of the Expectation Economy, where there s a new focus to continuously improving customer experience to simply stay afloat. Because of this, the financial services industry is on the cusp of significant disruption, as one-by-one the financial services organizations learn that profits will come through full personalization of the customer experience. Financial institutions that are not able to adapt to the coming disruption will have to face the following reality: Given such challenges, a profoundly new approach to banking is required, with a focus on delivering customer delight. Customers are ready for a new era of digital banking, with intuitive platforms, contemporary designs, and data-driven intelligence. There are two critical aspects of website personalization acquisition, through personalizing offers for targeted segments, and retention via engaging customers through visitor history based personalization. In this ebook, we outline techniques to personalize for the financial sector based on increasing conversions through predictive analytics, geotargeting, peer validation, form optimization, and powerful customer segmentation. Loyalty to a particular financial brand is reducing due to the wide variety of options open to customers and the ease in switching providers. Reductions in regulation are making significantly easier for new players, bringing even more choice for consumers. Switching accounts has never been easier. As for those institutions who embrace the coming change, a rise in earnings will very likely to be realized. According to a recent report by McKinsey a full digital transformation...can realize improvements in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization of more than 40 percent over the next five years ¹. Of the challenges identified in the report, they call out the need for improved customer targeting and visitor segmentation, alongside more dynamic and tailored online offerings. ¹The rise of the digital bank, McKinsey & Company, (July 2014) 4 5
1.Delivering Data-Driven Unique Experiences Little is more powerful for a company, than being able to direct the right message, to the right person, at the right time. Any organization that can accomplish this is on their way to higher revenues, more customers and growth. Acquisition is expensive and so it s critical to attract visitors who become both loyal and profitable customers. That requires identifying visitors who are likely to convert and have a high lifetime value along with discovering the channels which bring those customers. Stage one of the of the conversion funnel process involves making investments in acquiring visitors based on understanding and identifying their intent quickly. The aim with this is to understand which keywords and channels are bringing in the highest quality visitors who are most likely to convert and have a high lifetime value. Once the marketing spend has been optimized to focus on high quality visitors, the next step is to provide a seamless, tailored online experience to move them through the conversion funnel. A site, or app that s poorly designed, has frustrating form fill experiences, and generic messaging will inevitably lose high quality visitors. By analyzing the keywords or paid searches a visitor input to reach the site, how many times they have visited the site, what pages they looked at, and what customer data they provided it s possible to build an accurate picture of what products and messaging will effect that visitor the most. Personalized homepage for a user who has searched for travel insurance 6 7
2.Peer Validation and Reassurance Business transparency and social proof should be a significant aspect of any strategy for a financial institution platform. By holding customers livelihoods and finances in your care reassurance messages are necessary to create trust and grow confidence in your website. One way to leverage social proof is to display messaging to potential customers illustrating how many customers purchased the product they are looking at. This safety in numbers strategy is tried and tested, and adds to the credibility of the product. Even more powerful way is to display reviews from customers in a similar segment or that share a location or demographic. Public support of your service through online reviews will all assist in channeling the user along their conversion process. The influence of peers has never been greater than in the digital era today. People trust their friends, family, and other consumers like them more than they trust brands. Peer opinion has become empowered by comparison sites, product reviews and commentary across ubiquitous social media. More than 60% of customers will consult online reviews before making a purchase and it is essential to have a strategy in place to capitalize upon this power of social proof. 8 9
3.Localized Targeting Geolocation segmentation is a favored strategy to create highly relevant and personalized messages to customers and a key technique in both acquiring new business. From a country to a city level, serving relevant content and services will enhance the user s online experience. One good example is to create a segment of users from various countries and engage the community with personalized offers. Location-based messaging with a localized language and currency should be considered for sharing special incentives, which proves to increase both lifetime value, and customer loyalty. Geo-targeting can also be used in conjunction with social proof. For example, after locating a prospect s city, that potential customer would be shown a messaging layer indicating how many other customers signed up from their local area. In addition, a link could be shown encouraging the visitor to read reviews from others in the same city. 10 11
4.Form Optimization Forms are an integral part of most websites, and are required whenever information is needed from a customer. This innocuous sounding process can be fraught with frustrations for the customer, if not created well, and can lead to a leaky conversion funnel. Forms need to be optimized for both efficiency and speed to avoid customer frustration, and to maintain the motion of the customer toward the final conversion. A form is typically one of the biggest conversion decelerators, and companies that ask for too much information and offer a poor form experience are losing out on potential customers. Examples of ways to enhance forms include, but are not limited to the following: Pre-populating certain fields within a form can accelerate the experience for the customer, thus reducing abandonment. Remembering key pieces of information, like name and address, will make forms easier and more inviting. Offering tooltips, or even pre-filled examples for fields will make users quickly understand what s needed from them, and will improve their overall experience. Simple code can also be integrated into forms to automatically convert data into the required format. For example, a typical error message when one inputs the following phone number: 1234567890 might be Please input your phone number in the following format: 123-456-7890. A simple line of code could have done this for the user automatically, helping them to maintain their momentum toward the final click. Default Form Optimized Form 12 13
5.Identification of Visitors with High Lifetime Value Some customers have an inherently high lifetime value (LTV). Understanding their digital characteristics and then identifying visitors with similar characteristics is of huge value in creating a customer base who will continue to buy from you over time. The first step in this identification process is to utilize predictive analytics, which allows for the mapping out of the digital profile that constitutes a high LTV prospect. After identifying this profile, it s a relatively straightforward procedure to compare this with the profiles of other site visitors, to see when they match. If identified, the offers and personalizations can be tailored to them based on this key piece of information. Once the marketing channels have been optimized by keywords, and campaigns to attract high LTV customers, the next step is to determine specifically what offers should be prioritized to them. By analyzing your data, top customers based on predicted lifetime value, can be determined. Based on this information, specifically designed email campaigns can be created that are tailored to these customers, which is often a superior marketing technique than a generic blanket email. As an example, let s say that we want to target customers with a contract expiring in August, who has been a customer for more than seven years, and has a lifetime value above 15,000. To reduce the probability of attrition from them, and drive loyalty, an email campaign could be created that offers this specific segment 40% off certain insurance products for the next year and also throw in free theatre tickets. 14 15
6.Omnichannel Marketing and Cross Selling Omnichannel marketing refers to a significant shift in how marketers interact with potential customers. Regardless of channel, or device, marketers now need to create a seamless experience since consumers can now engage with a company through a physical store, website, app, catalog or social media. Omnichannel anticipates that customers may start their purchase in one channel, but may shift over to a new channel to complete the process. This experience needs to be fluid so as to enhance the customer experience, and ultimately optimize conversions. For financial institutions to capitalize on this knowledge, it s crucial for the marketing team to regularly review the experience through the customer s shoes and ensuring a clean and positive experience. A good example of geo targeting would be used for engaged customers who are in the process of obtaining a loan. You may think of targeting customers who began applying for a loan from the website, but haven t submitted their application. Connecting back with users through mobile at the right moment, will encourage them to complete their actions. Since connecting online and offline strategies is what lies at the heart of omnichannel communication, customers who abandon their loan application process could be invited into a branch via a push notification while passing a nearby branch. Traditional marketing relies on just a single message sent to the customer. While reasonably effective, we have entered into an era of significant sophistication when it comes to being able to send the right message at the right time to the right customer. Financial institutions who understand the nature of omnichannel marketing and the potential for cross-sell can significantly improve their sales. 16 17
7.Churn Predictions from On-site Behavior Churn rate is the measure of how many users opt out of some service or subscription. Churn rate can be assessed based on a user s behavior. By identifying visitors who are more likely to churn, it s possible to transform their experience and provide them with compelling offers that demonstrate how much their business is valued. One useful piece of information for users of financial services industry products is understanding that the user is visiting their site for a specific objective, and not simply browsing a site for fun. They re there for a reason, and it s the marketer s job to ensure that these objectives are accomplished. Their on-site behavior can be used to predict the user s intent, and a set of behaviors can be profiled that indicate the risk of churning. For example, a high risk profile user might be someone who has visited a site six times a week, and then visits the FAQ pages on each session. Knowing that a user is high risk a marketer could then remind that user, on their next visit, how important they are as a customer, and then be offered a significant discount on a relevant product to increase that customers loyalty. This kind of personalization is just one more piece in the puzzle of optimization. 18 19
Put Your Data to Work Your customers are your greatest assets. The better you know them, the better you can serve them. When you serve them well, you reap the rewards through increased profits and powerful word-of-mouth advertising. Predictive analytics is the key to understanding your customers and providing them with a personalized experience. By tracking every mouse click and every abandoned shopping cart, you understand what each person wants. You no longer see your customers as a group. Instead, you see them as individuals with individual needs that you can serve. The Internet has made it possible for travel companies of all sizes to thrive. Take advantage of this opportunity with predictive analytics and personalization. About Insider Insider is an omnichannel marketing platform, empowering online businesses to make data-driven marketing decisions for higher engagement and conversion rates. Insider s predictive segmentation, dynamic A/B/n testing and behavioral targeting capabilities define highly targeted customer segments, delivering each individual unique experiences with dynamically personalized landing pages, recommendations, push notifications, in-app messages and more. London Singapore Kuala Lumpur Jakarta Moscow Dubai Warsaw Istanbul 20 21