How can marketing be more exciting and effective for retail banking?

On a Saturday evening, I saw a stack of mails on the dining table. Looking at them, I realized all of them are from different banks trying to get me to apply for a new credit card or a mortgage loan, both of which were not needed for our family. I gave my husband a wry smile and said, "these banks really need to be creative in their marketing strategies." 

• Banks sit on a large amount of consumer profile and transaction data. If they were innovative, they could really extract valuable insights into consumer needs and have targeted and customized communication. 

• The pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns have already made banks shift as many service offerings to be online- and mobile-based. However, the way they engage potential customers is clearly still old school. The offers in the letters we received could have been a banner or floating window on banks' websites' landing page. By integrating marketing with digitalization, banks could tap a significant saving on cost and carbon footprints. 

• Another real problem of the traditional way of marketing is the traceability and measurement of the return on investment. 
• Suppose I need a new credit card, I may consider applying for one after I receive the promotional mails. However, these mails seldom provide me an exclusive offer that cannot be accessed through other channels (especially under the current cost-cutting environment). I would highly likely still go online and click on the "Apply" button to start my new credit card application. Such an application will by no means be associated with the promotional mail that arrived at my mailbox. 

• In comparison, in a recent marketing campaign of Google Pay, Google offered a $21 referral bonus each for the individual signing up and the individual referring early this year. Google could track the platform where the referral links were posted (e.g., WeChat, WhatsApp, etc.), how many people clicked on a referral link, how many were brought on-board, and how they made their first transactions (to be qualified for the rewards). In this way, everything is tracked, and the investment (on rewards) can be easily attributed.

In summary, the retail banks have many opportunities to innovate on their marketing strategies and make their marketing budget better spent. Leveraging advanced data analytics to extract insights on consumer needs, integration with digitalization, and increasing traceability and measurement are the few things retail banks can start exploring.