Omnichannel marketing: Giving customers a personal experience

Adopting a seamless and channel-integrated marketing strategy for banking, aimed at offering a personalized customer experience and delivering the right message (at the right moment) to whichever channel the customer is on is not just a smart marketing concept, but a key strategy to interact and retain customers.

In our digital age, consumers fuel the omnichannel revolution and expect a frictionless experience in each aspect of their life, especially the financial one. To stay relevant, sustain growth, and lead among competitors, banks must tackle the challenge of overcoming fragmented channels and closing the online and offline divide. This can be done in a number of ways.

One example is by orchestrating omnichannel experiences for the individual banking consumer, tracking the unique journey for each, and leveraging data-driven insights to anticipate and meet their ever-evolving needs.

A personalized customer experience is a key element in the bank-customer relationship, which is the focus of every banking strategy, no matter what the channel is — whether it be physical branch or digital (mobile, internet social). It needs to adapt to the channel as well as the customer.

Digital strategy for banks

The relationship, therefore, needs to include voice, conversation, technology, and data analysis that translates into an integrated and synergistic marketing strategy. A strategy that passes through the branch, a place where it is possible to funnel every phase of the customer experience — from welcoming customers and consulting to product sales and assistance.

There needs to be a digital strategy put in place, which does not neglect the human aspect, and which aims to preserve the territorial presence, co-create value together with the customer, and at the same time enhance the role of consultants in terms of skills.

Banks need to provide customers with a tailored approach. This can be done by targeted marketing, where a message or campaign is aimed at a specific user at the right time to transform each touch point into a channel tailored to each type of customer.

Hence, financial institutions require a solution that allows them to configure and manage marketing and information campaigns for prospects and customers. Whatever method they choose, they must not forget the human aspect. For example, the process of automating large-scale services cannot disregard the importance of human contact, and instead aim for a truly integrated and enhanced brand experience.

The solution is an omnichannel marketing solution, where each channel becomes a marketing tool capable of delivering a single and uniform message in line with the bank's strategy or differentiating campaigns in the context of a multi-message marketing plan.

This in turn provides a new banking experience for both the customer and the bank, therefore maximizing the potential of each individual interaction.

Don't be afraid of AI

The greatest potential for AI in marketing is around the opportunity to deliver personalization and relevance at scale. As consumers engage with their bank and more transaction and behavioral insights are collected, the consumer expects interactions with their bank to be more contextual and personalized.

Most financial organizations have such a huge pool of data that they do not know how to use it effectively, but that is quickly changing. Today, customer experience platforms and automation tools make it easier than ever to utilize and apply data as part of a company's marketing efforts.

For instance, data can tell you who is saving up for a big purchase and most likely need pre-approval for a loan. It can help business leaders identify and offer services before or after they are needed, while helping to target specific customers for additional customer service or education, and can assist in minimizing the need for customer service.

Auriga's NextGenBranchprovides banks with a data-driven platform that aims to improve the user experience on all bank channels, even in the fully automated remote branch. Its benefits include a personalized customer journey, informative and promotional messages, contextual marketing messages, and improved customer satisfaction.

There is also the option for interactive feedback request messages that will help the bank to enhance the user experience and therefore boost customer retention.

The digital transformation of banking makes omnichannel marketing capabilities more valuable than ever. With omnichannel marketing financial institutions whether brick and mortar or digital can combine data-driven insights, innovative banking and marketing strategies, and robust technologies to automate and augment efforts to meet their customers' omnichannel banking expectations. By doing so they will deliver high-impact communications, fuel top-line growth, and more importantly, create lasting customer connections.