Destroy Your Marketing Plan and Rebuild It!
Jack Welch once said, “If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.”
Is your financial institution changing how you spend money to acquire clients as fast as the market is changing around you? If not, then pay close attention to the following 700 words or so. And take heed.
The Financial Brand outlined the breakdown of marketing spending at financial institutions recently. In this research, they found that most marketers still plan to allocate and spend over 50% of their budgets on traditional media (radio, TV, billboards and such) through 2017. Does your marketing fit this profile?
The rate of change is faster at other institutions. Marketers elsewhere have embraced data analytics and action, and leveraging the digital world. Are you the problem for your institution’s lack of change? Is your management holding your marketing back? Maybe your institution is still living with the notion that nothing has really changed. Change is everywhere. Marketing is centered on the digital world today. And this change requires a constant and substantive understanding of client data.
The pace of spending growth in the digital world is without comparison. Further, the growth of data analytics and proven results via these digital methods is rendering traditional marketing virtually obsolete. As a marketer, you must understand how you will gather the right information, leverage predictive analytics and automate action, so that you can leverage digital one-to-one marketing ASAP and rebuild your marketing budget to match.
Scared? Good. Fear is often the most direct catalyst for change.
As a marketer, are you comfortable collecting and analyzing data? Can you discern the relevance of the information and identify trends, patterns and meaning from this information about your clients in the context of the market(s) you serve? A better question might be whether data analytics is where you find your joy, even if you can do this. There is zero shame in saying, “No.” And, of course, all of this mulling over potential outcomes presumes you even have the time to do the work.
Data scientists/analysts are unique creatures. They have the uncommon skills for understanding not just the data, but also the marketing context and values held in that data. These folks are a very unique left-brain/right-brain species, and they are very hard to find. Last fall (Aug. 2014) The Wall Street Journal described people with this skill set as “unicorns.” Clearly this implies that effective data analysts are as hard to find as the mythical beast. It also stands to reason that if you don’t have the talent for data analytics, it is neither surprising nor even unusual. Very few marketers are built this way, which is why the “unicorns” are so unique.
The good news is that you don’t have to do data analytics yourself. And you don’t have to add a unicorn to your staff. You can outsource this skill set, and get all of the value and benefit from data analytics and action, without the life-sucking responsibility of doing it yourself. Great, right!
This is what our OnTrax product is all about. We connect you with your very own MARQUIS unicorns. They will collect your data, analyze it, refine it, and make extremely specific recommendations that enable MARQUIS to take targeted action on your behalf…every day. Doing this isn’t hard. Mutual communication about your goals and objectives – and proof that action taken from the information is working – is what’s required. It is all about results. Nothing else matters.
Embrace OnTrax and see how quickly the pace of change in your organization’s marketing efforts will exceed what others are doing and…better yet…how provable revenue and profit growth will inspire your senior management to give you more in your marketing budget.
But, remember, you will likely have to destroy your marketing plan and rebuild it!
Jay Kassing
President
MARQUIS