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Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to Rock Your Ramblings, where I discuss topics around digital marketing, marketing, technology and marketing operations for the financial services industry. My name is Fernando Pena and I'm the founder of Rock Shire, where I help you master the digital channel. And so today's topic is one that is brought to my attention by a lot of people that I talked to, whether they're clients or prospects, and that is. Digital doesn't work for us. And So what I'd like to do today is to review some of my my thoughts on that and and why it may not be working for you and how to set up a structure or foundation that can make digital work on your behalf. So we'll be going over establishing goals and objectives, shifting your mindset, understanding the complete buyer journey, eliminating hurdles and blockers and also making sure that you continually test, track and refine. So our first one here is around establishment of goals. And I just have one point on this slide. And the reason why is because this is a critical point that I think so many organizations miss and and so often they take a trip down that digital journey and discover that. Wait a minute, we're not quite sure what it is that we're trying to achieve here. And that is understanding what are your organizational goals or objectives. And this is something where, OK, ultimately a lot of companies look at something like. How many likes are we getting on Facebook? How many hits are we getting on the web page? How many opens are we getting on our emails that we send out? And really those are important metrics to track, obviously, but they're not the ultimate sort of goal of your organization. And that goal oftentimes is centered around growth, a revenue target of some sort or some other huge sort of objective that translates into something pretty major for the entire organization. And so that has to be well understood and and ultimately. Put in a plan has to be put into place to make sure that digital is incorporated in your overall plan so that you're able to meet that goal. So that's the reason why I created just one slide dedicated to this point, because without this then you're really sort of lost as to what you're trying to achieve within the digital channel. And and you have to make sure that it's in alignment with what the organization needs and it's on the behalf of of what that success factor might be. The next point is really around shifting mindset. And so my first statement here is that there's no such thing as a digital strategy and and that may shock some of you or you may disagree with it. But what I mean by that is that now we're at a point where and we have been for several years where digital is not really an afterthought and and the buyers that embark on a digital journey aren't necessarily different than those that you correspond with in person. In fact most buyers are likely. Making use of multiple channels and digital's part of it. So what I'm saying here is that you don't need a digital strategy, you need a strategy that incorporates digital and has to be an integral part of your overall planning process, not something that's an afterthought as I make here on my second point. So digital has to be front and center when it comes to planning everything that your organization is going to to achieve in the in the upcoming year or the future. The other thing too is to focus on, and I've made the mention of this several times in prior videos, focus on the customer experience and not necessarily an individual product or service. So all too often you have organizations where they're siloed around products or services. So you have, for example, a credit card division that is pushing a customer to to convert our product. You have a deposits organization that is pushing for incoming funds. And so that really can't be the the overall approach. It has to be more So what is the best product for that individual customer or buyer at that point in time. And I understand that some products are a lot more lucrative and also may there may be a push from an investment perspective or a push from a board of directors or or external investors to try to emphasize a certain product or service. But ultimately you have to look out for what's best for your buyers and your customers and and offer them that product or service because #1, they're more likely to convert. And #2, it's also something that is in their best interests and therefore in your best interest because it helps to build that long term trust, credibility and relationship. Next, we have to understand that buyer journey. And so notice I'm not making a lot of mention of digital quite yet in terms of specifics because this is all again part of an overall strategy and digital is a big part of it, but it's not the only thing that we should be focused on. And so the question here is that how are your buyers doing Business Today? And and this may take going to the front lines and having discussions with some of those representatives and understanding where those pain points might be because then you'll be able to understand where can I apply digital to it. Can it take the place of a an existing experience? Or should it supplement an existing experience? And that's an important distinction? How long is that journey? So is this something where it takes an extraordinary amount of time and therefore it requires guidance and and sort of assistance to move that buyer along the journey? If so, then again, you have to understand how digital is going to be utilized in this journey and and make sure that whatever it is that you're creating is well aligned to what your buyers are expecting. Also consider your product or service conversion process and the timeline. So there are certain products if we go back to like let's say checking account that you can likely depend on a complete digital experience and you'll be able to convert that individual because there's not a huge commitment on their part and it's not a stretch to ask them to just go through this without a lot of external assistance. But on the other hand, if you're looking at a high dollar investment product or maybe a retirement planning. Strategy that's going to require a lot of of sort of manual assistance and also a lot of of of reinforcement, positive reinforcement probably from a human. And so in that case then digital is likely going to be supporting platform or supporting mechanism to try to reinforce that message that is coming from that advisor. So these are all things that need to be taken into consideration because in some cases digital might be the the way to go when it comes to. The overall experience that that individual has, but in other cases, maybe it's something that is used in conjunction with an existing process or to help to improve the efficiency of a process. Next, you have to look at eliminating obstacles. And this one here sometimes is a little bit, UM, sort of under the covers and hidden. And what I mean by that is that oftentimes you have sort of competing priorities within an organization. And again, remember that the first slide I mentioned what is the organizational objective. And so digital has to be deployed to support that objective. And so now within the individual lines of business and hopefully you don't necessarily run that way because I mentioned that we should line around the customer. Experience. But within those individual lines business, there may be competing priorities. And so it could be that right now a certain line of business is not really trying to move towards the same goal or objective. And in that case, then deploying digital is going to be difficult because again, we're focused on the customer experience. But if you have an individual product line that is going in a different direction, there's going to be some contention there. So it's something that needs to be eliminated in order to make sure that digital can be fully implemented properly. UM, also all their conflicts with the adoption of digital and what I mean by that is not necessarily UM conflicts from a technical perspective, but maybe there's a compensation plan for example put into place that from an advisor perspective they send that traffic or that prospect to digital, they may not get credited fully for it. So in that case then that's competing against your your sort of digital strategic road map because those advisors are going to do everything in their power to keep that lead in their hands. And not necessarily turn it over to the digital channel. So you need to make sure that things like that are well thought out because otherwise these will be obstacles in your journey to try to utilize that digital channel fully. And then the last thing here is testing and refining. So your digital journey is never complete. And what I mean by that is that you may have found the sort of winning formula, but one thing that's constant in the digital sort of landscape is that there's always change and there's always a competitor that is going to want up anything that you've done, it's really easy to copy any sort of strategy or tactic that is utilized and it's also easy to sort of overcome the leader that that maybe. Entrenched in in whatever industry you're in, or or whatever keyword for example, that you might be fighting for. So really what you need to do is continually refine and continue to test your tactics to make sure that they are effective. You also need to require CRM entries for all touch points and part of this is because in order to be able to track what is working then any sort of offline interactions also need to be tracked as well. So that you can understand that maybe it took two visits to a branch and then a visit with a a personal banker in order for them to go online and submit an application for a product or service. So this is all something that needs to be tracked so that you can understand that we need to to modify the other digital journey. Somehow. And then finally dedicate budget and resources to control groups and structured testing. So oftentimes when I was doing marketing and early on my career, I would be told, well, send this e-mail to everyone. And the problem with that is that yes, you are able to sort of cast a wider net and send this e-mail to all of your prospects, but you don't have anything now to base it on. So when you had conversions, was it based on the e-mail itself or was it based on just market or external conditions that made that buyer come through and convert on your behalf? You'll never know the answer to that unless you set aside. A control group and see how they did in comparison with those that actually received your offer. So that's something that has to be built into all of your marketing efforts and and also has to be observed over time so that you can make sure that you track that and and see how how those individuals are doing and if they are able to to convert just as effectively as what you're doing. Because if so, then what you're doing might require some refinement because that means that it's not necessarily effective, it's just a. A coincidence that it's being successful. So that concludes today's video. But if you have any questions or would like to discuss some of these tactics or others that are specific to your needs, please reach out to me. Here's my contact information on this slide and and hopefully we will be having a discussion sometime soon. So until the next time, have a great one. Bye, bye.