6 trigger marketing best practices to help your bank crush the competition

If you’re a bank marketer, the future is bright. As consumer expectations for highly personalized online and mobile banking experiences continue to explode, the opportunities for banks to “wow” customers with relevant messaging in near real-time is here, thanks to an abundance of trigger and life event data unlike anything the industry has seen before.

While this data availability means the sky is quite literally the limit when it comes to driving results, the same is true for trigger campaign development. The sheer abundance of consumer data options can be overwhelming for even the most seasoned bank marketer which is why we wrote our white paper, The Bank Marketers Guide to Life Event Marketing, to help you confidently build and deploy smarter, more effective trigger marketing campaigns, here are six best practices we share with our clients.

1. Close the back door

In the hyper-competitive banking landscape, improving customer retention is critical for financial institutions’ long-term stability and growth. Financial institutions often use first party data from website traffic to demographic and CRM data to stay on top of your customers who might be looking to move their business. But savvy marketers will pair their first party data with third party triggers to fully monitor their customers activity outside the bank. By using this kind of data, you can easily identify at-risk customers, reengage with customers who are shopping with your competitors, and extend an offer to some at the perfect time in their buying process.

2. Triage the triggers

No two triggers are quite the same and, much like managing a chaotic emergency room, creating order amidst the abundance of trigger data available requires the ability to quickly prioritize which data is most actionable. For instance, a life event trigger like a milestone birthday and a content trigger such as clicking on your bank’s online retirement planning page could reasonably be treated as long-term, nurture opportunities. However, a credit trigger for one of your existing customers is a bottom-of-the-funnel, top-of-the-priority-list situation. It means the customer has acted with another lender in the last 24 hours, and you’ve got to respond quickly and – in an ideal world – personally. Treat the most pressing triggers immediately.

3. Prioritize your channels

Much like assessing the value and urgency of triggers, it’s important to do the same for your channels. To manage an omnichannel presence wisely – and reach customers and prospects from multiple angles without wrecking your budget – it’s vital for marketing teams to understand and utilize channels against business opportunities and objectives. For instance, consumers conducting early-stage product shopping may be best nurtured via programmatic display and paid social, while those indicating greater intent could be effectively reached by direct mail with the support of email and other digital channels. Of course, these aren’t hard and fast rules, but assessing your channel mix is vital to delivering an effective, efficient omnichannel strategy. 

4. Leverage FOMO in your messaging

The fear of missing out, or FOMO, is the sense that you may not have made the best choice, which in banking can translate into tangible – and costly – consequences. Lean into this basic human inclination by developing campaign creative that creates a question mark, prompting consumers to wonder if they are getting the best rate or lowest fees. Not only will it nudge prospects to give your bank a chance, but it may also expedite their customer journey by turning dissatisfaction into a viable proposition.

One word of caution as it relates to messaging around life event triggers: Make your messaging targeted, but not intrusive. Getting too specific can make consumers feel big brother is looking over their shoulder. Aim for relevance (e.g., “We’re here for you through life’s stages”), rather than creepiness (e.g., “Congratulations on your pregnancy!”).

5. Drive alignment

A strong bank brand is built on consumer touchpoints that consistently ladder up to your core principles and mission. Therefore, as with any marketing strategy, before you deploy, take a step back to ensure your trigger campaigns and use of data are couched within the context of your brand identity. 

Team alignment matters, too. The speed and responsiveness of trigger campaigns requires credit and marketing teams to work in lockstep, with processes in place to ensure offers in the field sync with your bank’s current credit policy.

6. Monitor your metrics

Not only does trigger marketing give you insights to consumer behaviors and trends, but it’s also far more quantifiable than most other campaign types, making it the darling of CMOs and CFOs alike. The ability to drill down into conversion and revenue metrics based on consumer and business trigger types allows you to make quick adjustments and fine-tune your strategy, which in turn should improve your ROI.