Keep your customers in a vault

Banks spend an impressive amount of money on television advertising in an attempt to lure people away from their competitors. But is that the best way for them to spend it? Shouldn't they spend more money on holding onto their current customers. The majority of my bank accounts and various investments accounts are with a specific bank, why aren't they working harder to maintain my relationship with them? Instead I see other banks offering me pretty good incentives to move to them. All I receive from my bank are statements and untargetted offers to use their rewards shop.

The other banks are offering me the simplest things to win me over, such as no fees for pulling cash out of ATMs that aren't theirs. I do that a couple of times a month probably amounting to costs of $3-5. My bank could offer me the same thing and keep a heavily invested client happy.

For a cost of $3-5 a month, that sounds like a no-brainer. How can a business full of financial minds say no to retaining a client for $60 a year? They will easily make that back off fees within the first month.

For an industry that is entrusted with peoples life savings you'd think they would have a higher emphasis on client retention, but they seem to be more interested in client acquisition. Its the standard marketing rule - generating a new customer is "x" times more expensive that retaining one you've already sold.

What are your competitors offering your clients that you could easily offer them yourselves to ensure they stay with you? That's what you should be asking yourself.

Dear (you),.....

There is something to be said for customization and personalization of marketing pieces these days. Especially for companies that you are currently a customer with who have no excuse to not personalize something.

This rings true for TD Canada Trust. I do most of my banking with them and I have for a while. They are great. They have friendly staff when I go in to a branch and their online banking system hasn't given me any problems so far. I also have a Visa card through them, a rewards card to be more exact....a travel rewards card (TD Infinite Visa Rewards Travel Card I believe is the longwinded title of it). I love it, and they have a pretty good Travel Rewards website that lets you book travel, research flights, etc. All signs point to great. In fact, I just booked a flight and car rental through them recently.

Then this morning I got an email newsletter from them, I hadn't opted in to receive it but no big deal, they are technically my travel agent after all and if they have deals then i'll look at them of course.

Jamaica for $500 + taxes! What a deal!

Oh it's only leaving from Toronto. Next.

Mayan Riviera for $430 + taxes! Wow, another great deal!

Wait, it leaves from Calgary. Useless.

I live in Vancouver, and if anyone knows this it is my bank and my credit card company. They know my address, they know the exact apartment I live in. I know they know this because they send me bills and statements. So why would you waste your time and mine showing off amazing deals that fly out of cities i'm nowhere near???

That just comes down to bad marketing execution and bad use of your database resources. And we had such a good thing going!