subject: Using Your Website To Engage Customers [print this page] A financial institution's success can be dependent on how well it takes advantage of marketing through its website. Incentive marketing isn't simply offering your clients gifts, though it is the first things you think when someone mentions bank incentives. There are quite a few other ways you might invest in your website and make it one of the best ways to market your bank.
For those who don't feel their website directly affects their business,answer these questions:
How can you compete with:
* 24/7 service
* Expansion outside the actual physical construction
* Lending of POS
* Management of customers purchasing cycles
* Being able to open accounts anytime, from anywhere?
* Customer service on demand
* Secure communication?
* Automated cross-sales
In the end, the only way you can compete with all of this is to include your website in your marketing plans and keep up with trends. Incentive marketing is offering your customers something in exchange for their business. The incentive itself is up to the bank or credit union. Most people will value financial help or advice more than they might a small trinket or gadget, and you can use financial education as a major part of your website and bank marketing plans.
Websites that Educate
If you've chosen a professional incentive marketing company, they'll be able to provide you with a custom financial education site branded to your institution. This will focus on bringing you leads and will be developed as a site secondary to your core site. You would own the site and the material created by the company, so the property is your responsibility, though the company will assist you in most changes and updates that need to be done.
Your marketing plan would then include this website, which should offer user-friendly and creative options for your clients and potentials to gain the information they need on matters of finance. This site will be completely integrated with all that you want, providing everything your users need to get the most of the new site.
Besides being a huge boost to public relations, incentive marketing in this manner can accomplish the following:
* Generate quality leads for your staff by targeting your potential clients' specific interests and then connecting the visitors with those who handle that area of your business.
* Assist in retaining existing customers by giving them a wide range of user-friendly resource for financial knowledge and tools without the need to leave your site. A bank marketing strategy that includes this gives clients resources like financial calculators, financial content, quizzes, common questions, a definition of terms and more.
The pieces of information and tools that are available in your website are the incentive itself in this kind of incentive marketing. It can be crafted to persuade a client to register and log in using their account number or a particular code sent to them when they confirm that they are a client or possible client. Several parts of your website should still be available for the public to view, but there should be content that would only be accessible by a select group such as customers or prospective clients. This type of bank marketing can make a big difference in generating referrals through word of mouth, giving your business more benefits.
