Strengthening Relationships with Financial Services Marketing

Maintaining strong relationships with account holders has never been more important in financial services marketing. According to Alkami’s 2024 Telemetry Data Report The High Interest Rate Environment and its Impact on Consumers and Financial Institutions, sixty-seven percent of digital banking Americans say the rising interest rate environment has had a significant impact on their standard of living and 59% are living paycheck to paycheck.

Financial institutions have a valuable asset: a wealth of transaction data that can be used to strengthen account holder relationships. However, turning this data into actionable insights can be a significant challenge. Core systems often make it difficult to extract meaningful reports, and information frequently gets siloed within departments. Leaders must find ways to leverage internal data to increase profitability, and build institutional loyalty.

Here are four financial services marketing strategies to help financial institutions make better use of their data, stay competitive, and build stronger relationships with their account holders.

1. Leverage Transaction Data Cleansing

Transaction data cleansing is a critical tool that allows financial institutions to better understand behaviors and model spend patterns through account holder transaction analysis. Account holders’ transaction data is essential for understanding their priorities in life. Financial institutions should use these indispensable insights to create experiences and offerings that enhance loyalty. However, raw transaction data is just a jumble of numbers and letters. The first step is transaction data cleansing, which: 

• Provides easy-to-read transaction descriptions for online banking users.
• Reduces call center demand and costs.
• Elevates artificial intelligence-powered chatbot performance.
• Improves the ability to deliver more relevant interactions, increasing product adoption, user satisfaction, and engagement.

In the long term, financial institutions can use clean transaction data to build predictive models for account holder behavior. AI predictive modeling can help financial institutions respond proactively to account holder needs and deliver experiences that drive engagement. For example, financial wellness models can identify users who may be experiencing financial stress before it becomes a significant issue, allowing for efficient and targeted outreach.

2. Use Unified Digital Banking Solutions

Transferring large volumes of transaction data to a third party for cleansing increases both cost and security risk for financial institutions. A more prudent approach is to use a cloud-based application for transaction data cleansing that eliminates the need to move data between systems. By keeping data within the cloud environment, personal identifiable information (PII) is always protected. 

This data infrastructure not only ensures security but also provides seamless access to transaction enrichment solutions, saving both time and money. By leveraging unified digital banking solutions, financial institutions can cleanse, contextualize, store, analyze, and act on their account holders’ data efficiently.

Moreover, incorporating a digital banking solution that includes data and marketing capabilities is a significant advantage in financial services marketing because it enables more personalized and effective marketing campaigns, turning the platform into a sales and service channel. 

3. Strengthen Data Security

Financial institutions often partner with third parties for various operations like marketing automation and call center services. However, account holder data includes PII that requires special protection under data security regulations. Therefore, financial institutions must find a way to make account holder data accessible and shareable while still meeting compliance standards.

Tokenization is a valuable data security strategy for this purpose. It assigns a data value, or token, to replace sensitive account holder information within a digital environment. This token can then be used by authorized third parties without exposing PII. This approach allows financial institutions to collaborate with various fintech vendors while continuously protecting account holder information.

4. Automate Marketing Delivery

The value of data lies in the ability to connect with account holders in meaningful ways. To do this efficiently, financial institutions need to take the insights gained from transaction data cleansing and integrate that data with a turnkey email marketing solution. This approach ensures highly targeted and relevant messaging, which is crucial in financial services marketing. Digital use cases can accelerate revenue generation for both existing account holders and new user acquisition campaigns.

Automating marketing delivery increases the ability to build quick, on-demand campaigns, improving efficiency and delivering a high-conversion form of digital marketing. For instance, spend analysis might reveal that an account holder has started making mortgage payments to a competing financial institution. A marketing integration could assist marketers to target the account holder with a relevant refinancing offer. Similarly, if individuals are identified as outdoor enthusiasts based on their purchase history, marketing materials can be tailored to reflect those interests, creating a stronger connection with account holders.

The key is aligning data insights with marketing automation to deliver experiences that are compelling, timely, and relevant. By pairing marketing automation with digital banking solutions, financial institutions can target their account holders with personalized engagements and offers directly within the financial institution’s mobile banking app. This strategy enhances account holder engagement and drives better financial outcomes for both the institution and its account holders.

Turn Actionable Data and Insights into a Relationship Builder

Financial services marketing leaders need to find ways to build loyalty to stay top-of-mind and top-of-wallet. Establishing primacy and maintaining strong relationships with account holders requires a strategy baked with flexibility. Rising interest rates add pressure on both consumers and financial institutions, making effective data usage critical. By cleansing and enriching transaction data, strengthening data security, and automating marketing delivery, financial institutions will be empowered to achieve their institution’s strategic goals.

Learn how Alkami’s financial services marketing can help you navigate the high interest rate environment.