3 ways data cultivates the brand experience

Brand experience is the sum of all the sensations, thoughts, feelings, and reactions that individuals have in response to a brand. Brand experience is not specific to a channel or media type. Rather, it’s the result — or the lasting impression — that remains after someone encounters or engages with a brand in any environment.¹   The power to influence and direct customer behavior to interact with a brand should all stem from data. Today is an ever-changing fast paced market drowning with competition and increased channels of message delivery, which can leave even the most senior marketing executives at a standstill.

Knowing how the market is pivoting, and how consumers are reacting to these shifts is vital in developing a brand strategy and execution tactics. Enter data analytics.

Data Discovery and Personalization

Data discovery is the first, and the most important aspect of creating a strategy for the overall brand experience. Data, specifically account holder transaction data, can harness growth potential through discovery. An FI is sitting on a wealth of insights – mining this data and discovering the true holistic view and financial stories of account holders will write the narrative to personalization and relevance for an FI’s marketing and messaging strategies.

So, what is “the right data”? Leveraging clean categorized transactional data allows an FI to gain product knowledge, utilization and competitive intelligence on each account holder, providing valuable information on how to connect with these audiences and drive product innovation. Blake Lyons, VP of Marketing and Business Development, Randolph Brooks FCU, said during a recent Segmint Data Jam Session held with a panel of FI and data experts, that, “Innovation resides in that convergence of listening to the account holder, getting your arms around data and understanding the data and being able to make decisions based off of that data.”

Data is the catalyst that fuels personalization. The key is to pair account holder insights with targeted messaging to generate the most effective campaigns.

The Right Message Delivered to the Right Channel

Having the proper message and target market is vital, but knowing where to deliver that message will maximize exposure and engage the target audience in a personalized way. With today’s shift in how consumers are interacting with brands, channel utilization data can provide intelligence on where account holders are consuming the most content, further informing an FI’s strategic interactions.

For example, direct mail can be an effective mass media outlet if a marketer is trying to hit the most people at one time with a branding message – quantity over quality in this case to increase brand awareness, but traditional direct mail messaging may not be relevant to this entire audience.

Data can fix this. By properly leveraging data, FI’s now have the ability to export their ideal audience first, made up of only those who need the particular product or service offer, rather than casting a wider net.

One of the most admired trends in the market is when a brand connects on a personal and emotional level through storytelling. The objective of this tactic can be to sell an idea, product, service, or the brand itself. When storytelling campaigns get in front of the right people at the right time, giving them a glimpse at a storybook outcome they too desire, it maximizes the potential return-on-investment (ROI).

FI’s can find the most success when they utilize their own transactional data to turn insights into relevant messaging such as personalized timely product and service offers to account holders when they’re most likely to need them and adopt them. Personalized messaging based on spending behavior is vital, but also knowing when and where to reach each account holder based on their engagement with each channel can have an incredible campaign ROI impact.

Artificial Intelligence (AI Modeling)

AI is the future and if you’re not using it, you’re already behind. AI in marketing campaigns provides more effective and efficient results. The right AI predictive models dig deep into the financial institution’s full universe of account holder data and analyzes singular moments of their account holders’ lives, the transactions they process, their utilization of products, and their financial patterns. These insights can then be used to predict future behaviors and to identify patterns that make marketing messages more relevant.²

The on-demand approach featured within AI modeling not only makes the marketing message more relevant, but gives the FI a way to be proactive instead of reactive.  Account holders will be appreciative that you know they need a product or a solution before they may even know, hence building a strong connection with the brand.

Data Is Transforming Modern Marketing

Financial institutions must stay at the forefront of what matters most to consumers, and new trends for how to reach them. Data discovery and personalization are the facets of the marketing business that connects us all. Data is providing the connections that drive insights, so marketing teams can create new innovative ideas. Staying on top of data helps companies stay relevant to their account holders and prospective consumers.

¹https://www.widen.com/blog/brand-experience
²https://segmint.com/resources/blog/is-your-ai-model-actionable