Exactly “why” have I been handing over my loyalty card each time I go through the checkout?

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Lately, everyone seems to want my opinion. That includes National Geographic Channel and Arbitron Ratings. Your financial institution might take a cue from these national organizations.

I subscribe to a National Geographic Magazine email newsletter and get email updates about programming on the cable channel. In mid-March an email from Nat Geo (as it calls itself on TV) made me “An exclusive invitation to join the National Geographic Channel panel.” This “exclusive community of individuals that all watch the National Geographic Channel” will have the privilege of viewing clips from upcoming shows, evaluating on-air promos, offering their opinions and making suggestions.

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What went wrong?

How could something as simple as a checking account overdraft turn into a potential disaster for many banks and credit unions?

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Goin’ with the green. It’s a way your financial institution can streamline operations, save money, and look good, too.

I wish I’d known this before St. Patrick’s Day. Going green would have made a topical post. On March 24, I read a brief article about a special promotion created by Golden1 Credit Union in Sacramento, from one of the many news sources I scan.

Here’s the basic promotion: The credit union will plant a tree for each member who uses bill pay or signs up for the eBill service. The campaign runs through April. It’s the type of promotion that generates a lot of buzz…good word-of-mouth advertising…and gets picked up by various media outlets. So the credit union benefits by increasing online use, it gets good press, and it does something its members appreciate because it helps us all.

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Because of Reg. E, there are legal and financial reasons for you to contact your bank customers or credit union members and ask if they choose to opt-in to overdraft protection for debit cards.

There’s also a practical (cost) reason why you want to know if they opt-out.

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NSF fees or your customers?

Make the wrong choice and you could end up in a goal trap.

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“You could have some problem or an internal procedure that’s chasing away customers.”

I wrote that sentence for my post, “Why Do Customers Really Leave?” As I was typing the original sentence I remembered a story I heard from our training staff about, not a customer problem, but a problem signing on prospective customers.

We sent mystery shoppers to check the procedures in the office of a client. The client had complained its checking account promotions weren’t opening as many accounts as hoped. The client turned down our request to mystery shop the branches when it joined the ACTON Marketing checking acquisition program, but we took the initiative when we wanted to know why there were unexpected low opening rates.

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Does your bank ask each customer why he or she is closing an account? Does your credit union do the same when a member decides to leave?

What sort of answers to you get?

I think we can agree, this describes a typical situation: An individual comes into the branch and tells someone she wants to close an account. The woman is directed to an account manager. At some point in the process, the account manager says, “Can you tell me why you’re closing your account?” The answer is noted on the paperwork and passed along to whomever it is that reads the reports. (Someone is tracking the answers. Right?)

Did the customer tell the truth? Is she really closing the account because she’s moving out of town?

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I’m shocked!

Until a few minutes ago, I had absolutely no idea that my credit union had provided me with overdraft protection known as “Courtesy Pay.”

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Recently, Advertising Age magazine ran a short article that said public service announcements with an anti-binge drinking message for college students were ineffectual if the messages relied on shame as the incentive to quit. That reminded me, when financial institutions attach shame to one of their banking services it can have a severely negative effect.

That service is also one of the current hot topic issues in banking — NSFs.

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Breaking news!

Last week, Facebook edged out Google as the most visited website in America.

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Frankly, I’m concerned about the lack of bank and credit union advertising in both my local newspaper and the mail.

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Years ago, I worked in the group insurance department of a large insurer where I wrote everything the department needed — underwriting and rates manuals, proposal pages, and of course, sales materials.

One day, I was told we had a new product, group legal insurance. My colleagues and I weren’t invited to the executive meetings where ideas like this one were tossed around, but I think most of the group sales product ideas came solely from the guy who ran the department.

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Hey all you bank marketers…it’s time to crank up the flow of positive news about your industry.

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I was browsing through some old marketing information I stored away and ran across a sales technique that helped hook customers and keep them away from the competition.

The story comes from a veteran real estate agent. On hot summer days, he kept an ice chest packed with quarts of ice cream. When he had a good prospect, but couldn’t quite close the sale, he gave the homebuyers a quart of ice cream.

Ice cream in hand, the prospects had two options. They could dig into the ice cream there at the house, which gave them time to walk around, think about the house, and ask more questions. Or, they could take the ice cream home before it melted. Either way, they wouldn’t immediately go house hunting somewhere else.

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Imagine, there’s a federal regulation that’s confusing people. Who would have guessed?

But it’s true. Regulation E compliance is generating confusing theories and ideas about how it should be handled. I found a few of these myths today in a newsletter from Strunk & Associates, a company that offers overdraft programs to financial organizations. I thought I’d repeat Strunk’s list so you’re aware and aren’t fooled if you hear this misinformation.

Myth 1: A senior regulator in the Midwest is saying you must give the consumer the ability to opt-out of one-time debit card and ATM overdrafts. This is NOT true.

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Breaking news. Based on early consumer responses to a nationwide survey on the topic of overdraft protection, NSF fees, and opt-in, ACTON Market Intelligence has some preliminary results.

Read the press release to find out more.

Is it possible that the relatively new e-mail marketing channel is already being displaced by marketing on social networking sites?

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I saw an advertising campaign from a university that made me wonder…why don’t more financial institutions take advantage of this sort of opportunity?

The TV was tuned to a cable network program and the first commercial to pop up in the break was for the University of Nebraska women’s basketball team. The team just completed an unprecedented 29-0 regular season. Home game attendance shot from hundreds to a packed arena of thousands of fans.

Interest in the team and the program is the highest it’s ever been. This is a gem for any marketer.

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