Paging through the Sunday newspaper, I was surprised to see the incentive being offered by the bank.
One of the most perplexing issues facing bank marketers is whether or not to offer an incentive for opening a new checking account. After all, switching banks is very difficult for most consumers. With rare exception, opening a new checking account signals the customer is switching banks.
First, do incentives work?
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What’s the most important part of a billboard, newspaper ad, direct mail piece, or email marketing message?
It’s definitely the most important part of a blog, newspaper article or online article.
It’s the Headline!
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Typically, when you talk about versions for a marketing campaign, you’re referring to a direct mail campaign. However, the practice can also apply to print ads and even broadcast spots.
For simplicity, let’s assume you have a targeted direct mail marketing campaign and you wonder if or why you should have versions of the mail piece. I’ll give you some examples of when different versions can be used.
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Finally, in Sunday’s newspaper I encountered a credit union ad where the headline offers not one, but two, major benefits.
For the past couple of years, my local credit union has been aggressively marketing its low rate auto loans via several marketing channels including newspaper ads and billboards.
Here’s a typical newspaper ad with a rate-only headline. Read more…
You’re probably wondering why you should read a blog post that tells you how to sabotage your projects. You have people who do that for you. (Sabotage, I mean, not read.)
Well, if you can identify tactics and methods that doom or damage a project, then you can act to prevent them from doing their worst. (And of course, you want your co-workers to read this because they’re the ones who need to see it the most.)
So here are 11 tactics (better than a top 10, less than a dozen) I recommend you avoid…
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I would never use “dirty” words in my sales copy. I’m sure you wouldn’t either. Yet some marketers (or their cronies) seem to have distorted ideas of what words are acceptable in their marketing materials.
Let’s begin by stating a copywriting rule you should follow. Write your promotional copy (and all your customer communications) in a conversational style. After all, you’re supposed to COMMUNICATE your message. Long, obscure words might impress the board members and make you look (allegedly) smart, but they don’t communicate well.
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A teaser or teaser copy is typically the headline you see on direct mail envelopes, postcard fronts, or self-mailer outer panels. The teaser has a vitally important role. It convinces the prospect to read the information in the mail package.
A few of my colleagues had a conversation with some marketers who wanted to eliminate the teaser on an envelope package project. So today, I’ll give you the rationale those people believe and then tell you why you should run in the opposite direction.
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I expect this post will see more than the usual number of hits. Read the headline again and see if you agree. Of course, many of the visitors won’t be financial services marketers and won’t stay to read the entire post.
Joking aside, let’s look at this important marketing topic. The incentive system your financial institution uses can mean the difference between success and failure for your customer acquisition efforts.
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Marketers are sometimes too impatient. I don’t mean they’re impatient to make a sale. That’s the reason for the job — selling. Or in the case of financial services marketers, it’s about opening accounts.
I mean they’re impatient with their advertising. Too quick to toss aside good advertising without a good reason.
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Remember the early video game, Pac Man? The round yellow video creature traveled through the mazes and chomped up everything in its path.
Disclaimer copy is like that, except not as cute and it certainly eats more of your precious ad space. Here’s a prime example in a recent newspaper ad. (Click on the image for a larger view.)
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I’ve never been much of a fan of general media agencies – big or small.
Most of them stay busy cranking out expensive “branding” ads” that leave the consumer scratching his or her head over the message being delivered.
This was reinforced the other day after encountering the most recent full-page magazine ad from Ally Bank.
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The bank featured in last Thursday’s blog ran another newspaper ad in yesterday’s edition of The Sacramento Bee. Fortunately, yesterday’s ad is much different than last week’s ad.
Here’s my question for you.
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The question is in the headline above. The image is below. What’s your guess?
So if I take this self-mailer out of the mailbox, the first thing I see is a dark, blank panel with my address and a financial institution’s logo. Maybe, instead of immediately disregarding the mailer (as many people would), I wonder why someone sent a sales piece to me without attempting to tease me with a product or offer, so I flip over the mailer and scan the headline on the back panel.
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It’s bad enough that most area banks and credit unions have stopped advertising in the local newspapers as a result of steep cuts in the marketing budget.
It’s worse when a local bank or credit union actually runs an ad and immediately ruins it with a horrible headline.
Such is the case with this ad from a local Sacramento-area credit union.
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Want to know the fastest way to ruin your great offer?
Add an asterisk to it!
There’s nothing more disappointing to a consumer looking for a great buy than encountering the dreaded asterisk in the headline, subhead, or body copy.
As singer, songwriter Tom Wait penned in his song “Step Right Up,” appearing on his “Small Change” album, “the large print giveth and the small print taketh away.”
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One of the most egregious marketing errors you can make as it relates to newspaper ads is to get greedy – filling every inch of space with copy and images. It creates an ad that is hard on the eyes and very difficult to read – in fact, most consumers won’t read such an ad.
When it comes to newspaper ad layout, less is more.
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My headline turns out to be a rhetorical question because from what I see, there’s no doubt financial institutions are vigorously pursuing auto loan customers.
In one day, I saw two credit union newsletters. One had an auto loan promotion as it’s front-page article. The second devoted nearly all of page two to car buying and a loan offer. The same day, the daily newspaper ran a half-page ad for auto loans from another credit union (repeated as a smaller ad days later). Regularly, a fourth credit union and a large bank run newsprint ads for auto loans.
Front page of newsletter with auto loan offer.
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I can’t be sure but it’s possible that Ally Bank’s new ad agency has either introduced a new magazine ad format or is simply running a new format up the flag pole to get consumer reaction.
Either way, I’m down with the new ad format I discovered the other day on page 43 in my July 4, 2011 issue of Fortune.
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Members of the marketing team at the local credit union must be on a bad headline binge and are having a difficult time coming down from their high. Between yesterday and this morning I’ve encountered three new headlines being used for the credit union’s long-running low-rate auto loan campaign.
Yesterday while approaching the teller window I noticed a counter sign bearing the headline “quit stalling.” The visual was of a man walking down the middle of an empty highway in the middle of nowhere while holding a gas can. The campaign’s consistent subhead reads “Auto Loan Rates as low as 3.39% APR.”
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Okay, some of you might feel that I’m guilty of beating this headline issue to death. But I don’t feel this way.
Bad headlines have become so pervasive that someone needs to get up on the soapbox and rant and rave about them until the guilty parties see the light and change their ways – if that’s possible.
I hope it is.
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