During the pandemic, banks were like the Oprah of loans. Instead of you get a car, it was you get a loan, you get a loan, you get a loan! 

Loans were going crazy because of the low rates. But now, post-pandemic, the economy has shifted, rates are on their way up, and loan growth is on its way down. The pipeline is shrinking, and banks are hungry for deposit growth. 

It’s a race to the finish line because, in the banking world, you want to grow deposits quickly before a potential recession hits or interest rates rise and impact business. 

So where are banks and financial institutions turning to accelerate growing deposits? To marketers. Marketing helps banks ensure that they are attracting new customers, cultivating those relationships, and retaining their business over time. Marketers are also able to act fast to help achieve short-term goals. How? By leveraging marketing automation. 

Bank marketers are using Salesforce Marketing Cloud to make sure every moment in a customer’s relationship counts, including the moment they need a deposit. Here we share ideas based on solutions that have worked in the industry to help you get your quick win deposit generation off the ground, whether you have Marketing Cloud currently or are looking to install it.

Use personalized content to engage customers

If you want to grow deposits, the first question to ask is do you have an evergreen cross-sell program in place? If the answer is no, let’s start there. For banks in this situation, we see two key concerns: Do they need to have a “next best product” model? And what do they do if they have some programs in place that are not evergreen? 

Let’s address the first question: Do you need a “next best product” model? The answer is no, this can start very simple. First, creating a simple segmentation algorithm for each product is easy. Let’s take a savings account for example. Usually, you know if the customer has a current savings account or not, and if that same customer has a checking account. If you only have those two data points you can use that to set up simple savings cross-sell. 

It would be great to have a sophisticated model, but we know that 45-55% of customers with a checking account also have savings with that same bank, so it makes a lot of sense as a good place to start. Then from here, you can make slow tweaks to your algorithm over time, which will help you better understand the improvements it makes. 

Now let’s talk about the second question: I already run some programs, what is the difference? A few things to call out here. Generally, those are not automated, so it takes a lot of work to create those campaigns. These are usually reactive, so you have a longer time to value on your campaigns. 

What do you get out of an evergreen program? Consistent data to measure against and a better understanding of the interests of your clients to better personalize current offerings. You also have some upfront work to then help you gain massive productivity gains later on. This also gives you better predictability with your volumes and helps with your sales team’s follow-up because you don’t always have to communicate about the new campaign when it is always on.

Develop a content strategy based on intent

One other way to drive deposits for both the long term and short term is to make sure you have content that covers your deposit funnel so you can better understand your customers and where they are in the funnel. Let’s take a look at an example.

Let’s say you are starting a deposit campaign. When thinking about the content, look at current data to help drive where you might want to understand our customers. You can then create content that covers your buying cycle or different types of customers, such as rate shoppers vs. long-term savers. 

Now with Marketing Cloud, you can make customers feel that your bank completely understands their needs. Rather than have static web pages with the same offers for every prospect, your website can show a specific home page image or content based on that customer’s past page view history or past services. Email messages can adapt with recommendations based on a customer’s latest actions, product purchases, or browsing history.

This data can also be used by your sales teams, so when you’re running these journeys, it is critical that you have a strong alignment between marketing and sales. Since Marketing Cloud links to your CRM, once you have a customer at a particular point, your sales team can reach out with an email or phone call. Otherwise, the deposit growth initiatives are happening in silos, and different tactics can cause customer confusion.

Leverage the transactions data gold mine

A huge bonus for financial institutions is that they are sitting on a large amount of robust customer data. Every single transaction, money in and out, and other data indicators can be used to understand better if customers seek to grow deposits. 

For example, looking at a checking account and seeing a customer has an influx of thousands of dollars in the last three months. They might be a prime target for a savings account because they may want to siphon off some of that cash for savings.  

The inverse is also helpful. You may see a customer moving money from your bank to a competing bank. Then it’s time to look for ways to develop a better relationship with that customer and retain their business as the primary bank. 

Marketing Cloud helps banks look for signs of transactions going in and out and to understand how those signs can be leveraged. Customer data is segmented, and personalized content is served up for that customer’s specific needs to deliver them value.

Transactions also come in the form of engagement with your website. Marketing Cloud Personalization collects customer data on several factors, including time spent on site, actions, purchases, browsing history, and many others. That data helps you understand every customer with a single source of truth and benefit from: 

• Automatically connecting all your data in real-time: Reach faster time to value with real-time data unification across Salesforce and beyond. Reconcile identities and gain a complete view of each customer.
• Building intelligent real-time audiences faster: Make every engagement personalized, cost-efficient, and scalable across email, mobile, web, and advertising with automation.
• Act on real-time data and insights: Make better decisions, save time, and lower costs by understanding your customer at any moment through AI-powered intelligence and analytics.

How Silverline helps financial institutions gain deposit dollars

Now is the time to capitalize on Salesforce Marketing Cloud to gain quick wins for deposit dollars before the economy shifts. From strategy and implementation to managed services, Silverline creates a Marketing Cloud solution that will grow your deposits and your organization. Find out how we can help your company with Marketing Cloud engagement and personalization.