Because of tradition, we tier our deposit accounts according to size. For a typical bank, their money market accounts often have six tiers ranging from $2,000 up to $100,000. The question that always comes up is - do you have the right tiers and the right number of tiers? Are you using your tiers to drive profit giving low rates or are your tiers just serving to confuse your customer and drive up operational cost?
Hopefully, your bank has pulled all your advertising and major marketing campaigns around products for the months of November and December as those two months are the most ineffective to promote bank products. Not only are people and businesses distracted during those times, but banks have to compete against a barrage of other advertising and marketing messages from retailers. Given higher advertising prices and lower response rates, December and November, respectively, are the two worst months for marketing return on investment.
Since we have suggested a Summer and a Winter customer acquisition promotion in the last couple weeks, of course several bankers wanted a suggestion for Fall. As such, we will let you in on our best innovative idea of what we are working on. This idea has not been done by banks so you could be the first in your area.
Last week we ran a blog with the concept on an idea for a new relationship account and a New Year’s countdown promotion to go with it (HERE). In response, many bankers asked our ideas for a summer promotion to gain new customers.
As many of you heard, Charles Barkley got into a verbal battle with the General Manager for the Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey, last week. The money quote was Sir Charles’ Luddite-like statement that Morey is “one of those idiots who believes in analytics.” Part of that is Charles being Charles, but part of that is the all-too-common fear of the unknown and fear of anything new. Barkley should know that 75% of the NBA teams not only believe in analytics but have full-time statisticians on staff.
When it comes to giving advice on saving money on college, our first advice is pick a college with a long name.You want to avoid schools with names like “Harvard,” “Duke” or anything with well-known initials, and suggest colleges like “West Oakdale Community College For The Commercial Transportation Arts.” For that matter, if essays are involved, you should probably suggest skipping it, as you want to look for a one-page application where three quarters of the page is focused on the utilization of how to use major credit cards. If the above advice doesn’t work out, we can
It is a testament to your marketing when your bank’s promotion is traded in the secondary market. Chase is currently offering a $200 bonus when you open a savings account with $15,000 or more (for 90 days minimum) of money not already at the bank.
While a $200 cash bonus for a new account is on the high side of deposit account cash promotions, it is not unheard of. What is different is that Chase correctly chose to do this with a targeted mailed coupon instead of an open offer, as most banks would have done.
