Consumers have many choices when it comes to making payments; so how do you ensure your institution’s card is top of wallet? This was the question up for discussion in a recent American Banker seminar.
Until recently, influencing a consumer’s choice of card at the moment of purchase was a very hard task requiring the card issuer to overcome the very human tendency to choose the same card time and again. Traditionally, banks and financial services companies have used email and direct mail to influence card choice, but have seen a drop in effectiveness in our highly mobile society.
Where some financial institutions had tried to leverage new marketing tech tools to influence the choice, what they often found was that incentives were being delivered to the consumer’s mobile device at the wrong time, or in the wrong place, or requiring a specific set of unique circumstances to align in order for the offer to be delivered and received.
For example, to receive a targeted offer, a consumer has to have their phone available, but not necessarily in use. But what happens if the user is texting while checking out? Or, what happens if they’ve elected to use their phone as the payment source? In both cases, a targeted offer to incentivize payment card choice has been negated.
But for Pitney Bowes experts, Tim McKenzie, General Manager, Big Data Solutions and Chuck Kane, Managing Director, Single Customer View, these objections and other annoyances can be overcome by turning to the latest geo-fencing technology and a sound understanding of geo-fencing best practices. Geo-fencing technology, sometimes called geo-targeting, makes mobile marketing platforms more effective by precisely pinpointing the moment the consumer is likely to make a purchase and deliver relevant incentives within a defined geographic area.
During the seminar McKenzie and Kane discussed how marketers at financial institutions can specifically target customers as they enter a mall parking lot or retail store to ensure they are empowered with a relevant offer to influence the choice of card before the point of sale or purchase. Moreover, the experts shared tips to influence card choice at by delivering mealtime alerts for specials at nearby restaurants.
In today’s competitive financial arena being able tech tools like geo-fencing has far reaching benefits. On the consumer side by engaging tech-savvy cardholders in the store, it’s likely you’ll also be driving their choice of card in their digital wallet and automatically increasing the number of card transactions. Behind the scenes the analytics gathered from geo-fencing campaigns brings another layer of understanding to behavioral models to help target messaging and marketing campaigns, and deepen merchant partnerships, ensuring mutual long-term growth both in transaction volume and revenue..
Interested in learning more? Just click the button below to find out how to ensure your organization’s card is always top of mind and top of wallet.
