The Mass Affluent: An Elusive Bank Target

While targeted by every bank, mass affluent households are difficult for bank marketers to reach. They have a distinct lifestyle from the rest of the nation in terms of media consumption, technology use, financial attitudes and preferences for financial products and services.
 


Representing a sweet spot between the mass market and affluent segment, the mass affluent segment is not homogeneous, but a diverse array of micro segments that differ from each other. To reach this group, new products and services need to be developed, new messaging needs to be used and varied channels need to be leveraged.


Three recent studies help to shed light on the opportunities and challenges presented by this highly sought after segment.

According to Nielsen, the mass affluent segment consists of more than 13 million households and represents approximately 11 percent of all U.S. households. The segment is defined as having income producing assets between $250,000 and $1M (excluding real estate) and an average household income of $105,000 in 2011. This income is more than 50 percent higher than the national average household income of $62,912. In depth analysis also shows a high correlation between income and assets for targeting purposes.

Marketers Not Aligned With Consumer Marketing Channel Preferences

Technology is rapidly changing the way consumers interact. We wake up each day to a barrage of messages coming from both traditional and new media. We check our Facebook posts and text messages at the same time we watch television, read the newspaper, listen to the radio or conduct work online. 

Marketers have long recognized the shifts in media consumption that are redefining how customers absorb information and offers. However, recent studies indicate that marketers may not be in total alignment with consumers as to how the new media is consumed and their degree of reliance on various media for making buying decisions.

A new research study by Acxiom entitled, Tug of Love: The Changing Relationship Between Consumers and Brands found that more than four in five people (82%) believed they were in control of the relationship between themselves and their brands (with 'control' being defined as receiving the information they desire, when and through the media they want). This was more than 50% higher than marketers thought, indicating that 'push' broadcast marketing is quickly being replaced with 'pull' marketing where the individual is in charge of message consumption.

IAB Study Discusses Optimal Marketing Channel Allocation

Gone are the days of the Mad Men, when the marketing channels were limited and mass media was king. Today, there are more marketing channel options available and the attention of the consumer is more difficult than ever to capture.

As a result of this fragmented marketing mix, measuring the effectiveness of media spend and optimizing this spend is more complicated than ever. In fact, with the interactive channels (including social media) playing a vastly increasing role in establishing brand and product presence, and with tools like the DVR giving the consumer more control over their consumption patterns, the need to understand how to allocate budgets across marketing vehicles has never been more important.

Be Careful of 'Mental Opt-Out' With Email Marketing

For those who read my Blog, you know that I feel strongly that the email channel is significantly underutilized by the banking industry. Not only do marketers not effectively leverage this channel in conjunction with other direct and mass marketing options, most banks do a terrible job at even collecting email addresses in the first place.

Unfortunately, for those who have begun to use email marketing in support of customer communication efforts, some have gone to the opposite extreme by viewing email as a 'free' marketing tool without giving adequate thought to the importance of relevancy. As many realize in their daily scanning of their email in box, overusing the email channel can have a detrimental effect of the value of this channel and negatively impacting the overall customer experience.

Banks Can Accelerate Revenue Growth by Managing Digital Experience

According to the March issue of the McKinsey Quarterly, digital channels can assist companies in unifying the customer experience and help move customers from interest to loyalty. In the article, "Four Ways to Get More Value From Digital Marketing", David C. Edelman discusses how companies can increase revenues through a better coordination of the digital end-to-end experience (see exhibit).

By focusing on the capture of a larger amount of Internet traffic through improved mass media key word positioning and SEO, increasing customer engagement through easy to navigate sites and targeted messaging, converting more of the digital leads to sales with strong offers and building digital loyalty through online and offline channels, revenues can be optimized.

Chase Uses Safety Message to Promote Signature Debit

Chase Bank has recently reached out to their converted WAMU customers who are receiving a newly branded debit card asking them to "always select 'credit'" when paying for their debit card transactions, stating that the transaction is actually safer than entering a PIN.

The slightly confusing message has not gone unnoticed by industry experts who have come out on both sides of the argument around safety. According to an article in the April 21 edition of American Banker, consultants from Gartner and Aite believe that the PIN provides an added level of security, and that the Chase message may be driven more by the opportunity to generate the higher interchange income associated with a signature based transaction as opposed to a PIN transaction.