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Are You An Internet Marketing Failure?
It is not at all uncommon for people to dive into internet marketing with an abundance of expectation, and end up with very little in the way of results. The very nature of ecommerce allows people who have no money, inadequate knowledge, and very...
Financial Planners Publicity and Marketing: Live By The Calendar
The media live by the calendar. Your story pitch might miss the mark with them the first time out, solely because it’s out of whack with the seasonal cycle (obvious examples: just try pitching another tax story on April 16, or offering the media...
Internet Marketing Strategies -- Paying For Traffic
If you've been struggling with your website traffic and your sales aren't what you had hoped, then maybe it's time to start paying for traffic. Pay-per-click Search Engines provide an extremely effective means of obtaining highly targeted traffic...
Niche Internet Marketing Tactics Part I
When it comes to marketing online you need to focus like a lazer. If you try to appeal to a large audience it will be hard to generate a high conversion rate (amount of people buy your product/amount of people that view your site). Maximizing your...
The Mighty Marketing Newsletter
For many companies and organizations, it's a powerful marketing
tool that attracts and retains customers. I'm referring to the
dependable, hard-working newsletter.
On the subject of newsletters, guerilla marketing guru Jay
Conrad Levinson...
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Financial Services Marketing Insights: A Marketing Compass
What we now call “marketing” began long before the name was coined. In the mid-1800s, traveling salesmen dressed “snake oil" and other tonics in fancy packaging and extolled their virtues to a gullible public. New marketing applications soon proliferated in the belief that marketing could make many new things possible in virtually any business situation. For more than a century, implementation, experience and ultimately strategy have helped marketing evolve from crude beginnings into today’s sophisticated practices.
Consumer product firms have been the pioneers in the marketing field and have taken the undisputed lead as the creators of marketing’s best practices. While sophisticated marketing techniques have spawned consumer giants, most financial services firms had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the era of sophisticated marketing.
The Advancing State of Financial Services Marketing Financial services marketing has, however, evolved rapidly over the last decade. As a result, the very nature of the marketing function in financial services firms is undergoing a dramatic modification as more attention is paid to marketing-driven processes that impact the entire firm. Our observations suggest that the more progressive financial services organizations are currently going through an intellectual and practical transition that is forcing the reexamination of the role of marketing within their firms. Many have begun to realize that financial marketing responsibilities include not only developing the firm’s mission statement and key messages, but also defining its business focus, relevant differentiation, competitive advantages and value proposition.
At the same time, however, a number of financial services marketing directors must engage in long-term turf battles with other departments before they can implement worthy financial marketing initiatives that will help accelerate the achievement of corporate goals. In many financial organizations, the persistent problem of differentiating financial marketing from sales still remains largely unresolved. In addition, some financial services marketing directors must still enlist substantial management support just to maintain equilibrium and obtain the opportunity to accomplish even limited objectives.
Focusing on the Customer
Peter Drucker, a sage of the financial marketing discipline, discussed customer defined value
almost 50 years ago. During the last decade his concept of a customer-centric focus has become part of popular marketing literature and is now the guiding principle of financial marketing. Drucker’s fundamental mandate that ‘the customer’s interests must come first’ can be summarized by the following statements paraphrased from his extensive writings: * The only valid definition of business purpose is to create a customer. * What the business thinks it is producing is not as important as what customers think they are buying; what customers consider to be value is decisive. * Every business has only two basic functions: marketing and innovation. * Marketing is your whole business as seen from the customer’s point of view.
While easy to articulate, customer-centric practices are difficult to implement in most financial services organizations. Obstacles include a prevailing product-push mentality, a focus on short-term profitability, under-investment in financial marketing activities, and the lack of solid market intelligence about the needs and wants of target markets. We believe, however, that in the future the most successful financial services marketing organizations will be those that make Drucker’s principles their own through extrapolation, adaptation and creative application. As effective financial marketing evolves to a cross-functional, multi-disciplinary activity, successful firms will create a culture of customer orientation throughout the organization and incorporate advocacy for customer welfare in all corporate decision-making.
With the financial services industry currently going through a transformation, management’s challenge is to provide the leadership to displace the status quo and create a culture of opportunity. Early adaptors who apply the concept of “integrated marketing” on an organization-wide basis will not only develop a customer-orientated culture, but also create opportunities for innovation, improved performance and incremental profitability.
About the Author
Mr. Jay Nagdeman is the Founder and President of Suasion Resources. Mr. Nagdeman has served as Director of Marketing in financial services firms, as a contributing editor for Barron’s and has taught at the business school of the University of Chicago. Copyright © 2004 Suasion Resources Inc. All rights reserved. For additional information, please visit us online at www.suasionresources.com.
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KnowThis: For Marketing, Market Research, Internet Marketing ... |
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Marketing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
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Marketing.org - Home of the Business Marketing Association |
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Welcome - American Marketing Association - www.marketingpower.com |
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Advertising, Marketing, Media and PR News - Brand Republic |
Find the latest Advertising, Marketing, Media and PR news from Brand Republic, the online resource for up to the minute advertising and marketing news and ... |
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Marketing Magazine - Marketing News - Brand Republic |
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BidVertiser - Pay Per Click Advertising On Sites Of Your Choice. |
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Online Behavioral Contextual Advertising and Marketing. |
Promote your business with today's most effective online advertising technology, contextual advertising at a cost effective metric of CPC, PPC, CPM or CPV. |
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Sales Jobs / Marketing Jobs / Advertising Jobs - MarketingJobs.com |
Employment site for marketing and sales professionals. |
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The Chartered Institute of Marketing |
The Chartered Institute of Marketing is the world's largest international marketing professional body and helps with career support and information ... |
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Marketing: See what people are saying right now on Technorati |
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Marketing Profs - Marketing Concepts and Strategies: Expert ... |
Marketing knowhow from professionals. Newsletter, articles and how-to's. |
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Guerrilla Marketing Online - The Official Site |
Guerrilla Marketing Online is anonline magazine for small business, entrepreneurs, sales people and marketers of all kinds. |
www.gmarketing.com |
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Business Marketing - Small Business Marketing |
Business marketing - Read everything your need to know about small business marketing. |
www.entrepreneur.com |
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All About Marketing |
Adapted from Field Guide to Nonprofit Program Design, Marketing and Evaluation ... Inbound Marketing Includes Market Research to Find Out: ... |
www.managementhelp.org |
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Pages tagged with "marketing" on del.icio.us |
USA Network Announces a NASHVILLE STAR Marketing Partnership With ... - Yahoo! ... Direct Marketing Association: Telephone, Mail & Internet Marketing ... |
del.icio.us |
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ClickZ Internet Marketing Solutions for Marketers |
Includes columns with commentary and analysis on a wide variety of internet marketing subjects ranging from B2B marketing to search engine marketing. |
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Direct Marketing Association: Telephone, Mail & Internet Marketing |
Trade association for users and suppliers in the direct, database and interactive marketing fields, offering seminars and resources, and lobbying for ... |
www.the-dma.org |
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