customer communications commercial banking

To excite prospects and customers about your products, services and brand, you first need to attract their interest. If your current communications aren’t achieving the desired response, try these top five approaches for engaging commercial bank customers.

1. Make it about the customer, not you

Even if your offering is the best on the planet, customers won’t care if they don’t know how it will help. That’s why it’s essential to speak directly to customers’ needs and concerns. You’re more likely to connect when you:

• Grab attention with a headline that says what’s in it for them – in other words, lead with the win.
• Reach out with an image they can relate to.
• Tell a story that shows how you’re responding to their needs.

Find out how one company humanized its customer communications.

2. Use a warm and engaging tone

“Advertising campaigns with purely emotional content performed about twice as well as those with only rational content.”
(Source: Florent and Neuromarketing)

Behind every business customer is a human being. That’s why speaking formally and using technical language is not a winning strategy. Emotion is a powerful connector and you can evoke it through the images, colors, design, and language you use. Give your bank customers a reason to care. Address their concerns, show how you support their goals, and include engaging questions. And make sure the tone you create is helpful and motivating.

Responding to a negative experience? Here’s a 3-tiered strategy to turn negatives into positives.

3. Meet customers on the channels they prefer – online, mobile and social media

“Emails that display incorrectly on mobile may be deleted within three seconds. (Campaign Monitor, 2018)”
(Source: Hubspot)

Is your digital strategy ready for today’s viewers? That means your campaigns are designed to display well online and in mobile. Create an effective multi-channel design by grouping topics in modules and include social links for easy sharing. Your words matter too – make sure to build in engagement and spark conversations. It’s easy to leverage the content you create by re-purposing your banner images and headlines for social media.

4. Add visual appeal

Looking for a key way to bump up engagement? It’s simple – add visual appeal. You can do that with upbeat images and icons that are right for your business. Gain attention with headlines that resonate with your audience, then streamline your copy to more clearly convey the story and key takeaways.

5. Provide a distinctive brand experience

“Brands are built through the consistency of the brand promise through all stakeholder touch points.”
(Source: Why Consistency is the Key to Successful Branding)

Would banking prospects and customers recognize your brand across all business units and communication channels? It helps to create templates that drive a consistent look and feel for content and visuals. You can also provide clear guidelines to standardize layouts and design elements, such as menus, headers, and visuals.

Another approach is to create customer communities to break-up silos. This helps align the priorities of both functional groups (sales, marketing, service) and business units by engaging the entire organization in a community strategy.