Social networks have started the formal migration towards being enterprise social networks – online forums that we use in our professional, as well as our personal lives. The founder of social network Family Bhive, Caroline Garnham, discusses how old ways of marketing may be falling by the wayside and the benefits of online platforms.
A well-known city bank has written to its clients with under £100,000 on deposit, asking them to take their money elsewhere.
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Although many banks recognise that 80% of their clients contribute to only 20% of the profits, only a few go as far as asking existing clients to leave.
Strategies change
However, with increasing costs of compliance and difficult market conditions all banks are looking at ways to improve profits and cut costs, which means reviewing their marketing strategy.
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By GlobalDataThe majority are looking first at their target market; identifying those 20% of clients who contribute towards the 80% of profits.
They want to know who they are, where they came from, what marketing methods are working and which are ineffective.
I have been researching banks as well as other wealth advisers with the aim of re-launching Family Bhive, an online marketing platform for the businesses which serve the ultra high net worth (UHNW) community.
My findings have been surprising and in some cases shocking.
There are four ways wealth advisers market their services: referrals from networks; referrals from other parts of the organisation, referrals from satisfied customers and business to consumer marketing.
Cutting down on waste
There is much money wasted trying to get referral business from networks, because it revolves around face to face meetings.
If the target market is international these costs escalate; expensive air flights, hotel bills and foreign entertaining.
Even then, you are probably chasing the same contacts as your competition and in some cases these could be your colleagues.
How much more efficient to use an online marketing platform, in this case Family Bhive, on which you can connect with non-competing corporate partners with the same target market, same values, and same brand exclusivity who are in your hive.
Each member of the hive can then keep up to date with each other’s news and views online, without having to meet so frequently. And when they do meet, the conversation very naturally and easily turns to business.
Events exclusive to your hive can be promoted online so that you can be sure that only your target network attends. This co-ordinated approach is low cost, time efficient and measurable.
Divided beehive
I recently visited a large bank which spends millions on brand awareness, but did their target audience know in any detail what services they provided?
Certainly, employees on the third floor knew very little about what their colleagues did on the fifth floor despite the fact that they shared the same target market.
Rather than spending the full allocation of the advertising budget on business to consumer marketing, the bank could consider encouraging each department and office to promote their services and products online.
This is easily done on a marketing platform, by simply asking your colleagues to join your hive and ‘follow’ each other online.
Clients already familiar with the bank are much more inclined to work with other departments. The lead is already warm.
This inclusion of your colleagues in your hive breaks across silos and maximises revenue from existing clients. And the effectiveness of this approach can be measured.
Satisfied clients sell
Satisfied client referral is the third marketing method.
UHNW clients want three things from their wealth adviser: exclusivity, privacy and service.
They want to know that they can always get hold of their adviser, their confidential information is kept private and their adviser anticipates their needs and requirements with helpful suggestions.
To provide a good service it is necessary to be well informed, which is where aggregating online platforms for the businesses which serve the UHNW community can work well.
Consumer marketing crumbles?
The fourth route to market is business to consumer marketing: advertising, social media and public relations.
In most cases this provides poor returns as it is poorly targeted.
Marketing platforms such as Family Bhive are not restricted to businesses as corporate partners; the UHNW individual members can also join.
They want to ‘follow’ their favourite brands online in one place at the same time, which should include their bank.
In this way they can keep up-to-date with the news and views of their hive on their ‘home page’ 24/7.
Furthermore if they are prepared to ask their professional adviser to verify their wealth profile: in excess of £5m, in excess of £20m, and in excess of £100m, they can gain access to exclusive events, where they can meet others of a similar wealth profile.
This member segmentation is also of great interest to the luxury lifestyle industry, and makes the platform of even greater interest to the UHNW community
And finally, if you complement your existing marketing with an online presence, you can see what and who is working and make adjustments accordingly.
Objective measurements can drive cost cutting in the sure knowledge that the costs cut will not reduce the effectiveness of your marketing.
These sensible cutting of costs can then be spent in incentivising, through clearly justified and affordable bonuses and promotions, your successful employees.
