Business banking relationships are important, not only for the revenue they generate, but because they can lead to personal banking relationships with business owners and their employees.
WordCom offers marketing programs for the two most important categories of business banking.
BUSINESS CHECKING
Every business needs a checking account, even small or in-home businesses. These are low-cost deposit accounts that can produce more income than the typical personal checking account.
WordCom recommends that we begin a business checking campaign by first examining your current business accountholders who do not have business checking with your financial institution. Next, we examine your branches’ footprints, looking for local businesses that would make excellent prospects.
Businesses can also be selected by industry type, zip code, or sales volume (small, medium, larger businesses) in your area.
Promotions can be personalized with name, phone, email and other information. Both postal mail and telemarketing can be used to reach prospects.
Whatever form the message takes, your current customers should have their relationship with your financial institution acknowledged.
All communications need to be brief and specific because business owners have only moments to initially examine your offer and decide if they’re interested. To make the most impact, the marketing message should be repeated regularly during the year.
COMMERCIAL LOANS/CREDIT LINES
It’s possible that a single commercial loan can generate more revenue for your financial institution than a group of consumer loans, so it makes economic sense to prospect for new business loan/credit line customers.
Besides the dollar amount of the average commercial loan, commercial credit lines tend to be used more than personal lines. Your rate of idle credit lines is likely much lower for business accounts.
Your current business customers are the best prospects for commercial loans/credit lines, but you certainly should also promote your products to other business owners.
As with business checking accounts, your marketing campaign can focus on specifics like proximity to branches, sales volume, employee size, credit ratings, and type of business. Market areas can be assigned to specific calling officers by zip code (or other geography) and their name/phone/email info can be used in the mailings. We recommend an ongoing mail/telemarketing program because opportunities for loans change for each business owner over time.
ALL BUSINESS PROMOTIONS
Whatever business product or service you offer, understand that the response rate will be lower for business promotions than you may be experiencing with retail marketing campaigns. However, in the case of commercial loans, one account opening could pay for an entire campaign. Business accounts can also generate more usage fee income than retail accounts, which offsets lower response rates.
WordCom also recommends a business account promotion (like a buckslip/insert) used within a retail marketing campaign. This method reaches business owners in their homes and avoids the “gatekeeper” effect in some businesses.
For complete information about how WordCom business product promotions can help your financial institution, get in touch with us for recommendations. Also, view our Case Study for more.