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There is no one perfect time of year for financial marketers to craft relevant and timely campaigns to account holders – but if there were one, the holiday season would be it!
An offer for a personal loan to make the holidays brighter, a balance-transfer credit card to pay down debt, or a home equity line of credit (HELOC) to update a bathroom just in time for holiday guests, would be most welcome at this time of year.
The key? Utilizing internal data caches and your existing martech tools to deliver targeted offers to account holders who need it most, on the channels you already own or pay for (your website, your mobile app, your teller lines, and your email platform).
Here are seven examples of how financial institutions did just that, making the holidays a little sweeter for their account holders and their own bottom lines.
Holiday Loans (Consumer Installment Loans)
In mid-November of 2022, a $600M credit union from Iowa featured an offer on their website’s artwork for a holiday loan with a 6.99% APY for 12 months. It was aimed at people who searched the credit union’s website for information on personal loans, or were identified as ideal loan candidates using behavioral data insights from their transactions.
With that careful targeting, campaign impressions (the amount of times a user was shown campaign content) totaled 21,327. It resulted in 565 new loans with a face value of $8,692,127.
Holiday VISA Promo (Consumer Credit Cards)
With a campaign running from Nov. 20 to Dec. 31, 2020, a $1.4B credit union in Michigan offered a Holiday VISA card at 4.9% interest rate. The ads, which ran on the credit union’s public website, online and mobile banking platforms, featured a deep red background color, and the headline “Shop, Save, Rewards” and “4.9%” was featured very prominently. The call to action was “Apply for a Visa Platinum credit card today!”
The audience included those who were already enrolled in online banking, had shown interest or were pre-qualified for a consumer credit card, but did not already have a consumer credit card from the credit union.
Results? Campaign impressions were 144,855. By the end of the campaign, there were 322 members signed up for new cards, with a face value of $495,050.
Other Holiday Loans (Consumer Installment Loans)
Launching on Oct. 25, 2021 , a $200M credit union in North Carolina highlighted their existing loan products on their public website. Their target audience included those who paid less than their full credit card balance per month, and had a qualifying amount of income directly deposited into a consumer account each month, as well as a defined aggregate deposit balance.
Campaign impressions totaled 26,902. New loans sold: 763, with a face value of $2,393,409.
Holiday Consumer Auto Loans
After seeing the success of the holiday loan campaign, that same credit union thought: Why not highlight existing rates and products dealing with auto loans? They created an email campaign that began on Dec. 14 of 2021, targeting members who were identified as auto loan candidates.
This campaign drew 6,780 campaign impressions, and sold 47 new loans with a face value of $1,113,669.
HELOCs to Pay off Holiday Debt
From mid-September to mid-November of 2022, a $37B bank from Oklahoma ran a campaign on the bank’s online and mobile platforms suggesting people can use their HELOC to help pay off holiday debt.
The goal of this campaign was to drive HELOC utilization up to 75% on each line, and it was very specifically targeted to account holders who already had a home equity line of credit at the bank, but were underutilizing that account. Some were utilizing as little as zero percent of their HELOC! So this was just a nudge, reminding them these funds were available.
The campaign reached 19,930 account holders and resulted in 84 utilizing up to 75% of their HELOC.
Use Zelle During the Holidays
A $10.9B bank from New Jersey had an idea for a holiday awareness campaign to boost utilization of the bank’s Zelle integration within their digital and mobile banking platforms. In late November 2022, after Thanksgiving, and running through Feb. 1, the bank sent emails to existing digital banking users.
The goal was to increase online and mobile banking person-to-person transactions via Zelle. In order to stimulate awareness of the in-app features, this campaign was discharged to all consumer account holders.
Campaign impressions totaled 44,122, with 1,159 choosing to use Zelle.
New Year eStatement Online Banking (OLB) Promo
That same $10.9B bank from New Jersey decided the Zelle campaign worked so well, they’d try another awareness campaign to boost utilization of the bank’s eStatements rather than printed statements. This email campaign began on Jan. 3 and concluded on March 1, 2023, and was targeted at account holders who did not already have eStatements activated on their consumer accounts.
The goal for the bank was to save on printing and shipping costs of mailing out the monthly statements.
Campaign impressions totaled 24,108, and of those 121 signed up for eStatements.
By using data insights to target the right account holders with the right offers at the right time, banks can drive engagement, utilization and revenue without breaking their budgets.
Extra pro tip: This isn’t confined to the holiday season. Financial marketers can use these tactics anytime.
