I was speaking at a conference recently and attending another session during the day. I heard a fantastic quote and then received further confirmation from the MarTech conference in San Francisco this week. The quote was "If you're buying technology to solve your marketing problems, then you don't understand the technology and probably don't understand your problems".  Confirmation comes in the form of the newest MarTech 5000. Need I say more??marketing_technology_landscape_2017

You've read our posts on the impact of disruption, so here's a great article by Jacques Bughin from McKinsey regarding the impact of digital disruption. McKinsey on Digital Disruption  

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McKinsey Analytics March 2017 Companies can put their information to work by teasing out novel patterns, driving productivity, and creating new solutions. Capturing-value-from-your-customer-data

RMG Revenue FasTrack is the addition to your already built house. By RMG Founder Stuart Holt Imagine a public company executive meeting with the CEO, CFO, COO, CIO, EVP of Sales, and the CMO. The meeting begins with the CEO stating the obvious, “As you all know, our shareholders don’t buy our current price, they are buying our future price”! The CEO continues, “our stock has declined a bit but not as bad as others, but we still need to figure out how to grow our revenue, watch our expenses, and maintain our excellent reputation for a top-notch product and service”. Therefore, “let’s spend this time discussing how to grow our revenue”. We are confident many of you reading this have been in this type meeting. The CFO pipes in and says, “we can’t save our way to profitability. This past year we have done an incredible job of lowering our expenses and we also had a substantial layoff. There is always room for improvement, but I think this past year was the year of cutting and little is left to do”. The COO says, “we have been able to maintain solid product and service quality despite all [...]

Much more than just a buzzword, disruptive marketing is changing the way we react to, understand and accept companies and their advertising. From a business standpoint, disruptive marketing represents a key shift in an era where promotional strategies update as fast as the technology that carries them. Apple didn’t change music—it changed the way consumers shop for music with a disruptive service that revolutionized the industry. Netflix has revolutionized media consumption. Tesla has disrupted the auto industry by creating direct-to-consumer purchasing pipelines that break from the traditional dealership model and give consumers a way to interact with a car brand that’s familiar to their experiences in other categories. When you look at Airbnb — and also Uber, for that matter — it’s clear that many of today’s disruptors are focusing on the social aspect of consumerism. There’s something more attractive to today’s customer about purchasing a product or service from a person as opposed to a large corporate brand. Airbnb accomplishes this by connecting people to people. This peer-sharing aspect is what’s allowed the company to grow so quickly. Whereas disruption turns an industry on its head by offering customers something that previously didn’t exist, innovation merely makes an existing value offering better, [...]

We at RMG saw this recent posting from our friends at The Financial Brand. The article, by Ron Shevlin, summed up our approach and belief succinctly and we felt it important to share.   During a presentation at strategic planning session for a large credit union, I challenged the management team’s notion that the FI was–or could be–“competing on superior service.” My argument went as follows: The market isn’t big enough. Only so many consumers choose a financial provider for its “superior service capabilities.”  Many consumers choose an FI based on convenience–not service–related factors. Even there, “convenience” is not a single or well-defined concept, as convenience could mean nearby branches, or extended hours (like it means to one bank here in the Northeast), or it could mean the provision of technology-based tools to make the consumer’s financial life easier to manage. The strategy isn’t measurable. Managers need to be able to gauge two things: 1) To what extent is their chosen strategy a smart strategy, and 2) How well are they executing on their chosen strategy. There’s no shortage of financial institutions (especially credit unions) who claim to provide superior customer care — with no ability to measure or prove that [...]

This was a great article published by our friends at The Financial Brand. While it is several months old, it is very relevant as we start 2017. The Future of Financial Marketing Hinges on One Word: Data May 9, 2016 | Subscribe to The Financial Brand for Free You need to extend your knowledge of customers, extract poignant insights, create relevant marketing messages and produce exceptional experiences. This all revolves around data. The winners and losers in banking will be determined by how quickly marketing keeps pace with the data revolution. You need to develop the skills, tools and talent... now. By Jeffry Pilcher, CEO/President and Publisher of The Financial Brand Every marketer understands it’s important to “know the customer.” Having a fundamental understanding of the customer — flowing directly from data — should power all interactions with the brand, everything from advertising and marketing to retail channels and the customer experience. But in the Digital Age, these data-driven insights must go beyond the standard demographics like gender, age or income to include their individual needs, wants and attitudes. How do people spend their time? How do they engage with your brand, and with other brands? How do they behave as individuals — not just [...]