Ultimately, we have established that a wide variety of situations can be used as trigger points for real-time measures. Basically, every activity in the user journey can serve as a trigger. In the area of banking and insurance, specifically, the following scenarios could all serve as triggers for automated, real-time marketing measures:
- An existing customer visits the mortgage page on the bank's website for the first time.
- A user engages with the insurance company’s premium calculator.
- A user visits the website of an insurer for the second time within the same week.
- A user searches for a specific insurance product in the search box on the website of a provider of health, life, or general insurance.
- A user makes a transaction at a bank's ATM.
- A user visits the bank's branch or calls the insurance provider's call center after engaging in a certain behavior on the website.
- A user logs into the insurance website to renew her policy.
- A user performs an online banking transaction to open a fixed deposit account.
- A user takes action to buy a specific insurance product.
- A customer enters his first standing order in e-banking.
- A user cancels a transaction from her investment portfolio (in retail, we refer to this as "shopping cart abandoners").
- A customer complains online to the customer service of an insurance company.
Real-time measures increase the relevance of your communication
Real-time measures vary depending on the trigger, use case, and business field. That said, they all pursue the goal of increasing the effectiveness and relevance of communication (i.e., to drive a transaction) or to improve the customer experience and in doing so, contribute to the customer relationship.
As part of these marketing measures, for example, you might play out "next best products" based on previous purchasing behavior with the help of AI-based campaigns. Similarly, you might display personalized content, or even approve a credit application. Real-time measures can also be used to effectively address transaction dropouts by following up one to two days later on products in the portfolio that have not been purchased (i.e., products left in the shopping cart).
For the operationalization of these opportunities, we are dependent on data and technology. In a webinar, René Konrad and I demonstrated how such triggers could be implemented in the financial environment, using two examples: one for new customer acquisition and one for existing customers.
The right real-time triggers for banking and insurance
Using the example of new customer acquisition, we show how a possible user journey works, how it can be tracked, and which real-time triggers result from it. We track the customer journey from surfing the website to signing up for the newsletter with individual content to the personalized offer on the website and subsequent retargeting.
The use cases for existing customers are just as lucrative. Here, for example, the path leads from a regular mailing on the subject of mortgages with additional information on the website. The click to the website sets a cookie and activates tracking. If the customer now visits a subpage on the subject of mortgages several times, the customer profile is enriched with this information. AI is then used to generate a campaign with a personalized offer.
Timing is everything
Addressing customers in a relevant way — i.e., at the right time — is essential if the company wants to ensure effective communication and strengthen customer relationships. Marketers need to determine whether a real-time solution is appropriate on a case-by-case basis by weighing the benefits and costs. All told, though, the following applies: "Never try, never learn."
If you’d like to explore how trigger-based marketing can drive results for financial businesses, reach out to our team.