Category Archives: Direct Marketing

The Challenge of Improving Wholesaler Performance

Suffice it to say, sales leaders in the asset management, insurance, and retirement industries are under un-relenting pressure to enhance wholesaler performance.  Brands that want to win the trust of their channels and be perceived as a valuable, priority relationship, must deploy effective Intermediary Relationship Marketing (IRM).  Today, many brands deploy a version of IRM, most of which neither generate trust or add value to their relationship with their important intermediary partners.

What is Effective IRM?

In the context of the asset management, retirement, and insurance industry, IRM creates leverage and scale for distribution platforms targeting intermediaries and distributors. An IRM initiative augments the productivity of internal and external wholesalers through a pragmatically developed plan of systematic and integrated marketing activities. These activities:

  • Create a compelling, consistent and coherent narrative with target channels
  • Generate new qualified leads
  • Keep target channels engaged with your brand and products
  • Pave the way for more effective wholesaler interactions.

Instead of focusing on a single campaign, or a series of disconnected interactions, effective IRM initiatives plan and deploy integrated inbound and outbound communication streams — guided by the stage of your brand’s relationship with the channel, individual level data (e.g., behavioral, self-reported, firmographic), and your brand’s narrative. These communication streams increase the probability that your products and brand are selected by your target intermediaries and distributors. IRM builds mindshare, reinforces the value of the relationship with your brand, fosters trust, and provides your wholesalers with richer and timelier intelligence. IRM must also integrate seamlessly with existing sales force automation and CRM tools.

Bank of America credit card production by channel: interesting trends

Bank of America recently published a breakdown of its credit card production by channel, in its second quarter 2011 Investor Fact Book.

Comparing the first half of 2011 with the full-year 2010, we see that eCommerce remains the most important credit card acquisition channel (at just over 28%), but its share fell almost 8 percentage points between 2010 and the first half of 2011.

Channels that have had the strongest share gain are:

  • Branch:  Bank of America was at the forefront of the push among leading bank card issuers to sell cards through their branches in the mid 2000’s, but this trend appeared to have lost traction in more recent years, as the financial crisis took hold.  However, there was a notable shift in the first half of this year, with branches accounting for 28% of credit card production, up more than 7 percentage points from 2010.
  • Direct mail: Traditionally, direct mail accounted for an overwhelming share of credit card production.  However, this share plummeted over the past decade, as response rates fell and new channels emerged with lower average acquisition costs.  However, this decline appears to have bottomed out, with bank card issuers now rolling out targeted direct mail campaigns to specific segments of interest, such as affluents.  DM accounted for 24% of card production in the first half of 2011, up 3.5 percentage points from 2010.

Spray & Pray: There’s A better Way

Most advisors express frustration with the volume and the frequency of promotional communications from investment product and insurance manufacturers. Research conducted by EMI and real client experience confirms this, with emails being especially high on the list. At a recent roundtable I attended, many advisors said: “we’re done with email”. Why? Because most of the communications they receive are difficult to process and deliver questionable value to their practice. So what’s a manufacturer to do?
Despite frustrations with the volume and quality of communications, advisors readily admit that they do read communications deployed by the brands they trust and value. These brands plan and manage communication streams with valuable content, use easy to process copy standards, and create a consistent narrative that demonstrate respect and thoughtfulness. These brands have earned the attention of the advisor and are therefore opened and read before the others (assuming the others are read, which is unlikely given the ease of deleting or navigating away in digital media).

So what’s a manufacturer to do? Build a systematic relationship marketing program that demonstrates respect and delivers real value. Perhaps we can call that SRM.