Bankers, just how good are your online marketing efforts?

Banking consultant Ron Shevlin has a hunch: Banks and credit unions need a better way to assess their online marketing capabilities, to know how they are doing, and to create an investment and priority roadmap to improve online marketing capabilities.

But how to test the hunch? Shevlin developed an Online Maturity Marketing Model for banks to rank themselves on core processes and stages of maturity for online marketing.

Shevlin lists three core processes to online marketing:

1. Demand generation – banks use the online channel (through search, email, website, social media, etc.) to generate demand for products and services.
2. Demand conversion – banks then need to convert that demand into new customers, sales, cross-sells or up-sells (using microsites, comparison tools, product configurators, and more).
3. Account creation - banks finally need to enable customers to create accounts online.

(Note: Some bankers may be more familiar with the “acquire, grow and retain” approach to marketing strategy, which could be factored into this model as well.)

The three stages of maturity for online marketing:

1. Performed: In the first stage, a bank performs activities that correspond to one or more of the three processes, but lacking are measurement and integration of those online activities across products or channel (akin to “just do something.”)
2. Integrated: In the second stage, banks start closing the integration gap (“now we’re making progress”).
3. Optimized: In the third stage, banks deploy quantitative marketing methods to actively manage integrated campaigns. Shevlin cites optimization of spending and the allocation of resources within and across processes as key here (“we get it”).

Shevlin initially tested this model on 25 banks and credit unions and found, not surprisingly, a bell curve display of results.

Of the 25 banks, only two tested as Optimized, ten as Integrated, ten as Performed, and three as below the Performed level.

While Shevlin expected to find many banks to be higher in one process over another, the test results showed a majority were aligned in their online marketing maturity in both demand generation and demand conversion processes.

Shevlin also determined that seven of the banks qualified for the Optimized level in Account Creation, a sign that they could be more focused on taking an order instead of creating a sale.

As banks gear up for 2012 (especially those in the “Performed” stage), knowing their online marketing maturity could help marketing execs:

1. Develop a roadmap – How do we improve? Where do we need to develop?
2. Set priorities – Which dials do we turn, and how far, and how do we get it all done?
3. Benchmark internal progress to help justify future investments.

Thanks to Shevlin’s hunch, bankers now have a method to quickly gauge exactly where they are at with online marketing and what they need to do better. Moreover, bankers still have a month of planning time before the new year hits to get their virtual marketing efforts in order.