Financial Services Marketing Insights: A Marketing CompassWritten by Jay Nagdeman
What we now call “marketing” began long before name was coined. In mid-1800s, traveling salesmen dressed “snake oil" and other tonics in fancy packaging and extolled their virtues to a gullible public. New marketing applications soon proliferated in belief that marketing could make many new things possible in virtually any business situation. For more than a century, implementation, experience and ultimately strategy have helped marketing evolve from crude beginnings into today’s sophisticated practices. Consumer product firms have been pioneers in marketing field and have taken undisputed lead as creators of marketing’s best practices. While sophisticated marketing techniques have spawned consumer giants, most financial services firms had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into era of sophisticated marketing. The Advancing State of Financial Services Marketing Financial services marketing has, however, evolved rapidly over last decade. As a result, very nature of marketing function in financial services firms is undergoing a dramatic modification as more attention is paid to marketing-driven processes that impact entire firm. Our observations suggest that more progressive financial services organizations are currently going through an intellectual and practical transition that is forcing reexamination of role of marketing within their firms. Many have begun to realize that financial marketing responsibilities include not only developing firm’s mission statement and key messages, but also defining its business focus, relevant differentiation, competitive advantages and value proposition. At same time, however, a number of financial services marketing directors must engage in long-term turf battles with other departments before they can implement worthy financial marketing initiatives that will help accelerate achievement of corporate goals. In many financial organizations, persistent problem of differentiating financial marketing from sales still remains largely unresolved. In addition, some financial services marketing directors must still enlist substantial management support just to maintain equilibrium and obtain opportunity to accomplish even limited objectives.
| | Stretch Your Marketing Reach Written by Kathleen Gage
Title: Stretch Your Marketing Reach Author: Kathleen Gage Email: Kathleen@turningpointpresents.com Word Count: Copyright © 2004 by Kathleen Gatge Web address: www.kathleengage.com Publishing Guidelines: You may publish my article in your newsletter, on your website or in your print publication provided you include resource box at end. Notification would be appreciated but is not required. Stretch Your Marketing Reach By Kathleen Gage One of most cost effective marketing strategies you can utilize is an online newsletter, also referred to as an E-Zine. You can provide valuable content to your customers and potential customers with an E-Zine. The beauty of utilizing Internet to distribute your information is often people will forward your information to others who have similar interest. The key to success with an E-Zine is consistency in distribution. It won’t be beneficial to have a sporadic schedule. Distribution of your online publication should be done like clockwork. With all automation tools available you can develop a system that is relatively trouble free. For many, greatest challenge will be development of content. There are a few ways you can handle this. One, take a day to write several articles and put them in a file that you can easily access. That way, writing is over and done.
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