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Banks find social media better for getting new biz [Social] [Times of India](Times of India Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) MUMBAI: Social media is working out to be a much more cost-effective method for banks to get new customer for services such as credit cards compared to search engine marketing (SEM) or direct selling agents. Social media is enabling banks to come up with targeted marketing without being seen as too intrusive. "The cost of SEM is higher than social media, which is one-third the cost of selling through direct agents," said Tripti Lochan, Asia CEO of VML Qais, WPP Group's full-service digital agency network. "While direct sales and search engine marketing were successful in breaking previous benchmarks for performance, the paid social metrics proved that in an era of burgeoning social media usage and widespread banner blindness, the lowest effective cost per action was achieved using a combination of Facebook-branded content and media, to the extent of being three times more effective than using a direct sales person," said Lochan. She added that this was the findings from the experiences of a Singapore-based bank, which used various digital channels for acquiring new customers. In India, ICICI Bank has been the first to use social media like Facebook as a platform for its banking services. The account lets friends immediately split a bill and supports buying tickets online for a group. Internationally, several banks are using social media platforms for extending banking services, allowing funds to be transferred among friends. "Banks have not yet figured out how to reward loyal customers who can be influencers. Typically, banks keep asking customers to 'like' their page, but there are only so many pages that people follow and they end up regularly cleaning the sites they follow," she added. According to Lochan, banks have traditionally been terrible in using data in selling to customers. "Social media allows banks to target customers based on behaviour. For instance, a bank can develop its systems in such a manner that the offerings change with the relationship status of the person like offering a home loan after a marriage. Customers are more comfortable when targeted offerings are made by computer systems rather than have direct selling persons looking at customer data," said Lochan. What is likely to trigger an explosion in usage of internet banking is the increase in the number of smart phones. "Banks are coming out with responsive designs for their websites which cater to three screen sizes - mobile phones, tablets and desktops. The most important functions for the customers are the ones on top," she said. According to Lochan, it is not just social media like Twitter and Facebook, but even work-related sites like LinkedIn. American Express has successfully used LinkedIn to target business customers. (c) 2014 Bennett, Coleman & Company Limited |