Kevin Tynan

Online retailers are investing in physical stores to build stronger customer relationships, but banks are reducing their footprints and ignoring opportunities to make customers happy.

Regulatory restrictions on market entry can shield banks for only so long from problems like those faced by traditional retailers. But financial institutions can take these steps to stay competitive in the ever-digital world.

The concept of a primary bank that satisfies all customer needs is becoming a relic of the past, so banks must rethink their revenue models.

Customer outreach is far from the actual core function of bank marketers: producing bottom-line results.

Load times, architecture and keywords are important to a functional bank website. But marketing the brand – via content and graphics – is just as important to wooing new customers and retaining existing ones.

The ad tech industry is so fraught with misleading and deceptive data that it's difficult for marketers to make smart advertising choices. Even the most reputable of firms spew unreliable data.

The only tactic for survival is brutal honesty. So let's accept the very real risk of disappearing and do the heavy lifting required to persevere.

Paper-based marketing — not digital communication — remains a more promising way to reach customers 50 and older, who also tend to be a bank's wealthiest client segment.

The inconsistency between what millennials say on surveys and their actual behavior should make bank marketers skeptical about building programs around such research.

Banks must use analytics — rather than customer surveys — to determine what does and what does not inspire prospects to become customers.

Social media may be the soup de jour of bank marketing, but its value as a business acquisition tool may be greatly exaggerated unless banks fine-tune their strategies.

As banks try to acquire new customers via digital channels, they should add content marketing strategies into their lineups.

For a more immediate payoff, community banks should focus marketing on older customers that are facing a new set of economic pressures.

As smartphone-carrying baby boomers retire, banks can no longer ignore seniors' unique digital banking needs.

In many cases, customers aren't staying with a bank's brand because they are satisfied. They are staying with the brand because it's too hard to leave.

Research shows the more consumers interact with branch staff, the more they dislike the brand. To improve their image, banks need to emulate Apple and focus on every customer experience detail — in tech and in person.

Community banks can't win on size, but their values give them an upper hand in competing against cookie-cutter megabank branches.

The best customer prospects are specific individuals, so don't fall into the trap laid by surveys and articles that recommend a grand pitch to Generation Y as a marketing strategy.