NEWPORT NEWS, Va.-1st Advantage FCU interviews online members as they log-out of Internet banking, resulting in sales rates that put direct mail and other homebanking marketing to shame.
The interview process produces a "warmer lead," said Jim Craig, former VP-marketing at the $530-million CU here. Craig recently moved to Geezeo, a personal financial management (PFM) software provider. That's because "members actually remember that they have accepted an offer after the interview," Craig explained. 'We know they're truly interested in the offer because they answered a series of questions and clicked to accept."
1st Advantage developed the KulaX interview and cross-sales engine in tandem with Micronotes, an interactive direct marketing company in Cambridge, Mass.
Nearly 3% of members redeemed an offer, and more than 50% of members accepted an offer, during 1st Advantage's most recent campaign, said Craig. In contrast, direct mail usually results in a .5% redemption rate and a 1% acceptance rate.
The CU gets fewer than five leads per month from attempts to reach out to members via Google AdWords and other search engine marketing and lead-generation sites, he added. "KulaX gives us much better quality leads and a higher propensity to redeem the offer because we are marketing to people we already have a relationship with," said Craig. "The process is also more engaging."
When a member logs in to Internet banking, the KulaX application recognizes the account and pulls a "next-best product" offer from a matrix marketing database.
"We assign each member to a certain cell in the matrix to indicate whether they're more inclined to investments, loans, refinancing and so on," Craig said.
When the member logs off the site, KulaX appears as a colorful, graphic-rich overlay on the screen, presenting the member several offers to choose from. The member declines or makes a selection and completes a five-question, written survey to ensure the relevance of the offer.
Next, KulaX automatically emails the member with instructions on redeeming the offer. Rejected offers are automatically removed for that member, but the member is still eligible to receive different KulaX offers.
Homebanking banner ads are less successful because usually only one offer can be presented at a time and there's little interaction with the member, Craig suggested. With banner ads, members click and are somewhat awkwardly pushed to a microsite or a form, whereas with Kulax, the entire process, from learning about the offer to accepting it, takes place within the interview overlay.
1st Advantage is learning how to turn more leads into sales, he said. "We've actually doubled the redemption rate by calling each member after two weeks to remind them if they haven't redeemed their offer." Follow-up calls after direct mail letters, on the other hand, usually result in confused responses, such as "What letter?" Craig said.
Although core system integration with sales engines is possible and is usually desirable, 1st Advantage is comfortable for now with the fact that KulaX is not connected to the core, he said. "Core system integration is resource intensive. And we like our matrix marketing program. We just update the matrix cells with nonpersonal member data every month and securely transfer the file to KulaX."
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Subscribers can read related stories at www.cujournal.com and searching the following headlines:Transactions Triple After Rewards Are Offered-February 13, 2012Staff Accountable For Sales; Data Accountable For Being Accurate-December 12, 2011Members Walk In With A Deposit, Out With A Loan-October 10, 2011 1st Advantage FCUwww.1stadvantage.org Micronoteswww.micronotes.com
