BOSTON - According to Aite Group, online channel leaders should:
* Avoid relying on other banks' studies. Bank of America's analysis from a few years ago, looking at account and deposit growth of online bill pay customers, is practically a legend in the business. More recently, SunTrust released a study looking at the profit impact of e-bill pay customers. These studies prove correlation, but not necessarily causation. As marketing measurement techniques become more sophisticated, studies like these are unlikely to persuade non-online channel executives outside of those firms.
* Deploy more rigorous testing and measurement approaches. The online banking group should collaborate with the marketing analytics group, setting up control groups and conducting tests to help isolate the channel's impact on influencing and generating sales. Working with outside consultants may help to quantify the impact, but is unlikely to gain the buy-in of marketing and other bank areas.
* Advocate for channel optimization approaches to investment allocation. "In our experience, the online channel groups at many banks have historically been forces for change and innovation in their firms: Here's another opportunity for them. Few financial firms today are taking a quantitative approach to optimizing the allocation of marketing investments across channels. The marketing analytics is typically too narrowly focused on campaign ROI measurement, and might not even have the internal skills to develop these optimization models."(c) 2008 The Credit Union Journal and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved.http://www.cujournal.com/ http://www.sourcemedia.com/
