I was talking with a friend the other day and he had a real life marketing challenge. I call it the Case of the Broken Branch.
My friend is the marketing officer at a small credit union. He was trying to get every member service rep and loan officer to focus on cross-selling. While everyone seemed to be excited about the plan, no one knew how well it was working.
My friend wanted to show management results but, unfortunately, he couldn't show any. This is why I was called. You see, I solve Marketing Mysteries.
Using the tool of my trade, an MCIF, I undertook a cursory exam of the crime scene.
This involved understanding the cross-selling patterns of the MSRs, loan officers and branches during the three months prior and three months after the announced efforts. It was there that I found the breakthrough I was hoping for. It was right there all along.
All I had to do was open my eyes. That's usually how it is in my business.
The facts were clear. Three of the four branches had profoundly encouraging results, increasing the services per household from 2.3 to 2.8.
These additional products and services netted the credit union in excess of $25,000 in profit after considering full margin allocation.
Talk about proof! One branch, however, didn't seem to connect with the program. In fact, its cross-selling ratio actually fell from 2.5 to 2.3 services per household. This branch was broken.
And considering the results of the branches that did connect, this was definitely a crime. My friend said that he could handle it from there. I thought so too.
Jay Kassing is the president of The Centrax Group, a marketing, CRM, and compliance software and consulting firm. He can be reached at 800-365-4274 or jayk
