Credit card issuers cross-sell a lot. They send direct mail, statement stuffers, e-mails, and Web ads. They promote their other products, push balance transfers, encourage online behavior, and even sell mundane merchandise.
Most cross-selling still involves paper, which reaches almost 100% of the card base. But the growth of Web and e-mail registration means card issuers will make more use of the online channel for cross-sales.
My organization recently analyzed 46 marketing documents delivered by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s card-issuing division to our test accounts over the last several months. As Morgan Chase is a major issuer and marketer, the trends we observed should be indicative of the industry.
We counted 26 campaigns.
- Twelve for free- or fee-based enhancements, including shopping discounts, travel services, card rewards, third-party insurance, dining discounts, and credit bureau protection.
- Seven for third-party merchandise, ranging from bears to magazines.
- Three encouraging the use of online services, including bill payment.
- One, the most frequent, for balance transfers and convenience checks.
- One each for a different financial product (IRA rollover), for the chaseshop.com portal, and for Verified by Visa.
As for the channels Chase used:
- Certain campaigns arrived only by paper, including three third-party insurance campaigns and the seven merchandise campaigns. None extended to the Web. We expect this migration in the future, but Morgan Chase's online volume may still be insufficient to attract the interest of third parties.
- Two minor campaigns had only a Web presence: a Verified by Visa button ad and a behind-the-password ad for the www.chaseshop.com shopping portal.
- Chase's extensive bill-payment campaign and its IRA rollover campaign appeared in both e-mail and Web pages. The one IRA rollover e-mail was linked to a Web page with a Money magazine subscription offer. Multiple bill-payment e-mails encouraged use of the bank's online services. For those already using them, the bank promoted its bill-management service.
- The rest of Chase's campaigns extended across all three channels - paper, e-mail, and Web - including campaigns for a holiday sweepstakes, iDine, and Chase Rewards. Also promoted extensively through all three channels were balance transfers, cash advances, and online financial services.
The average online Chase credit card holder is probably getting about two e-mails a month from Chase. Formats are changing to HTML, with better graphics and pictures.All Chase e-mail cross-selling promotions to date - stand-alone or embedded in an account-maintenance e-mail - have involved bill paying, balance transfer, or online-use features, and none have promoted other products or services, with the exception of the IRA rollover. We would therefore conclude that Chase's e-mail volumes are insufficient to attract third-party cross-selling efforts, or that the lead time on these efforts conflicted with the rapid growth of the e-mail name database.
The Chase Web site cross-selling campaigns behind the password are limited in scope and number. We count four, plus the more-or-less constant linkage to chaseshop.com for rewards. Like e-mail, these four campaigns are for Chase online and/or card financial features and not for third parties. There seems to be plenty of expansion room on the visible screen area and by rotating the animated button ads more often.
We find little overlap between mail and online campaigns. We see no easily identifiable common themes or stylistic elements in those that run in both channels. However, the strongest pushes, on balance transfer and bill payment, are online as well as offline, and they lead inevitably to the same fulfillment resources.
We detect little personalization in Chase's online cross-selling efforts, nor does Chase seem to be cross-selling its many other financial products to its credit card holders. Except for the IRA rollover, we found no campaigns for mortgages, deposits, or small business. Many pages behind the password have a drop-down menu for other product areas, and the left-hand navigation contains an entry to reach the descriptor pages of all Chase credit cards. These are construed not as cross-selling but as navigational devices.
Cross-selling is clearly of major importance to Chase, which is likely to keep developing the online channel for additional marketing resources. We foresee more channel integration, higher volumes, abandonment of text-based e-mails, further proliferation of e-mail alert types - if only to support cross-selling - and continued efforts for at least three years to marshal online registrants in Chase's card base.
