Key CCG Services
One of CCG’s clients, a major Midwestern bank, had defined seven audience segments and was using them to drive product development, cross-sell and advertising. They knew their customers weren’t all the same, so why talk to them the same way? But when the bank started applying segmentation to its value-added content strategy, CCG suggested that they go a step further.
Rather than doing what most companies do — make educated hunches about their customers’ interests — we recommended digging for the facts. We knew it could lead to better engagement and boost the performance of the bank’s value-added content campaigns.
Why guess when you can know?
Sure, it’s a fair assumption that younger audiences need information on basic money management and investing skills. They may be less interested in topics related to children and homeownership, because they simply aren’t “there” yet on their life journey. And you could presume that older audiences want advice related to retirement savings and making those savings last. But they’ve probably been there, done that when it comes to financial basics.
To discover the validity of theories like these, CCG designed a content survey that would provide solid, fact-based insights on the personal finance topics most relevant to each of the bank’s seven audience segments. We knew the bank could use the resulting information to guide its value-added content strategy.
In addition to crafting the survey instrument, CCG developed the invitation and reminder emails. We also combined the segment codes, additional demographics and survey results in a detailed report for the bank.
Survey says …
The survey did what we hoped it would. It revealed specific personal finance interests for each segment and showed distinct differences between what was relevant to each group. In some cases, the data confirmed original hunches about content interests — but the results didn’t always match our preconceived notions.
Audience
Most Relevant
Topics
Segment 1
Saving, Borrowing &
Debt Management
Segment 2
Homeownership,
Credit History
Segment 3
Income Tax,
Investing
Simply put, it worked.
The survey results accelerated the annual editorial planning process and helped map out specific topics of interest for each audience. And it allowed us to identify topics of global interest, indicating articles that did not need to be versioned, because they would appeal to everyone.
Today, the bank is starting to see the payoff in email performance metrics. For example, the click-to-open rate (CTOR) for the most recent issue (with content direction based on the survey results) was 2.3 times higher than the average CTOR for the e-newsletter during the previous three issues (before we used survey data to define the editorial versioning).
We call that a success. And that’s a fact.
Key CCG Services
Customer Data, Analytics & Research Services
Qualitative and quantitative research
Content & Creative Services
Content strategy & planning
Digital & Email
Email deployment using Oracle’s Responsys, Epsilon DREAM or ExactTarget platforms
Strategic use of dynamic and variable content for targeted and personalized messaging
Are you next?
Are you ready to gain deeper insights into your audience segments for higher customer engagement? CCG’s financial marketing experts, experienced data analysts and content strategists can provide a fact-based analysis of the topics most relevant to your customers. Complete the form below or call us at 303.986.3000 to schedule a free consultation and see how we can help you.
