As a FI marketer you have been hearing plenty about mobile and social and how all of these new channels need to be part of your strategy now. That’s on top of all the other traditional and grassroots marketing efforts your team has going. If you are like me, you’re wondering “how is all this going to get done”?
The challenge is that many financial institutions only have one or two people dedicated to marketing. You already have so much to do, adding digital to the mix feels overwhelming. You can’t really pass it off to IT, whose plate is overflowing faster with managing security and databases and emails and intranets and so much more.
So how’s it going to get done?
The reality is that your financial institution may need to create a new position to take on all of this new work. In order for your bank to keep up with technology, you will need to commit resources. I think the resources that are needed is a person in a role that combines retail banking, IT and marketing.
This new role has been called many things and lends itself to all kinds of fun titles, but for now we will use E-Services Leader.
So what does this person’s skill set look like?
Your E-Service Leader needs to be tech forward, as in someone who doesn’t just own a smartphone, but knows what the latest apps are, and uses them. This person is one who naturally engages with technology as a part of his/her life. He/she is comfortable in learning new technology and is excited to teach others about it.
What does this role do?
- Liaisons with the IT team to bring new products and services to market
- Manages the client facing technology platforms. Anywhere technology touches a client-internet banking, website, mobile banking, bank by phone, this is now managed by the E-Services Leader.
- Co-manages the vendor relationship of all the client facing systems, along with the manager of the department that is using the technology.
- Creates the strategy and implementation roadmap for client facing technology with help from the Executive leadership team
- Solicits, mines and acts on customer feedback channels
- He/she often manages the FI’s digital marketing and social media channels
What if you don’t have the budget to hire?
I say, “get moving anyway!” Start building knowledge and resources for a team member to move into the role when the budget is available. Send a star customer service or marketer to the Tech conferences with your IT team this year. He/she will bring back useful information that is often very different from what an IT person takes away. Have joint meetings with the retail banking, IT and marketing to learn about new information. Let the different viewpoints create better solutions than the usual one team solution. By building a mindset that this role is different and crosses traditional departments, you can help Executive leadership see the need for this person.
But regardless of the hurdles in your way, plan to do something this year to move your financial institution into mobile.
Check out our FREE sample job description for the E-services Leader HERE!
Want to read more about mobile banking strategy? Read our article, Mobile Banking All the Time.
