Social media still on margins of banks' marketing strategies

The social media is not yet a part of the mainstream marketing of the banks, and it is also not considered a key customer-interaction channel, a survey has found out.
"Over 80 per cent of the banks surveyed, their social media spend was less than 500,000 Euros per annum," the Global Retail Banking Digital Marketing Report 2013, jointly prepared by Wipro and Efma, a global not-for-profit organisation that brings together more than 3,300 retail financial services companies, said.
Over 100 banks from 38 countries participated in the survey. Of these, 62 per cent were small banks. Fifty-eight per cent of the banks were from low/medium income countries.

Noting that the growth in digital channels is one of the factors leading to the gradual change in the marketing mix at banks, the report said, "Advertising represented 55 per cent of the total spends of the banks covered....In developed countries, advertising already represents less than 50 per cent of the total budget and for a few of the banks, the advertising spend is just 20-25 per cent of the budget," the report said.
One of the weakest areas for banks is the ability to have a real time single customer view of products and transactions integrating all channels, the report observed.

The report also found that only 36 per cent of banks can do real time event marketing, and only 47 per cent can make one-to-one personalised offers to the customer.