With consumer confidence in financial institutions understandably shaken, banks find themselves in a tough spot. “How can we engage customers?” many bank marketers are asking. It’s as much a question about tone as it is about content. Striking the wrong note in branch promotions and messaging will simply confirm consumers’ worst suspicions about banks being out of touch.

One zen-like option is not to resist or ignore the crisis, but rather embrace it. To accept that customers are now viewing all bank marketing through the filter the financial crisis (or more accurately, their own, personal financial crisis). To accept that until further notice, all sales conversations and relationship building needs to acknowledge and empathize with customers’ difficult personal situations.

This is not to say that bank marketing should now be be dour. On the contrary. Marketers need to deliver positive, hopeful and constructive messages. But the messages need to be credible and based on reality as customers are perceiving and experiencing it.

So, what does this look like? Below are a handful of ideas for how bank marketers can take the crisis head on:

• President’s message – If your bank has a message of stability and solvency, who best to deliver that message: a brochure, or the president him or herself? A client of ours recently delivered messages personally written and delivered by the CEO via their digital signage system. Customers literally stepped out of the teller queues to watch the messages. With this kind of message, it actually helps if the chief executive is not over rehearsed and polished. Customers want candor, not polish. Of course, videos of the president can  also be posted to the bank’s Web site. In-branch signage (digital or paper) can feature highlights and key quotes, while directing customers to the Web for more.
• Town hall meetings – It works for presidential candidates, so why not for banks? Town hall meetings can be held quite inexpensively (for the cost of coffee & doughnuts) in branch lobbies and can take on any number of topics of interest to customers, such as: “What’s the health of my bank?” “How safe is my money?” and “What steps should I take to protect myself?” A home run is to get the president of the bank commit to facilitating meetings and answering the tough questions. (This also has great PR potential.) Other executives, regional or even branch managers can also facilitate. Keep in mind that the lower down the food chain you go, the more scripting and coaching that might be required.
• Educational seminars – The financial crisis affects every area of a customer’s life — how they make their living, where they live, how they educate their kids, secure health care and prepare for the future. If banks want to be part of the solution, why not bring in people who have some answers to the many questions consumers are asking? Banks can sponsor talks by experts on job hunting, small business, taxes, legal issues, real estate, college planning, health care and retirement. Local experts (e.g., a local tax attorney or real estate broker) are a great bet, particularly if they do not compete in any way with the bank and are willing to market the event to their own prospect lists.
• Storytelling – If necessity is the mother of invention, then it only stands to reason that customers are coming up with some inventive ways to cope with the economic crisis. They have some stories to tell about these and other difficult times. So, why not solicit those stories? Ask customers how they’re coping and what ideas they’re implementing to survive and thrive. Record their stories on video or audio. Take their pictures. Then retell those stories (edited, naturally) to your customers, to show that you’re listening, you empathise, and that you’re in the battle with them. Of course, this idea is particularly applicable if you have an outlet for the stories, such as video displays or television ad buys.
  
  
  Westpac Truth Pod commercial
  Capture from Westpac Truth Pod campaign

  The Australian bank Westpac attempted a similar effort, in which it placed “Truth Pods” in cities and towns throughout the country. Each Truth Pod was a small, self-contained video recording studio. Passers by were encouraged to enter the booths and vent their complaints about banking. Since the majority of subjects complained about fees, Westpac ultimately ran a “no fees” ad campaign featuring the videotaped complaints. As this narrative suggests, Westpac might have been inspired by Jet Blue’s Story Booth campaign, which also solicited consumer opinions for later use in advertising.

  However, an even earlier and more relevant precedent lies in Story Corps, a non-profit project that since 2003 has recorded more than 23,000 stories, told by ordinary citizens in recording booths placed across the U.S.

Photo credit: Johan Larsson