Author: Jim Bruene

Flash Marketing: Can Groupon/LivingSocial Work for Banks and Credit Unions?

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Advertising & Promotion, Lead Generation, Marketing

imageThe coffee shop where I do much of my writing held a huge sale yesterday. But you wouldn’t have known it from the sparse late-July mid-day crowd. The event took place entirely online through local deal-of-the-day marketer, Groupon.

The day-long sale resulted in nearly 3,000 half-price $10 coupons being sold, a huge influx of customers for a 3-location coffee shop (see screenshot below). I’m working somewhere else tomorrow when the coupon buyers start coming in. 

imageGroupon is the leader in the burgeoning field of localized flash marketing (aka social/group buying) having taken more than $170 million in VC funding to expand to more than 150 cities.

The other major player is Living Social, which I’ve successfully used a few times to buy gifts. LivingSocial has raised $50 million and recently expanded to 52 cities. Both companies have nearly 5 million unique monthly U.S. visitors (see below). And with minimal barriers to entry, there are dozens of copycat sites in operation.

There’s another sub-category in flash marketing, companies that specialize in certain types of merchandise. The pioneer here is the geeky and irreverent gadget and T-shirt marketer, Woot with 2.3 million monthly visitors. The site was scooped up by Amazon for $170 million last month. In women’s fashion, Gilt Groupe has a cult following and nearly 1 million monthly visitors.

U.S. traffic at Groupon (blue), Living Social (green), Woot (orange), Gilt Groupe (red)

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Source: Compete (link)

Flash marketing is not a new concept, and it’s not much different than the $299 laptop on the cover of the Best Buy circular. Savvy shoppers know to show up early at the store if they want to claim one of the few loss leaders in stock.  

Web-based flash marketers use email, Facebook and Twitter to inform potential customers of the latest deal. There is usually a time limit, typically a single day, and/or a limited number for sale. All the Groupon deals expire at midnight local time. Woot runs all its deals for 24 hours, or until they sell out, beginning at midnight Central Time.

Opportunity for Netbankers
While I haven’t seen a financial product sold on Groupon or LivingSocial yet, there’s no reason it wouldn’t work. In a quick search, the only financial institution participant I found was First Tech Credit Union, a recent recipient of sponsorship recognition in a LivingSocial deal for half-off tickets to the 2010 Bellevue (WA) Jazz Festival (see second screenshot).

But the promotions can be costly. The flash marketing companies typically take 50% of the sales price and require a deep discount, usually 50% or more off list prices. So retailers are getting as little as 25 cents on the dollar in the promotions (see note 1). Quantities can be limited to protect against too many takers.

While financial services don’t lend themselves to online flash sales as well as spa visits or fine dining, there are fee-based services that could work. For example: 

  • Checking account: $15 annual fee (first year) instead of $96 list price (note 2)
  • Credit monitoring: One year for $50 instead of the $150 list
  • Credit report: One 3-bureau report for $10 instead of the $30 list
  • Financial plan: $50 instead of $200 list
  • Prepaid MasterCard/Visa: One $25 card for $15 instead of the $29.95 list (assuming $4.95 issuing fee)
  • Savings account: $50 initial deposit for $15 fee (note 2)
  • VIP banking package: $25 annual fee instead of more than $100 if bought separately (rewards card, premium service, free VIP online banking, credit report, rate discount, etc.)

Or FIs could go the First Tech route and work with local restaurants, theatres, or nonprofits to sell a product bundle. For instance, a $20 dining certificate, 50% off on theatre tickets and a $10 Visa card for $20. 

Groupon Seattle deal-of-the-day at Zoka Coffee Roasters (26 July 2010)

Groupon zoka coffee offer

First Tech Credit Union gets top billing on recent LivingSocial deal (link)

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Notes:
1. That assumes all coupons are redeemed. But typically a large portion, as much as 50%, go unredeemed. That means fewer new customers in the door, but it also helps limit the amount of discounts that must be honored.
2. The problem with many financial product offers is that not all customers will be approved. But you could offer refunds for anyone declined for a checking account.
3. For more info on selling online, see our Online Banking Report on Lead Generation.

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Social Media Design: HelloWallet Integrates New Blog with its Twitter Feed

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Blogs, Personal Financial Management, Social Media, Twitter

imageHelloWallet, an online personal financial management (OFM/PFM) provider that launched in March, sent customers an email today (second screenshot below) announcing several product enhancements including:

  • To-Do List: Added to the dashboard to help you keep track of upcoming bills, goal progress, new savings ideas and so on. Users can manually add any item and receive email reminders. 
  • Progress Charts: Helps monitor progress on savings and debt-reduction goals.
  • Split Transactions: Ability to split transactions into two or more budget categories.
  • More Deals: My Deals database expanded to more than 130,000 financial products.

These are solid enhancements and signal that HelloWallet will be a viable competitor in the OFM/PFM space (see previous post; note 1). I especially like the To-Do list, a relatively simple enhancement that helps increase the utility of the application. The company has attracted a steady flow of visitors, averaging about 25,000 unique visitors per month in May and June (see Compete chart below).

HelloWallet.com traffic estimates (U.S. only)

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Source: Compete (link)

But the main reason for today’s post is to highlight the design of HelloWallet’s new blog at <hellowallet.com/blog>. The layout is visually appealing, incorporates social media sharing tools (Facebook, Twitter, RSS), and does a great job showcasing the company’s Twitter updates in the right-hand column (see first screenshot). This gives the whole blog a vibrant, up-to-the-minute feel, without burdening readers (and staff writers) with too many blog entries.

So far in July, HelloWallet posted four blog entries and tweeted 53 times (2x per day), a good pace. Both the blog posts and Tweets contain a good mix of personal finance material, general info, and company news. 

HelloWallet blog front page (link; 26 July 2010)

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Email message announcing new features (26 July 2010)

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Note:
1. For more on the OFM/PFM market, see our recent Online Banking Report. 

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Future File: Digitizing Paper POS Receipts

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Credit/Debit Cards, Intuit, Personal Financial Management

image Some of the best innovations come from inventors that develop a solution to a personal pet peeve, then commercialize it. In financial service, Aaron Patzer has told the story many times about how he developed Mint to solve his own needs for a better financial management tool.

If I had Aaron Patzer’s drive, or funds, I’d be working on a solution to digitize point-of-sale receipts. In our household, none of us can keep track of a receipt past the first 24 hours. Someone or some thing must come into our house during the night and make off with all paper receipts.

So when it comes to returning something to a store, we usually end up replaying this sad process:

  1. Try to remember where the receipt is
  2. Look for it
  3. Ask spouse if they’ve seen it
  4. Look again
  5. Curse bad memory (of spouse) and give up for the day
  6. Repeat above steps the next day
  7. Curse bad memory (of self and spouse) and give up for good
  8. Rehearse story to tell store on why you don’t have receipt
  9. Return item to store without receipt
  10. Receive gift card instead of cash refund (because there’s no receipt)
  11. Forget/lose gift card
  12. Curse paper receipts and vow to better organized

image

That’s why I was excited to hear Square founder Jack Dorsey tell the audience at NACHA Payments in April that one of startup’s key strategies was “focusing on the receipt” (see my Tweet right).

Shortly thereafter I met David Crossett at FinovateSpring 2010 who shared his vision of how his startup, ReadyReceipts (note 1) is gearing up to solve this very problem. The product, still in development, uses a unique approach that doesn’t rely on the end-user carrying another loyalty card (thank goodness).

If you’ve ever bought something in an Apple Store (in the USA at least), you can see what he has in mind. Mobile POS systems that email you the receipt and skip the easy-to-lose paper altogether.

In addition to Ready Receipts and Square, a number of other companies are working on solutions including:

Relevance for Netbankers: Receipt management is a very real pain-point that costs consumers millions of dollars and millions of hours of frustration every year. Financial institutions, retailers, and/or direct online financial management (OFM) providers that solve this problem stand to gain market share and/or profitable fee income (see our recent Online Banking Report on OFM features for more info).

Intuit’s QuickReceipts is tackling the lost receipt problem (22 July 2010)

Intuit's QuickReceipts

Intuit is spurring grass roots support by enabling visitors to send a Tweet requesting their favorite store adopt QuickReceipts (link)

Intuit's tweet campaign for its QuickReceipts

MyReceipts.com from Third Solutions promotes Whole Foods participation (22 July 2010)

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Note:
1. ReadyReceipts.com is currently under construction as they build out the company and product.

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Mobile Remote Deposit Capture by the Numbers (thanks USAA)

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Remote Deposit Capture, USAA

image I love it when first movers decide to brag about their results. For years, Bank of America has released frequent updates on the size of its online/mobile-banking user base (June 2008 figures). Given the bank’s massive market share, those figures are a great help in sizing the entire U.S. market.

USAA is now doing the same for the fledgling consumer-remote-check-deposit market. USAA was the first major financial institution to introduce the service a year ago. Earlier this month, Chase Bank became the second major bank to offer mobile capture.

In a press release last week, the direct banking giant said that more than 1.5 million checks, worth $930 million, an average of $620 per item, had been deposited through its mobile remote deposit app released last summer. Mobile accounts for about one-third of the bank’s consumer remote-capture volume. The online version, introduced in late 2006, still outnumbers mobile volume 2 to 1.

USAA’s banking division has 5 million customers in total.

Here’s a quick summary of USAA remote-deposit stats:

     1.5 million checks deposited via mobile app (35% of total)
     2.8 million checks submitted via online/scan remote capture (65% of total)
  = 4.3 million total remotely deposited checks (100%)

The current run-rate for mobile-deposited checks is now 2.5 million items annually worth more than $1.6 billion.

The bank also said that 95% of all checks are deposited without a teller. The bank did not provide a breakout of how many non-teller checks came through remote scanning vs. mail.

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Can Banking Income Woes Be Fixed with a $5.95 Fee?

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Bank of America, Fee Income, Pricing, Strategies

imageWhen I see large numbers, say a billion or more, I mentally divide it by the number of people impacted to make it more meaningful. In Seattle, we are about to embark on our very own Big Dig, replacing the 1953 waterfront viaduct with an underground tunnel. The $2 billion cost estimate comes out to about $1,000 per person in the Seattle metro area, and that’s before the “expected” cost overruns (see note 1).

Bank of America announced yesterday that due to the just-passed financial reform, its revenues will drop by $4.3 billion annually (WSJ article), more than two waterfront tunnels every year. But across 55 million customers, that’s only $78 per person. Coincidently, that’s exactly two $39 debit-card overdrafts.

To make up for the lost revenue, the bank needs about $6 per month in fees across the entire customer base (note 2). I can envision a package of new and existing benefits pitched to customers to convince them to pony up the $5.95/mo in new fees. For example:

  • Real-time mobile/desktop alerts
  • Lifetime data backup in the cloud
  • Linked OD protection
  • Instant bill pay with guaranteed delivery  
  • Remote deposit capture
  • No-hold customer service with guaranteed same-hour call back
  • Custom fraud tools with fraud-loss guarantee
  • Online financial management tools
  • Desktop/mobile apps fine-tuned for specific customer segments
  • Rewards program for self-service/estatements
  • Two-way alerts
  • Monthly credit score

It will take years to make the transition. But in the end, consumers will get used to paying modest monthly fees instead of facing $39 overdraft-fee shocks several times per year (note 3). And banks/credit unions can spend less time soothing exasperated customers. It could be a win-win.   

Notes:
1. Luckily, we have municipal debt, so we can pay this off at $75+ per person, or coincidentally again, about $5.95/mo for 30 years. And the state is helping out too, so the Washington population will be pitching in to help lower the actual cost to Seattleites.
2. This is an extremely simplistic example to make a point and does not factor in cost cutting, commercial banking revenues, etc. 
3. Since banking is highly competitive, any new fees will work only to the extent the overall price/value of the services remains competitive.
4. For more ideas, see our annual planning report, which includes a section on potential fee-based online/mobile services.

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Debit Card Overdraft Protection: 2 Steps Forward, 1.9 Back

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Bank of America, Deposits, Checking, Savings, CDs, Fee Income, Fifth Third Bancorp, PNC Bank, Strategies, US Bank, Wells Fargo

image So far, I’m underwhelmed with the industry’s online marketing response to the new opt-in debit card OD protection regulations. I expected to see new pricing models transforming small overdrafts into a value-add for debit card users, rather than the onerous penalty they had become over the past few years.

On the positive side, the elimination of OD charges for small transactions is a good first step. Three of the five FIs in our mini-survey have dropped fees on ODs of less than $5 (PNC and GTE Federal) or $10 (U.S. Bank). And Wells even makes a bit of a game out of it: Customers who cover the OD during the same day incur no fee.

And Bank of America has just thrown in the towel on the whole notion, running full-page ads (p. A11 in today’s WSJ; Overdraft Control landing page) saying they’ll just deny any attempt to overdraw via debit card. The retail giant joins Citibank and ING Direct, which already followed the same approach.

But financial institutions are missing an opportunity here. Take Wells Fargo, for example. When I ran across the bank’s new homepage ad for debit card OD protection (see first screenshot), I expected to click through and find a novel take on the new federally mandated opt-in requirement (see second screenshot).

Wells does a good job explaining how the new rules benefit customers (the two steps forward): 

  • The bank’s website copy is understandable and nicely outlines the lower-cost credit line, and savings account transfer options are offered
  • The toll-free number to sign up is prominent, although where’s the online signup option? 
  • Great to see online and mobile balance-tracking tools offered up to help avoid overdrafts in the first place
  • My favorite: Customers are allowed to cover the overdraft during the same day and avoid the charge

But much of that uptick in consumer goodwill is negated when you get to the pricing:

  • Debit card overdrafts are $35 each, with a maximum of 4 per day, or a $140 daily penalty if you opt in and make a mistake coffee-shop (or more likely bar-) hopping some weekend.

In a spot check of other financial institutions, it’s clear that Wells Fargo is far from alone in the $30 per item price range:

  • US Bank will charge $10 per overdraft of $20 or less and $33 for all others; it will charge for up to 3 ODs and 3 returned items for up to 6 per day; there’s a $25 fee if you don’t pay back within a week, but no charge for any item that results in less than $10 in total negative balance.
  • Fifth Third Bank will charge $25 for the first overdraft each year, $33 for the next three, then $37 each after that; maximum of 10 per day; $8 per day after the third day it’s not paid back; no OD charge if negative balance is $5 or less.
  • PNC Bank charges $36 per item up to 4 per day, plus $7/day the account is overdrawn for a maximum of 14 days.
  • GTE Federal Credit Union is charging $29 each, with no charge on under-$5 items (blog post, Facebook post)

I just don’t see customers being too pleased with the price/value here. Wouldn’t customers, and shareholders, be better served with a value-based pricing strategy? How about $5 each for an under-$100 mistake? Or follow the telecom model and sell debit card overdraft protection as a $4.95/mo subscription.

By my simple math, a million customers paying $5/mo is a whole lot more revenue than a few thousand paying $35 a pop. Then there are all the side benefits: customer goodwill, reduced customer service headaches, positive word-of-mouth, and the PR/marketing value of making debit overdrafts into a real service.

Debit card OD link on Wells Fargo homepage (13 July 2010)

Wells Fargo homepage showing debit card OD ad

Landing page (link)
Click to enlarge

Wells Fargo debit overdraft landing page

image Note: Upper-right graphic from Horizons North Credit Union, which is charging $25 per item, with no limit on the number. The opt-in ad is a huge part of its current homepage (inset, click to enlarge).

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New Online Banking Report Published: Bank Transaction Email Alerts & Real-Time Streaming (Feeds)

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Alerts & Messaging, Blippy, Email Marketing, Online Banking Report

image Two months ago when we were sketching out the next Online Banking Report (see note for links to the report), I thought it would be useful to look at the real-time Web and how consumers were becoming accustomed to status update feeds through Facebook and Twitter.

Old-school alerts: Email
As I wrote the report, I realized that most online banking users still want to consume transaction data the old-fashioned way, through email and over the Web. We did a quick consumer survey that confirmed our hypothesis, with email preferred 2-to-1, over text and voice messaging. Even among the under-35 crowd, email and text alerts were tied.

So we also took a detailed dive into email alerts, developing 22 recommendations for state-of-the-art email messages. And we graded 16 alert examples from 13 financial institutions. Overall, our sample scored very well with Bank of America, Lending Club, Mint, ING Direct, PayPal all earning A grades. Also U.S. Bank, Schwab, Wells Fargo and Prosper were just slightly lower, each with a B+. 

The future: Real-time streams/feeds/updates
While email, text or voice messages work well for alerts, they are not as desirable for keeping users informed of all their transactions. Once you start getting multiple emails each day from your financial accounts, it becomes overwhelming and you stop opening them. That’s why transaction feeds are a promising means for keeping customers up-to-date on an ongoing basis. In a world where so many consumers are following a Facebook news feed, Twitter feed, or good old RSS, it’s only natural that financial transactions will join the mix.

But it’s still a long way off. For the most part, consumers do not want commercial messages cluttering their news feeds. And they are understandably confused about privacy/security settings, and don’t feel confident that bank transactions delivered via Twitter direct message, are not being displayed to the world.

However, once we get past that educational challenge, we believe a significant number of consumers will prefer tracking their finances via feed (mostly via mobile) instead of logging in to online banking multiple times per month.

To learn more about what could happen in this area, we looked at three transaction-feed startups:

Bottom line: Real-time feeds are the future, but many years away from making it past even the earliest of adopters. For most financial institutions, the important thing now is to make sure you have great email and text alerts. But for those looking to differentiate with technology, feeds provide an intriguing opportunity. 

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Note:
1. The report is available at no extra charge to OBR subscribers here; and can be purchased for US$495 by others here. See the Table of Contents here (PDF). 

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Making Debit Overdrafts into a Real Service Again

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Fee Income, Loans & Credit, Pricing, Strategies

imageIn 1988, as a new product manager at a long-since-merged-away bank, one of the first things I did was send a memo to my superiors pointing out that our overdraft fee of $8 was significantly less than our peers. And that we might want to consider raising ours to the industry standard $10. That little change added a million dollars to our bottom line and wasn’t a half-bad start to my career there. 

So I’ve always understood how difficult it is to resist the temptation to raise OD fees. That said, there was no excuse for the debit-card excesses that led to the opt-in regulations taking effect this summer. No one should have to pay $39 extra for their morning coffee/donut fix.  

So as much as I detest price controls, I’ll have to admit I’ve been looking forward to the industry efforts to turn debit overdrafts into a value-added service instead of the huge negative penalty they had become.

Ultimately, I see small overdrafts being priced more like mini-loans with a combination of withdrawal fees in the same range as foreign-ATM fees ($2 to $4 each) plus an interest rate or nominal daily fee based on the outstanding balance. Then, if I’m at the store and need $40 more for dinner groceries, I can decide to take the loan, pay the extra $5, and go about with my evening plans.

It’s a win-win. I’m happy the bank/credit union gave extended me a little credit in a tight situation, and the bank makes some much-needed fee income, albeit in $3 increments, instead of $39. While the lower prices won’t replace lost fee income dollar for dollar, and underwriting/credit issues must be addressed, customers will be happier and more loyal, employees will feel better about the value delivered, and in the long-term, things can get back to a more normal price/value relationship.

I’ll be chronicling some of the most interesting implementations of value-added OD protection during the rest of the summer. I looked at Truliant Federal Credit Union a few weeks ago (here). Next up, Wells Fargo.

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Chase Adds Mobile Remote Deposit Capture and P2P Payments to its iPhone App

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Chase Bank, iPhone, Mobile Banking, P2P Payments, Remote Deposit Capture

imageChase Bank rolled out a major new release to its iPhone app on Thursday (v. 2.3.1) with the addition of both remote deposit capture and peer-to-peer (P2P) payments (see inset). Chase is the first to support both those important features in its mobile app (note 1). This post covers remote deposit, and I’ll look at the P2P feature later.

How it works
I had been looking forward to depositing a check via the magic of the iPhone. But sadly, despite following the directions and capturing a good image of the front and back of the check, the software failed to scan the amount correctly (see screenshot 7).

The Chase app said the check scanned in at $0, despite it being a printed $200 check. I was testing with my trusty version 1 iPhone (circa 2007), which may not have a sharp enough camera. I’ll try it on a newer iPhone and update the post. 

Here’s the process for new users (click on the thumbnails to view larger versions):

1. The Chase Quick Deposit service has been added to the main navigation bar across the bottom.

2. Customers agree to terms and conditions. Note: The service is limited to $1,000 per day and no more than $3,000 per month, eliminating many businesses as potential users.

3. On the first screen, users enter the dollar amount of the check.

4. The app provides instructions on how to successfully capture the check image.

5. Take pictures of the front and back of the check.

6. Double check image quality.

7. Error message saying that the dollar amount from the scan ($0) did not match the amount entered ($200).

Summary: Despite the glitch on my first deposit attempt, I’m glad to see Chase moving the mobile state-of-the-art forward. I’m sure we’ll see remote deposit added to most major mobile banking apps in the near future.

1. Signup screen           2. Customer agreement  3. Enter amount

image    image    image

4. Hints on image capture   5. Photograph the check front and back

image    image

6. View photo results                             7. Error message

image       image

Notes:
1. USAA was the first major bank with mobile remote deposit, launching it in Sep. 2009; while WV United FCU was the very first with it almost exactly one year ago.
2. For more on mobile banking and payments, see the most recent issue from Online Banking Report.

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Online Financial Management Pioneer Wesabe to Shutter its PFM Functions, Open Source its Code

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Personal Financial Management, Wesabe

image I’m sorry to see that Wesabe has thrown in the towel and will shutter the financial management portion of its website, leaving just the online forums intact. Customers have until July 31 to export their financial data stored at the company.

I have been a long-time fan and have been inspired by founders Jason Knight and Marc Hedlund. The company was the first VC-funded player in the online PFM space, beating Mint to market by a good nine months back in 2006. We’ve written about them in Netbanker and Online Banking Report, and they presented on stage at our first FinovateStartup (2008 video). 

Wesabe’s been pretty quiet this year and traffic has been on the decline, but it’s still a respectable 40,000 uniques per month (see below). I was hoping they would soon be announcing a new round of funding, but obviously that didn’t come through. But I am somewhat surprised no other PFM player stepped in to purchase the assets, especially given Mint’s $170 million exit nine months ago (note 1). I’m afraid it’s a sign that the standalone OFM space is struggling.

image
Source: Compete, June 30, 2010

It also illustrates the point we’ve been making for a long time: The first hurdle for market acceptance is trust. And it’s difficult for a non-bank financial management startup to earn enough trust from enough people fast enough to survive. Mint proved that it can happen, but most OFM players will need to partner with banks and credit unions to overcome the trust barrier.

Still, the Wesabe case is surprising. Well into its fourth year, with a solid track record, a core group of fans, some cool technology, and a straightforward white-labeling model, it seemed the company had made it far enough down the trust curve to be one of the survivors. But in a Wesabe groups discussion forum a few hours ago, CEO Hedlund gave a pessimistic assessment of the company’s revenue outlook. In response to several posts from members saying they’d gladly pay a subscription fee to keep the company afloat, he said:image

One interesting side note, Wesabe says it will open source some of the code base, so users can continue to operate the service on their own computers. That may create opportunities for scrappy entrepreneurs to build something from the ashes of Wesabe, a fitting tribute to the PFM pioneer.

Wesabe homepage (30 June 2010)

image

Notes:
1. Wesabe was philosophically opposed to taking outside advertising, figuring that it was not in their users’ best interests, so the ad-sponsored biz model used by Mint was probably not on the table.
2. For more on the OFM/PFM market, see our latest Online Banking Report.

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PNC Bank Pitches Rewards Program at Logout

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Login/logoff marketing, PNC Bank, Rewards Programs

image The logoff page is one of the most important marketing platforms available to financial institutions (see note). The latest example: PNC Bank’s logoff screen delivered last week after leaving my Virtual Wallet (VW) account (see first screenshot below).

I like the two-column design with useful info on the left side for someone who’s just logged out and on the right a simple eye-catching advertisement for the bank’s free rewards program, PNC Points. A single Enroll Today button makes it easy to figure out what to do next, although that direct approach is not carried through on the landing page (second screenshot).

Overall, it’s a good effort, but I noticed something slightly off — the lack of VirtualWallet branding after logging out. The page is branded PNC Online Banking, and the two choices in the left box are:

  • Return to PNCVirtualWallet.com
  • Return to PNC.com

At minimum, the second choice isn’t worded correctly since I just left my VW account. Worst case, it leaves customers wondering why the bank doesn’t know where they came from. I assume the bank is using the same logout screen for both regular and VW customers and that everyone is accustomed to it by now. Still, it would be better to continue the VW experience all the way through logout.

PNC Bank logoff screen (24 June 2010)

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Landing page (link)
Surprisingly, after choosing Enroll Today on the logout page above, users go to another sales page, with a less prominent Enroll button buried in the lower right. Instead of this roundabout process, users should go directly to the enroll page. 

image

Note: For more information on login/logoff marketing see our Online Banking Report: Selling Behind the Password published April 2009.  

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ING Direct (USA) to Offer Special Independence Day Bonuses July 1 & 2

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Advertising & Promotion, ING Direct

imageI love holiday-themed online promotions. It’s the low-hanging fruit of online marketing. Why not dress up your website for the holidays and offer a little savings on the side? Worst case, you get a smile from your customers. Best case, you turn a tidy profit on the effort.

Last fall, I wrote about ING Direct’s Black Friday (pre-Thanksgiving) sale. I liked it so much, I am now the proud owner of an ING Direct mortgage refi thanks to the $683 incentive to apply that day.

Knowing what a fan I am, the bank provided me with a preview of the offers planned for next weekend to celebrate the events of 1776:

  • Investing for financial freedom: Investors who open a new ShareBuilder account receive a $76 bonus (after making one transaction). 
  • Pursuing the happiness of homeownership: Prospective homeowners who apply for a mortgage  receive $776 off closing costs, a 40% discount. 
  • Liberation from checking fees: A surprise promotion for its no-fee Electric Orange Checking account. 
  • Spreading the wealth of savings: An undisclosed boost to the bank’s usual refer-a-friend offer.

More details will appear on the bank’s landing page at 12:01 AM on July 1 <ingdirect.com/independence> (see teaser page below, first screenshot). The teaser campaign has already been implemented on the bank’s homepage, Twitter page, and Facebook page (see screenshots below).

Anyone else have something special planned for next weekend? Add it to the comments below or drop me an email.

Landing page teaser (link, 24 June 2010)

ING Direct 4th of July sale landing page

ING Direct homepage

ING Direct USA home page with indpedendance day sale teaser

Twitter page preview (link)

ING Direct twitter page with July 4 teaser

Facebook page (link)

ING Direct Facebook page with 1776 sale teaser

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