How Can Banks Generate More Revenue

by Buana Sari Digital Marketer

Banks have been rethinking their revenue generation strategies following the global pandemic and dismal economic conditions prevailing in the last few years. Generating revenues from products such as credit cards, loans, deposits, etc. has proved difficult as a result of changes in consumer behavior and economic environment. A large segment of banking customers now comprises millennials or digital-native users who no longer like to be bothered with “one-to-many” bulk promo emails and spam messages. In fact, customers now expect banks to anticipate their latent needs and come up with relevant product suggestions even before contacting.

Banks across the globe are desperately targeting customer segments with the greatest revenue potential, creating new products and services for those segments, and enhancing customer service standards. In 2022 more banking leaders have reckoned with the never-before-seen challenge of redefining and digitizing customer processes. Aiming to get new and profitable customer segments, the banking industry worldwide is going through a complete digital transformation, leading to a dramatic jump in mobile marketing activities.

There has been a fifty percent increase in consumer mobile banking usage in the past years. And by the year 2025, almost 3 quarters (72.6 percent) of the users are likely to access the internet using their smartphones only (Source : Boston Digital). This means it is vital for banks to master mobile marketing catering to the growing mobile users. To win the race, modern banks are adopting new disruptive mobile technologies such as moLotus. They are embracing end-to-end digitization to reshape customer processes, drive high margin revenues with innovation, agility and cost savings.

Keeping in view this year’s Global Outlook for Banking and Financial Markets (BFM), here are the best ways for banks to generate more revenues :

1. Hyper-personalizing Customer Experience

Banks should target customer micro segments and personalize offers to them. Personalization capabilities, until recently, have been insufficient to help banks differentiate, build customer engagement, achieve competitive advantage and earn more revenues.

According to recent studies by Boston Consulting Group, banks are being leapfrogged by tech-savvy brands that put personalization at the core of their business models and successfully scale it to achieve high margin revenues. The research report came up with an interesting insight stating that the majority of consumers surveyed compared banking enterprises with customer centric tech companies like Amazon! In fact this comparison is not surprising as brands like Amazon have spurred a desire among customers for more personalized communication and offers for a better customer experience.

Mobile technologies can be great tools for banks for designing tailor-made offerings and delivering hyper-personalized products, services and pricing to customers. moLotus is an example of a disruptive mobile technology hyper-personalizing banking offers to enhance customer communication, customer loyalty and revenues.

It is transforming customer experience by integrating customer data across all bank branches. Banking enterprises are using the hyper-personalization capability of moLotus to make customer recommendations using customer data. Banks are creating profitable campaigns with hyper-personalization options like customer name, unique Id, offers, etc.

2. Automating Customer Acquisition

According to Deloitte “The bank of the future will not succeed without a smart, cost-effective (customer) acquisition strategy, whilst also delivering trust and awareness.” With the growing competition banks must switch to marketing technologies to attract new customers in a more convenient and cost-effective way. They can now easily reach out to tech-savvy customers and earn quick revenues using new technologies including moLotus, mobile app, chat bots, etc.

Customers often find the process of purchasing banking products and services as complex. Mobile technology has come a long way in automating, transforming, and simplifying the buying process via buying on mobile, mobile-assisted payments, and single-click purchase process.

Banks earlier used customer acquisition channels like emails, direct mail, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, etc. resulting in high cost of acquisition (CAC) and low revenue generation. Latest surveys point out that the inclusion of moLotus in marketing mix by renowned banks has completely transformed lead generation, customer acquisition and support processes resulting in high margin revenue generation.

They can now generate leads at low cost per lead though performance driven moLotus lead generation campaigns. The moLotus ad campaigns are supported by illustrative product videos up to 40 seconds quickly attracting customers; enticing them to interact, and enter into transactions and buy the products instantaneously adding to revenues.

Voice-based contact centers and manual sales processes are gradually becoming things of the past for innovative banks. These are rapidly getting replaced by automated mobile-based selling processes with the help of platforms like moLotus.

3. Attending To Customers Micro-moments

Buyer journey in the banking industry is made up of multiple moments of truth stitched seamlessly together. These together lead to buyer decisions, like conversion or drop-off. It is important for all banks to identify and fine-tune these vital micro-moments. For instance, this means automating and streamlining processes like document submission, contract renewals and service reminders for better customer experience and revenue generation.

Digital technologies like moLotus, SAP, Salesforce, etc. are enhancing these customer micro moments by digitizing, automating, integrating and improving customer processes via mobile transformation. For example, moLotus has fully automated and transformed customer sign-ups, document submission, contract renewals, etc. via mobile.

Banks are quite happy with moLotus powered mobile on-boarding, mobile video tutorials, etc. Customers can now take instant loan decisions, make deposits, pay bills digitally, and much more via moLotus. The end result of these big transformations is big revenues.

4. Transforming Product Revenue Generation

Banks must improve their product offerings, engaging more customers and earning more via automation and digitization of customer processes. Banks like HSBC, Standard Chartered, DBS, CIMB etc. are now using technologies like moLotus which has opened up new product revenue generation opportunities for them in the form of promotion of credit card usages, loan approvals, deposit drives and retail transactions.

Survey data reveals that customers can conveniently apply for credit cards and avail quick loans. The processing & approval work which used to take a long time is now super fast via mobile devices. Also, the new customer onboarding process via mobile is now a reality with the embracing of moLotus.

Major brands in the banking sector worldwide have increased revenues without compromising margins; generating high ROI by uplifting ARPU and Customer Lifetime Value.

5. Taking Loyalty & Retention Programs To The Next Level

Loyal customers are chief contributors to business revenues for the banking industry. In the past, banking customers were more loyal. A survey done in the banking sector a couple of years back found that approximately forty percent of the customers surveyed had been loyal to their banks for more than twenty years, while another 20 percent had been with their banking service provider for over ten years (Source : Statista). But things have changed now. Declining customer loyalty has become a major concern for banks, as retaining a customer cost much less than acquiring new ones. According to Foresight Research, at present nearly 44 million customers consider leaving their old bank and moving to a new bank.

As per research done by Brandwatch ‘convenience’ happens to be the most common reason for customers to stay loyal to their banks. The customers’ need for convenience – or rather the inconvenience forces them to switch banks. Surveys reveal that the best way for banks to enhance customer loyalty is via the adoption of mobile technologies which have automated and transformed long and tedious customer processes ensuring better customer engagement and satisfaction.

Currently there are too many loyalty & rewards programs delivered via mobile apps like Shopkick, Smile.io, Spendgo, etc. Banks using them are mostly unsatisfied with the app performance. Top banking brands are fast embracing moLotus strategic mobile transformation technology to increase loyalty & retention, bringing more revenues out of their existing clientele. They can run unique loyalty campaigns using moLotus and offer mobile loyalty cards eliminating the need of customers to carry plastic loyalty cards for day-to-day shopping.

Undoubtedly, the future belongs to the Millennials and Gen Z customers. Banks have well understood this. They are building long-term associations by keeping them engaged via moLotus mobile transformation capabilities like mobile reminders, digital rewards, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), real-time customer ratings, how-to, instant feedback via mobile, etc.

6. Optimizing Points Of Conversion

In the last few years conversion rate optimization has been a priority for banking businesses. Many of them have been successful in conversion optimization through mobile transformation earning more revenues. They have understood that merely creating a responsive website, creating mobile apps, optimizing SEO elements, etc. won’t add to customers and revenues unless they create enticing conversion points.

For banks, a conversion point can be defined as any point of customer interaction. Thus, for increasing conversion they need to create enticing conversion points using innovative technologies like moLotus. The marketing technology offers many easy customer interaction options enhancing customer communication processes for banks.

Customers can conveniently communicate with banks using their mobile phones via Call, USSD, SMS, Click, and more. moLotus has transformed manual customer processes like filling & document submission, contract renewals, reminders, etc. making them simple, effective and agile generating more conversions and revenues. moLotus doesn’t require any application download or buying data plans. It works on all phones - features as well as smartphones.

7. Reducing Cost

Global surveys point out that the profits of banking enterprises remain at historically low levels. The reason is quite simple – costs growing faster than revenues. The trends of rising costs and constrained revenue growth are set to continue owing to several macro-economic factors like skyrocketing inflation, new financial regulations, rising costs of compliance, rising process costs, requirement of technology upgradation and more (Source : Boston Consulting Group).

While costs have been climbing, banking business revenues need to keep a faster pace. Banks need to streamline their customer processes bringing a considerable amount of cost efficiency in order to scale revenues. Surveys highlight that platforms like moLotus have reduced outbound costs by up to thirty percent. The technology has transformed customer processes like customer onboarding, lead generation, and more making them cost-efficient, scaling revenues in just three months!

moLotus mobile video customer interaction platform and technology is helping banks to do away with staffing, training, printing & distribution, telemarketing, compliance, etc. costs. The cost savings can be further deployed in revenue generation activities.

8. Deriving & Using Deep Customer Insights

Generating deep customer insights is crucial for boosting banking business revenues. The rising volume of customer data is inducing banks to look for tools for harnessing, managing and analyzing the data.

Using enterprise mobility solutions and analytics, banks can intelligently integrate strategic data assets to generate actionable insights. They are using the power of data analytics to manage customer data and get deep customer insights. Utilizing the right transformation technology like moLotus enables banks to get deep business insights, paving the path for better revenue generation.

moLotus offers unique data analytics models unleashing new insights and achieving strategic goals. Integrating moLotus analytics in the existing business models produces superior financial results for banking businesses across the globe.

Conclusion

Given how difficult it is to increase revenue in the current global economic environment, the real opportunities for improving profit margins lie in including innovative marketing tools in the marketing mix and bringing digital transformations.

Banks should radically simplify products, services, and processes. To avoid falling behind fintech competitors, banks have to digitize more functions and processes using mobile technologies like moLotus. If they do so, banks can replace the current recessionary trends with a virtuous circle, reinvesting profits in breakthrough technologies and continually boosting revenues.