Completing a recent study on digital marketing in the financial services sector, Frank Dudley, president and founder of Brand New Media found that firms raised their digital marketing budgets by 30% in the past year — often at the expense of print. Dudley, also a professor of marketing at Northwestern University, explains how firms are connecting with prospects digitally — and where they fail.
“A firm may be really good at getting people to register to its Facebook social media page, but then literally do nothing in terms of engaging. Part of the model we developed wasn’t just how many people signed up, but the level of engagement.
They set up Facebook and Twitter pages. But many firms haven’t created social synergy yet. Facebook linked with Twitter. That is the way consumers engage. Many companies have people dedicated to social media, and they’re following the posts. I think the big threshold is going to be utilizing all these posts and data to really buttress up customer service. If you can use it to continuously engage the investor in a positive way, you can have them for a lifetime.
This is what consumers are doing. I have a class of 100 graduate students in a marketing management course. We asked how many read a newspaper, and not one student said they did. They’re between the ages of 21 and 35. That’s huge. They’re just consuming content differently. Who is the firm customer today? They’re falling into a different demographic. It is important for companies to win tomorrow. There is still time. Social will be part of marketing mix. It’s just a matter of how much.”
