RJM's
Insights

Last week we hung a new poster on our office wall. No matter how much I like it, this is relevant now only because of what it says: “We have a strategic plan. It’s called doing things.”

If marketing is nothing more than a gigantic chicken and egg problem, this quote from Herb Kelleher (former CEO of Southwest Airlines) solves the chicken side. Don’t stop. Just live. Go forward and adjust on the way.

Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report is out!

“Mary who?” you ask?

A partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, she has been covering the emerging technology markets since early in her career. Serving on the boards of companies such as Square and DocuSign, she releases a yearly report on trends on the Internet. And the report is no light reading – this year’s spans 294 slides and covers everything from monthly active users for social media to the U.S. GDP and unemployment rates.

Released on May 30, we understand if you haven’t spent the time to go through all 294 slides quite yet. So, we thought we’d take a moment to pull out the important points that we saw.

I don't like to turn lights on. Nothing against the power company, I like them just fine. But on the scale of needs and wants, light often falls closer to a want than a need. It's also, as I've been told, an unnatural habit.

When operating without light, you develop a sixth sense of where things are. Two steps, and a half step to the left prevents you from stubbing your toe on the end table. When you reach out and feel the tree on the way to the barn, be sure to stay close as there is a hole to your left. Walk through the doorway and four steps in is the light pull above your head.

Seems a little like being in business, doesn't it?

There’s a wonderful ambiguity to marketing. It’s creative, ever changing, and no matter how many books are written on the subject, there really is no formula. Best practices exist, but there’s always something that comes and changes the game.

Figuring ROI; now that isn’t exactly creative. It’s a simple formula: ROI = (R – C)/C : where R is your income return from the marketing effort and C is your marketing cost. Hasn’t changed since the first person tried to figure out which 50% of their marketing wasn’t working. But while the cost is easily figured, trying to accurately track the income is a little difficult sometimes.

The internet has dramatically changed the transactions between businesses and consumers. Today more information, activities, and services are available to consumers online. This has resulted in many websites being deemed a place of public accommodation, requiring ADA compliance for those with disabilities.

Motivating Millennials

Millennials are now the largest population segment ever in U.S. history. (FICO, 2014) Even though half of millennials claim a national bank as their primary bank, they are also willing to open an account somewhere else—giving your community bank a great opportunity. (Accenture, 2015) Investing in customer loyalty with millennials creates multiple wins; 56% of surveyed millennials have recommended their bank in the past. (FICO, 2014) Not only can millennials develop into loyal customers, they are more likely to promote their bank and services compared to other groups.

Are you Maximizing Your Current Customer Accounts?

Increased competition and new banking methods make customer acquisition harder than ever. Instead of struggling to acquire a new customer, try switching your focus from acquisition to expansion through cross-selling. Expanding the number of products and services that your current customers utilize allows you to increase deposits or revenue without incurring the costs needed to convince a new customer to switch banks. Cross-selling and customer retention is critical in getting ahead of the competition.

Fifteen years ago, Google was barely a newborn. Literally only a month old as a company, Google consisted of nothing more than a few founders and some loosely tied together hardware in a Menlo Park garage. By 2004, Google was a billion-dollar company being publicly traded on the NASDAQ. But this isn't a story of their meteoric rise; it's a story of how they have pulled your business into their journey.

At some point in time, there was a person who thought that strapping themselves inside of a metal tube filled with thousands of gallons of highly flammable material was a good idea, and lighting a match to the entire thing would be a great idea. It's assured that the idea caused many an eyebrow to be raised when first announced. Then we went to the moon, and it wasn't such a bad idea.

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We should of, we could of, we want to, we like to, we actually (end up) do.
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