Planning season is always here, it seems. How is your financial institution assessing accountholder needs to build a marketing strategy that converts? One way to identify what people think is important is to ask them. A financial needs assessment survey is a great way to approach this subject with your customer base. Financial needs assessment surveys can uncover important life events, which makes you better equipped to know when, where, and what products can help your accountholder along their individual journeys.
So, why is a financial needs assessment survey important to bank marketers?
These days, data-driven marketing and personalization is a must. If your team doesn’t have insight into your accountholders’ financial habits, they can’t effectively achieve a targeted marketing strategy. The financial needs assessment survey helps to develop your buyer personas and audience definitions so that you can understand what’s important to your accountholders, in turn allowing you to create relevant content and messaging that addresses individual pain points and greatly increases conversions.
Where should you start when creating a financial needs assessment survey for bank and credit union accountholders?
There are several considerations to make when preparing a financial needs assessment survey.
- Which accountholders should receive the financial needs assessment survey and when should they get it?
- How many questions should be asked in a financial needs assessment survey?
- What kind of questions should bank marketers ask in a financial needs assessment survey?
Here is an outline of options to consider. Then, you can make the best decision for your financial institution based on your specific goals and constraints.
Which accountholders should receive the financial needs assessment survey and when should they get it?
Including a financial needs assessment survey as part of your new accountholder onboarding process is an ideal way to immediately put each new relationship on a targeted journey based on their specific financial needs. By understanding their goals upfront, you position yourself to get the right information in front of them exactly when they need it. This approach will demonstrate that you’re dedicated to serving their needs. But what about all of your existing relationships? One approach we’re excited about is surveying all of your relationships on an annual basis. This way, you can capture new accountholder needs as well as reassess the needs of your existing accountholders as they change from year to year. Depending on how far out you prefer to plan your marketing strategy, you can conduct your financial needs assessment on an annual or bi-annual basis. There are obvious benefits to both options. An annual assessment gives you a snapshot for the year of any upcoming milestone events, giving you time to gradually introduce specific products that are essential to each relevant event. A bi-annual financial needs assessment will give you a more targeted timeline to begin offering your products, narrowing down the window when each event will occur so you don’t miss any opportunities to expand these relationships. Whichever you decide, you’ll be refining your audience definitions and equipping yourself with invaluable insights that can lead to growing your loans and deposits.
How many questions should be asked in a financial needs assessment survey?
With a growing influx of competitive inbox traffic in today’s digital landscape, it’s important to keep your survey questions to a minimum in order to increase the amount of completed surveys you’ll receive. Rule of Thumb – If a survey takes longer than five minutes to complete, it is likely too long. Best practices suggest having no more than three questions per survey that focus on a single objective.
What kind of questions should bank marketers ask in a financial needs assessment survey?
For a financial needs assessment survey, the key question you want to address is: What are your upcoming financial goals? There are a number of ways to go What are your upcoming financial goals? There are a number of ways to go about getting an answer to this question, and you must determine the right question(s) to ask and how to ask them. One approach is to define the financial products you’re most interested in promoting in a given year. At the highest level, we’re talking about loans or deposits. From here, we can focus on how we ask the question. If you’re interested in learning whether a customer will be interested in taking out a mortgage loan over the next 12 months, instead of asking, “Over the next 12 months will you need a mortgage loan?” ask “Over the next 12 months do you plan on buying a new home?” Or, instead of asking “Will you be interested in opening a new savings account?” You can ask, “Are you planning for a vacation?” Framing the survey questions to focus on a life event rather than the products you offer can help to establish a greater level of trust and partnership between you and your relationships. Here is an example of a one-question financial needs assessment survey with sample questions to include:
Over the next 12 months, I plan to: (Check all that apply)
Make improvements to my home
Buy a home
Buy a new or used automobile
Save for a vacation
Save for retirement
Expand my family
Grow my business
This simple, one-question survey will help you deepen your relationships with your accountholders, allowing you to send highly targeted offers to the right individual at the right time. This empowers you to support their unique life events, seamlessly activated thru the survey responses, fostering meaningful relationships throughout the year.