America Saves Week encourages thousands of families and individuals to save each year. As a financial institution, it’s your responsibility to motivate and lead your customers and members in understanding the importance of saving and learning the right strategies to do so. America Saves Week is a great opportunity to bolster your financial literacy efforts and to promote the different savings products you offer.
Consider promoting saving for a different occasion every day during America Saves Week – on social and by email. Here are a few ways you can get involved, educate, and promote your savings products each year during America Saves Week:
Monday – Save with a Plan
Promote “Save with a Plan” and encourage your relationships and social media followers to start saving with intention for a fun vacation, a down payment on a house, or start building a college fund. Those who save with a plan are twice as likely to reach their savings goal – so encourage your relationships to start a healthy savings habit with a simple plan to save.
Everyone wants to take a vacation, so promoting savings to your relationships as a way for them to save up for their next family vacation is a good strategy for growing savings accounts. Remind your relationships without current savings account that opening a savings account is an easy way to save for vacation or travel. Suggest they tuck away part of their tax refund and put that towards their vacation savings.
Defining Your Audience
Age Range – 18+ in good standing.
Products – All without savings accounts. Consider doing a second audience of those with low deposits in current savings accounts.
Balance – No balance filter.
Saving for a new home can be a stressful time. According to the 2018 National Association of Realtors Report, millennials were the highest percentage of first-time home buyers. Segment your relationships ages 35 and under, without a current mortgage or savings account, and suggest opening up a high-interest savings account in order to save for a down payment for their first home. Promote the different types of savings accounts you offer and the benefits of each and how they can help them achieve their savings goal.
Defining Your Audience
Age Range – Target relationships ages 35 and younger in good standing.
Products – All without a current mortgage.
Balance – No balance filter.
Tuesday – Save Automatically
Encouraging your relationships to set up direct deposit is a great way to encourage automatic savings. For low-middle income households, this can be especially attractive as a smart way to automatically tuck money away into a savings account from each paycheck. If they’re saving automatically they don’t even have to think about setting the money aside. Promote all of your automated services to encourage people to automate their finances for simplicity.
Target low to medium income households and promote your automatic savings. Demonstrate the importance and ease of setting up direct deposit as a smart and safe way to save. If you have the demographic information regarding your relationships income and can access this data from your core, you can segment those relationships without direct deposit or a current savings account and promote automatic savings with the savings products you offer. If you don’t have access to that data, you can craft a message that speaks to the general benefits of direct deposit and noting all of the different things you can save up for with direct deposit and automatic savings.
Defining Your Audience
Cohort Data – Target low to medium income households.
Age Range – 18+ in good standing. Products – Without savings or direct deposit.
Balance – No balance filter.
If you don’t have access to that data, you can craft a message that speaks to the general benefits of direct deposit and noting all of the different things you can save up for with direct deposit and automatic savings.
Defining Your Audience
Age Range – Target all relationships 18+ in good standing.
Products – No product filter.
Balance – No balance filter.
Wednesday – Save for the Unexpected
Setting up an emergency fund is important for people of all ages. One never knows when an accident will occur – a car break down, a medical emergency, etc. This is a great opportunity for financial literacy and teaching your relationships the importance of and how to save up an emergency fund, what it should be used for, and how to keep it funded. Send an email promotion to all of your current relationships without a savings account.
Defining Your Audience
Age Range – Target all relationships 18+ in good standing.
Products – No product filter.
Balance – No balance filter.
Promote Health Savings Accounts (HSA) as a way to build up an emergency fund for medical emergencies. Your HSA products can be promoted to everyone but may be particularly helpful for an audience of 55+.
Defining Your Audience
Age Range – Target relationships 55+ in good standing.
Products – All without HSA.
Balance – No balance filter.
Thursday – Save to Retire
America Saves Week is a great opportunity to also be promoting your retirement savings account. A good place to start is to segment your relationships 55 and older, without a retirement savings account and without any savings account and send a promotional email about the benefits that a senior savings account can offer.
Defining Your Audience
Age Range – Target relationships 55+ in good standing.
Products – All without retirement savings or senior savings account.
Balance – No balance filter.
Segment an audience of millennial and gen x relationships without a retirement savings account and promote the benefits of beginning to save for retirement with an IRA savings account.
Defining Your Audience
Age Range – Target relationships 25 to 55 in good standing.
Products – All without retirement savings.
Balance – No balance filter.
Even though a lot of people aren’t currently opening CDs, this is a great opportunity to promote CDs if you can offer good rates for a limited time during America Saves Week. Promote saving for emergencies, education, or vacation as a reason to open a CD during America Saves Week. Send out an email promoting your limited time rates, and educate on how CDs work and what they can be used for once they reach maturity.
Defining Your Audience
Age Range – All relationshps in good standing.
Products – No product filter.
Balance – No balance filter.
Friday – Save the Extra
Promote financial literacy on putting aside any extra money. According to AmericaSavesWeek.org, individuals are more likely to save a windfall than a small amount over time. Encourage your relationships to save any extra income they receive from bonuses, raises, and tax refunds. Challenge them to deposit at least $50 of their tax refund into a savings account this year. If they do, enter them to win a drawing for a cash prize or a giveaway item.
Defining Your Audience
Age Range – All relationships in good standing.
Products – No product filter. Those with savings can add to their savings, those without can be encouraged to open a savings account.
Balance – No balance filter.
Saturday – Save as a Family
Encouraging kids to begin saving and understand smart ways to save is an important aspect of financial literacy. If you offer kids savings accounts, consider promoting your savings accounts and tips on kids savings by getting involved with local schools in your area. It can even be as simple as sending home flyers with students to share with their parents, encouraging them to visit a branch sometime during America Saves Week to speak with someone at the bank about smart ways to save and getting their very own savings account set up.
Defining Your Audience
Age Range – Target parents between the ages of 25 and 45.
Products – All without Kids Savings account primary or secondary relationship.
Balance – No balance filter.
Offer to match up to $50 for any kids, youth, or teen savings account that’s opened during America Saves Week. Promote tips for kids savings on your social media accounts and within your branches.
Promote setting up a kids, youth, or teen savings account as a way to start saving for college. Send out an email promotion to all of your relationships encouraging them to set up a savings account or open up a CD for the kid in their lives. Whether it’s a child, niece, nephew, or grandchild, spread the word about the importance of starting to save young, and promote your kids’ savings account offers. Here are some free social designs you can share on your social sites with youth saving stats and tips.
Additional Ideas for Promoting America Saves Week
Hold Contests
- Promote all of your savings account products and mention that if someone opens on these accounts during America Saves Week, you will waive the minimum deposit, match up to a certain percentage of the opening deposit, give a free gift, or enter them to win a drawing for a $500 cash prize or item giveaway.
- Hold a savings challenge – This is a way you can grow deposits even among relationships who already have savings accounts with you. Challenge your relationships to put a specific dollar amount in their savings account, say $50, during America Saves Week and be put into a drawing to win a cash prize. Or offer a % match up to a certain amount. Whatever your budget allows, offer a reward to incentivize your relationships to add to their current savings accounts.
America Saves Week is a great opportunity for engaging your relationships, educating them on the importance of saving, and promoting savings products. There are many different ways you can promote financial literacy and grow savings accounts during America Saves Week and there are lots of free resources available to help get you started. For more strategies or ideas, contact us at in**@on*******.com or sign up for a quick demo to see how Core iQ can help banks and credit unions strategically automate savings accounts to new and current relationships.
