I wanted to explore further my earlier post on why new immigrants provide an enormous opportunity for Banks.  I have been having a good discussion today in the comments with Reynold (thank you!) which made me realise I wasn’t clear enough in laying out my thinking. Clearly immigrants backgrounds required different approaches, based on different cultures and attitudes, but here I am speaking about the size of the opportunity relative to traditional marketing.  Also I am looking here at new business opportunity, not share of wallet. Continuing with Canada as an example there are 220,000 – 256,000 (2005) new immigrants annually. Canada has … Continue reading Additional analysis on marketing and the new immigrants

 Canadian banks are beginning to appreciate that traditional marketing approaches targetted at the mass markets effectively miss the most important part of marketing – achieving sales results. The trend of pursuing customers in specific ethnic groups may in fact be part of a wider shift in the banking industry away from traditional mass-marketing campaigns Source: Canadian Banks & Insurance As we have discussed ad nauseam, old style marketing is dead.  One aspect of new marketing is understanding your audience which requires detailed market segmentation, and behavioural understanding. Canada’s big banks have no doubt taken notice of the success of ING … Continue reading Canadian Banks target new Canadians

 More on WaMu, specifically Chicago.  They expanded in Chicago only 3 years ago. Washington Mutual Inc., which moved aggressively into the Chicago market in recent years, is now closing branches in the area. The Seattle-based bank plans to close 28 of its 172 Chicago-area branches, mainly in Lake and McHenry Counties as well as in other outlying suburbs. An estimated 168 jobs could be affected by the closures. WaMu’s deposit market share in the Chicago area is 0.3 percent, the same as Rockford-based Amcore Bank, which has only about two dozen Chicago-area branches, and Elgin-based EFS Bank, which has about … Continue reading Washington Mutual steps back | Chicago Tribune