JeffMolander.com

White paper:
Social media & mobile in financial services

by Jeff Molander

Time to read: 1 minute. The social media and mobile opportunity for financial services organizations extends beyond account access, bill pay, transfers and the like.  Here it is in a breath:

Discovering customers' evolving needs, nurturing leads, capturing new business and increasing loyalty.

Today's customers are re-active.  Many times acting out of fear.  And when they need financial help they expect free, value-added services... to aid in making complex decisions.

My new white paper helps financial services companies to create tangible results with social and emerging mobile media.

Banks and insurance companies you will learn how reach beyond coercing customers to prefer their brand.  They'll learn how leading pioneers are producing tangible demand with digital.  Leads, referrals and increased share-of-wallet.  They're doing it using three success principles:

Start capturing demand with ’social’
STOP ‘branding conversations’

by Jeff Molander

Social media leadership means creating DEMAND not preference. CEO's should be pressing marketers to put sales and leads before tweets and friends... period.  It's a marketer's job to create measurable demand not memorable ads... nor preference.  It's time to lead.

Improving social media outcomes:
Chase & Anchor Bank

by Jeff Molander

Time to read: 4 minutes. Who do consumers dis-trust or dislike more than bankers these days?  Exactly.  For most financial services companies social media is playing a failed role in changing this.  Typical social  campaigns are designed to yield marginal (if any) tangible value.  They're built to fail because banking decision-makers are investing in the tactics without placing them in context of desired business outcomes.  Here's how Chase failed and how it could have taken a different approach to achieve better outcomes for the bank and customer.  Also, learn how Anchor Bank is using social media to do just that -- by capturing qualitative information about the customer that banking services staff use to follow-up on.

USAA bank uses social media
to deliver meaningful, profitable outcomes

by Jeff Molander

Time to read 3 minutes. Time-stretched USAA customers already demonstrated a willingness to use desktop scanners to make deposits.  So the bank decided to make what they're already doing align with customers' love-affair with mobile devices.  The result: meaningful customer outcomes and profits using social media and mobile applications.  USAA is one of today's best examples of social media and mobile device use in banking.  As part of my keynote speaking, I'm often illustrating how leaders like USAA are using utility to create meaningful outcomes.  Read on for all the details.

Case study on Moosejaw:
Improving social media marketing outcomes

by Jeff Molander

Time to read: 7 minutes. Today, Abercrombie & Fitch announced flat Web and declining store sales.  But they have well over 1,000,000 "followers and friends."   How can this be?  And Moosejaw... they're missing out on the 'digital native social commerce' action too.  Here's how to improve your social media marketing's output.  Read on and discover how to create tangible results with social media marketing. 

How a Ben Franklin craft store
is using social media to sell

by Jeff Molander

Time to read: 7 minutes. Experts say "building community,"  "buzz" or "engagement in the conversation" is joy.  But crazy people like me still like to SELL things.  And so do a few remaining Ben Franklin stores.  Today I'll show you how a Ben Franklin store in rural Washington accidentally discovered how to create a winning social media strategy that drives more buyers into the store.  I'll also share a shortcut with you: Stop looking for "what works" from agencies and consultants.  Start asking yourself, "what works in our stores?"  Then use tools like mobile texting to supercharge it.

A shortcut to finding
what works in social media marketing

by Jeff Molander

Time to read: 5 minutes. You need to create sales and leads with 'social' media/marketing.  That means finding "what works."  Discovering stories of businesses creating actual sales, customers, leads, subscribers -- not just Facebook friends or Twitter followers.  These practices live in places we cannot predict nor reliably access.  Or can we?  I'll show you what to look for at conferences, in trade magazines, podcasts, video and slide decks of presentations.  These are the haystacks we often search -- looking for buried needles.  Here are shortcuts you can use to find and apply "what works" and avoid what doesn't.

How Adagio is beating Bigelow Tea
to the social media punch

by Jeff Molander

Time to read: 8 minutes. Bigelow and Adagio Teas are two competing "tea-commerce" brands.  But Adagio is a clear category-leading online purveyor of tea.  In this short article I'll quickly give you the skinny on what they're doing to sell more tea using a remarkable approach to Web marketing and social media.  This ten-year old 'pure' Internet company is dominating its larger, older competitor.  And they're doing it without even taking phone calls from customers.  Here's their secret so you can follow their lead.

Social media: creating improved outcomes
in medical practices

by Jeff Molander

Time to read: 4 minutes. Exceptionally successful doctors and medical professionals are applying social media tools to create more meaningful relationships with -- and positive outcomes for -- patients.  Are you a pharmaceutical company looking to help physicians achieve these goals?  A doctor?  An adviser to medical practices?  I'll show you how to quickly plan and implement social media tools in ways that produce meaningful patient outcomes.

Why marketing on Facebook may not
help your business

by Jeff Molander

Time to read: 5 minutes. Like many marketers, 1800Flowers is intoxicated by excitement over "social media" and the supposed revolution it's creating.  But are you willing to bet your marketing dollars on customers shopping using Facebook?  Why?  The excitement and expectation around social media is too often illogical and dangerous.  Yes -- it's smart to experiment but yes it DOES cost real money to do so.  No -- most marketers CANNOT  afford to fail using social media in a down economy.  Resist bloggers, trade media and "experts" in their rush to hail "all that is Facebook" as bold and innovative.  Here's how.