Tag Archives: Marketing

Mar28

Why did Bank of America sell me down the river?

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Lois Geller

Why did Bank of America sell me down the river?

When I moved to Florida, a lawyer suggested that I get a mortgage from Bank of America. I took his advice and had no problems for 9 years, thanks to a great mortgage man at the bank.

Then, last weekend riffling through the papers on my desk, I came across a bland and eminently ignorable note from an entity named Green Tree Lending. The letter informed me that Green Tree now owned my mortgage. I thought I had never heard of Green Tree, but apparently I had.

Looking around for letters from Bank of America I found one that had slipped my mind completely. It mentioned that BoA was dumping me off to Green Tree. The letter was just one of an endless stream of impact-free communications Americans get these days. My first takeaway from all this is DO NOT GIVE SHORT SHRIFT TO MESSAGES FROM ORGANIZATIONS THAT CAN MESS UP YOUR LIFE.

I thought I knew who and what BoA was but I was wrong. I went online to see who and what Green Tree is. If you have a strong stomach, check them out yourself. You’ll find lots of miserable stories like this: WorldFreeNews.com

I’m not as horrified by Green Tree as I know I eventually will be. For now, I’m more horrified by Bank of America. There is something seriously wrong in the bowels of that formerly reliable institution. I have no idea what it is but I suspect it goes back to the disastrous government-driven policy of issuing mortgages to people who couldn’t possibly have paid for them and the blood-sniffing sharks that took advantage of it.

Or maybe I’m missing something. If you know what it might be, I’d appreciate reading about it in your comment below.

BTW I wonder why banks (like BoA) spend all kinds of money on Branding, and then let it fall apart. I wrote a piece about Brand on my Forbes column (Marketing Matters More Than Ever): Why Brand Matters and there I said, “In one sense, perhaps the most important sense, a brand is a promise.”

So what happened to the Bank of America’s promise to me?

To Blog or Not?

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Lois Geller

To Blog or Not?

This is an odd post to be put up on my blog.

As many of you know, I also have a column on Forbes: Marketing Matters More Than Ever

There I write about how to make your advertising memorable, and why you should consider marketing to a niche (among dozens of other ideas).

Every once in a while I wonder about the value of these blogs. Do they really help generate business for my agency? I was discussing that very thought on The Jim Blasingame Radio Show. Here is the “tape” of that show (for your listening pleasure): To Blog or Not To Blog

Share your thoughts on blogging and please comment below.

When people are nice, you give them the business

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Lois Geller

When people are nice, you give them the business

Last week, with Certificates of Deposit (CD) due for renewal, I called the bank to find out the new interest rate. A woman answered, dithered a bit and then said that nobody could talk to me. They’d call back.

They didn’t.

I called again the next day. Same thing. The bank is a Florida operation with 20 branches, so I tried calling another branch that is near my office, but apparently you can’t do that.

Hmmm. I called my original branch, tapping my feet, and told whoever answered that I’d be in to close the CDs the next day. He said “okay”.

So, I drove over there and, after an hour of waiting to get approvals, I left with my cashier’s checks. The employees didn’t even pretend to try to keep me as a customer.

Later many people tweeted and emailed me that the reason the bank didn’t care about renewing my CD’s is that they really make no money on them and that they’re more interested in investment accounts or loans.

That may be the case, but aren’t I a prospect for all of those programs also? Yes, I am. Plus, I’m on my Condo Board and we have a huge sum of money in that particular branch. They made me upset because they didn’t recognize our long-term relationship. And, as a business owner, I would be so upset if any of our clients were ever treated poorly like I was.

Flash forward a day

I was talking to my right-out-of-college assistant, Rachel, about saving money and investing wisely. One thing led to another, and I called to make an appointment for her with Jack Howell at a nearby branch of Scottrade.

He was happy to meet her and spent a lot of time explaining how to trade online. He answered her questions and was so informative that I, who’ve had a Scottrade account for years, learned a few things – like how to find dividend bearing stocks on Scottrade’s website. Here’s a photo of Jack with Rachel.

Since then, I’ve told all kinds of people about how great Scottrade is, even Tweeting the company’s praises to my 17,700 followers. My cousin, Fran up in Philadelphia, just called to tell me she signed up for a Scottrade account. Maybe others did, too.

I can’t understand the bank’s cavalier approach to customer service. They weren’t always like that. My Mom and Dad banked there for years and loved it. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that a large international bank group bought them a while back and now their marketing focus has changed.

Maybe they just wanted me to leave. It’s possible. But, why? What are your thoughts?

You might consider a “Just in Time” Mailing

Posted on August 2, 2010 by Lois Geller

You might consider a “Just in Time” Mailing

Guest Post from Rachel, The Intern

Here’s one…

Crateandbarrel

This letter came to Lois Geller, and though it’s about “moving to a new home” not a new office, they have the right idea. People still buy the most new things when they’ve moved and want to start fresh.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned while working in marketing it’s that it all about the right offer, to the right people at the right time. This offer is a bit lame, and not sure we can redeem it in stores close by our office.

Crateandbarrel

Lists and offers are very much like finding the love of your life; it’s not easy finding the perfect match. You try people on and if they don’t fit, you chuck ‘em. You ask yourself, what am I doing wrong? Well in Marketing, it’s the same way! You have to find the right match! When I say match, I mean the right list and the right offer. Once you have those 2 things down, you’re sure to have a successful campaign.

Lists work, and you need a “call to action”- use by September 1, 2010.

Most importantly, you have to strategize! If you want to stay ahead of the game, you have to have a game plan. Like the Miami Heat creating the Dream Team with Lebron, Wade, and Bosh, they have a game plan to win a championship! A good strategy in our case would be a Customer Loyalty program, which builds the database, and also creates long lasting loyal customers- like us!

Rachel

My name is Rachel Rodriguez and I am
currently a student at Johnson & Wales University,
studying Marketing. I will be graduating in the spring of 2011.

Being your own Wizard of Oz.

Posted on August 11, 2009 by Lois Geller

Being your own Wizard of Oz.

Twitter’s site went down for a few hours the other day and within 15 minutes I started feeling the pangs of withdrawal. Why? My goodness, it’s just a web site for short messages, isn’t it?

As I thought about it last night – why am I so attracted to Twitter? – it occurred to me that the reason might lie in Twitter’s competitive value to small companies like mine. In an important way, it gives us a leg up on big companies.

A lot of corporations worry about Twitter. Many of them don’t want to tweet on their own because they can’t control the process tightly; maybe employees will give people a bad impression of their brand. So they turn to their large agencies for help in testing social media. The large agency gives the job to junior creative people who do the best they can. The problem is that they can’t come up with revenue projections for Twitter results.

But small companies can really go to town with Twitter marketing. They can be themselves. If they’re looking for local customers, they can find them on Search. So if, for example, I have a store that specializes in interesting kites, I can talk about all the people who fly kites, I can give ideas for parties, have kite flying contests and sell discount kites, Twitter invite only, say once a month.

After several months, I can track ROI on Twitter much more easily than a large company ever could. This means that small businesses can:

• Build a great big wonderful Brand and voice that sound like they come from a real person;

• Connect with thousands of people and get known in their areas;

• For the first time, have access to anyone they want to reach;

• Talk about happenings, contests, prizes, awards, special offers any time an idea occurs to them;

• Begin to develop really solid friendships.

I’ve been doing this for a while now and I’m seeing real value. And I actually do feel a lot like the man behind the curtain, the Wizard of Twitter, pulling all the right levers.

If you’re interested in a Twitter or Social Media Program, feel free to call: 646-723-3231 or to visit me, on Twitter, of course, at twitter.com/loisgeller

I was talking to my techie pal in Vancouver about Twitter.

Posted on May 18, 2009 by Lois Geller

I was talking to my techie pal in Vancouver about Twitter.

He was saying, that he hasn’t seen it pay out for anyone.

I mentioned that it takes time to build relationships and the people that hawk their sales all the time will never win. He thinks that it might be a “flash in the pan”.

Then I read about a great Twitter Pizza in the Pan story on a blog, and it said that… Naked Pizza has been blogging and trading stories on Twitter. They decided to find out at the register if it was actually helping them make sales.

So on April 25th, they worked on tracking and found out that 15% of the day’s business came from Twitter. Frank Reed at Marketing Pilgrim tells the story best. Read all about it.

See, I told you so, Dwain! I’m a Twitterite.

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