The Long Tail of Banking

Apathy: The Traditional Bank’s Biggest Threat January 6, 2010

I always tell my banking colleagues that any bank or credit union’s number one competitor is not another bank or credit union.  It’s apathy.  It’s the fact that consumers just don’t give a damn about their banking.  It’s weird: people care about almost nothing as much as money, but couldn’t care less about the banking services that support that money.

So how do you break through the apathy?  You create an experience that engages people on their turf–the playgrounds of their lives.  Engages their existing interests, their passions, their hobbies.  You give them an experience that’s first and foremost about those things they love, and let the banking part come in where it fits naturally.  It’s the difference between a bank having a sales culture, and having an engagement culture.

That’s niche banking.

Niche banking is the apathy killer.  Think of it this way:  traditional banking strategies and marketing are about taking banking, and decorating it in a way that attempts to encourage people to care.  This rarely works, though, which is evidenced by the undeniable apathy consumers have for their banks. Niche banking is the opposite–it takes something people already care about, and just adds banking services as an unforced extension of that thing they already care about.