Introducing Tribed: Banking experiences for niche communities October 17, 2011
Posted by nichebanking in Bank customer segmentation, Banking business model, Future of banking, Niche banking, Niche banking examples, Nicheruptive, the Bank for Dog Fanatics, The Long Tail of Banking, Tribed.add a comment
After many anonymous, vague and philosophical blog posts and tweets over the last many, many months, I’m pleased to share with you what we’ve been working on.
First, let me introduce myself: I’m Jeff Stephens. Chances are, if you have been reading this blog, you may already know who I am. I’m founder and CEO of small brand consulting shop Creative Brand Communications, and its little buddy PSST! Word of Mouth Marketing for Banks and Credit Unions. I also blog a little bit about my ideas and entrepreneurship in general at www.jeff-stephens.com. In fact, I have posted a video message on that site today as well, if you’re interested.
I’m pleased to introduce my new business, Tribed: banking experiences for niche communities. We plan to develop an extensive series of small, highly targeted online-only ‘direct’ banks. Why? Because we want to make financial services more relevant to consumers. Our plan is to do this by providing banking member experiences that are tailored to extremely narrowly defined member segments, who share in a particular passion (“tribes”). You can read the official Tribed press release here.
As the first example of this concept, today we’ve also launched Wag, a new website aimed at the most avid dog fanatics, at www.dog-bank.com. The website is currently an online publication providing unique content about how personal finance topics intersect with and impact the lifestyle of the fanatical dog lover, and facilitating discussion with community members about these topics. Once we have completed the setup of our direct banking operations, the website will offer those services as well, while continuing to provide ongoing content. Currently accepting unlimited reservations for its service, Wag will cap initial membership at 1,500 members to maintain a high quality group of engaged dog fanatics. You can read the official press release for Wag here.
I hope you’ll take a few moments to poke around our sites and learn more about our concept. If you have questions, comments, etc., please be sure to share them. You can drop me a line at j@niche-banking.com.
Welcome to the long tail of banking!
Putting it all together: niche banking in practice October 11, 2011
Posted by nichebanking in Niche banking, Niche banking examples, Nicheruptive, The Long Tail of Banking.add a comment
It’s finally almost time to put everything together that we’ve been talking about, working on, and kicking around. As I look back at our posts and headlines over the past couple years, I see the evolution of our idea and our plans. I reflect on these posts, and in hindsight it was like dropping a trail of crumbs toward the launch of our concept:
- Everyone’s passionate about something…and somehow, money relates
- Only one type of banking innovation matters: business model innovation
- Niche banks will build relevant banking services into a social community
- Being a terrible fit for most people
I’m pleased to report that we’ll finally be introducing our ideas and plans to you on Monday, October 17, 2011. We’ll show you what we’ve been working on, how we envision this business functioning, give you a nice concrete example of what we’re talking about, and let you put a face with this anonymous name.
Counting down the days…
It’s almost time to pull back the curtain September 9, 2011
Posted by nichebanking in Future of banking, Niche banking, Nicheruptive, The Long Tail of Banking.add a comment
So, as you may or may not have known or guessed, we’ve been working on a little something here. For a while. For many months, it was “slow and sometimes surely.” And for several recent months, it’s been “slowly but definitely surely.” And we’re very pleased to report that we will be sharing this with you in mid-October. Yes, that’s right. You will soon learn what our semi-cryptic tweets, and theoretical and philosophical blog posts have been all about.
That will be an exciting day for us. And hopefully for you banking innovation nerds too.
Stay tuned…and thanks for your ongoing interest!
Everyone’s passionate about something…and somehow, money relates April 29, 2011
Posted by nichebanking in Bank customer segmentation, Future of banking, Niche banking, Nicheruptive, The Long Tail of Banking.1 comment so far
We all have our own interests and passions. We all have one topic, that if we were at a party with a group of our civilian friends, we would be the most expert in. For some people, it’s Star Wars trivia. For others it’s guitars. And for some, it’s wine, or coffee, or beer.
Everybody is a geek about something.
And somehow, money intersects with that passion; that “geekdom.” In some way–whether major or slight–money is involved with the person’s pursuit of that passion. Money might:
- facilitate someone’s ability to pursue the passion (ex: funding the purchase of classic cars)
- fund their ability to attend events with others who share the passion (ex: funding a trip to Comic-Con)
- finance their dream to build a business around their passion (ex: funding a startup brewery)
- serve the unique needs someone has when they pursue their passion (ex: managing money during a year-long trip around the world)
Letting customers outgrow niche banks October 22, 2010
Posted by nichebanking in Niche banking, Nicheruptive, Problems with traditional banking, The Long Tail of Banking.add a comment
One of the traps that most traditional banks and credit unions fall into is feeling the need (maybe even the duty?) to have products and services that serve customers throughout their entire lives. The thought of losing a customer because they have evolved or outgrown the company is terrifying to the bank. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how this feeling leads to the overly long product menus we see at today’s financial institutions, and the “we can be–and WANT TO BE–everything to everyone” mentality that is so pervasive.
So let’s go ahead and get one thing straight right now: Customers will frequently outgrow Nicheruptive‘s niche banks. They will move on when we no longer fit them. And not only is that totally OK, it’s critical.
Here’s they key: The wider range of customers and/or needs you try to serve, the less you can possibly truly tailor your experience to a niche group of people. The more you stretch to accommodate more breadth, the more you stray from your vision. Instead, our banks will be boutiques.
Nobody goes to In-N-Out because of the wide range of food choices to fit any lifestyle. Nobody goes to ING Direct for full-service banking. And those aren’t even niche companies…just companies with a commitment to their strategies. Just imagine the focus a true niche bank will have.
Who does your bank compete with? October 12, 2010
Posted by nichebanking in Commodity banking, Future of banking, Niche banking, The Long Tail of Banking.add a comment
If you are an existing traditional financial institution, who are your competitors? Other banks and credit unions, of course…right? Not to mention those pesky “alternative” banking sources such as LendingClub, Prosper, brokerages, and many others.
Our founders are famous for arguing that any financial institution’s biggest competitor is not any other financial company, but is rather apathy. Americans care about nothing more than their money it seems, but care about nothing less than their banking services. Apathy.
When you’re a niche bank, you don’t really compete with other financial companies. Instead, you compete with other sources of engagement for that customer segment. For instance, if you’re a fishing enthusiast, you have multiple resources you can turn to, to scratch your itch for needing to be part of that community. You can join an online social networking community, join a local fishermen’s group, join a trade association, or subscribe to a magazine. All of those channels are competing with each other for your engagement.
So when you’re a niche bank, you’re competing with other ways the customer can engage with their passion. Other banks? They are NOT a way the customer can engage with their passion. If you’re a bank for fisherman, your biggest competitor is other ways people can get their fish on.
The Easiest Part of Banking: The Banking July 26, 2010
Posted by nichebanking in Future of banking, Niche banking, Problems with traditional banking, The Long Tail of Banking.add a comment
Every industry, every business, has aspects that are challenging and difficult, and others that are easier. If your business is making movies, getting people excited about your product is relatively easy (because people love movies!). But crafting a unique and compelling story, and getting it funded, produced and distributed within budget, is the harder part.
In banking, it’s the exact opposite: ongoing banking operations are pretty easy, while attracting customers in a way that allows you to optimize your net margin and grow both sides of your balance sheet is the harder part. Most bank and credit union CEOs I know don’t spend much of their time on questions like “how are we going to get these transactions processed? or “how are we going to process these loan applications?” Instead, their focus is on issues like growth and management–the more truly challenging parts of the business.
Yet when bankers sit down to answer a question like “how are we going to grow?”, the solutions they arrive at are, ironically, all about improving the “banking” part of their business. Their answers tend to be things like “we will enhance our online service delivery,” “we will innovate our products and services,” and “we will provide the greatest customer service in delivering our products to customers.”
In other words, “we will improve the banking part of our banking.”
This is not where the energy should be focused.
The hard part of banking is not the banking itself–that’s the easy part. The hard part is creating something that people care about, breaking through apathy, and creating engagement that will drive the business forward.
That’s why the future of banking will be owned by banks that figure out how to address this hard part, and stop spending so much energy fixated on the same things the rest of the industry is obsessed with. They will understand the difference between “extreme customer satisfaction” (the typical goal) and “actually caring” about the bank (a yet-to-be-reached achievement, which should be the real goal). They will create huge separation between customers who can “gladly tolerate” doing business with them (like most community banks and credit unions), and customers who relate so strongly to the brand that they feel incomplete without it (like Apple’s customers).
A long tail bank is all about achieving exactly those goals: addressing the hard part.
