How to Build Bank Customer Loyalty With Emotion Banking

In today’s competitive marketplace, financial institutions are constantly trying to find new ways to catch customer’s attention and gain their continued business. Overall, Americans are seeing an average of 4,000 to 10,000 advertisements a day, so catching their attention at all requires a lot of work. Amidst all of the advertisements and promotions banks are offering, it can be hard to stand out enough to get the business you need. Even then, gaining that customer’s continued business and loyalty to your brand is another challenge in itself. Additionally, nearly every bank offers some form of rewards or a loyalty program that could sway a customer’s mind, so how can your bank be different enough to win them over? The secret is prioritizing building strong and personal emotional relationships with your customers first and gaining their loyalty over time. 

Emotional Connection – The Key to Customer Loyalty

Customer loyalty has several key components that can benefit businesses, including repeat investments, brand advocacy, positive word of mouth, and general trust in the business. A big part of customer loyalty is establishing an emotional relationship with the customer in some way, such as making them feel valued, heard or looked out for. In fact, 62 percent of consumers say that the brands they shop at most frequently are brands that they have an emotional connection to. 

The Harvard Business Review found that when a major Bank advertised a new credit card, and purposely tried to inspire emotional connections from their customers, new account growth rose by 40 percent. This demonstrates how emotional advertising strategies can positively impact business results, while also opening the door for long-term customer relationships to be built. 

Strategies for Loyalty-Boosting Emotional Advertising

Financial institutions can focus on a few key ways to pull at their customers emotionally and gain their loyalty long-term. 

• Listen and Connect with Clients: One way to increase the emotions customers feel towards your bank is to listen and connect with their lifestyle. People like to be heard and to feel seen, so when a bank can listen to them and offer plans most beneficial to them, they will feel emotional connections. This could look like a few different things, such as offering financial advice to a younger banking customer, since 80 percent of Gen Z has concerns about money, or even working one-on-one with an older customer to help refinance their home. Especially in the age of AI and digitalization when human-to-human relationships are decreasing, sometimes just listening to your customers will make them feel heard enough to continue doing business with your bank long-term. 
• Try Advertising to Segmented Audiences: Segmentation and first-party data appending tools make it easier for banks to analyze customer data and create different audience segments for advertisement targeting. Audience segments allow for you to group a group of customers or potential customers based on certain shared characteristics, and show them ads most appealing to them. For example, if your bank offers a new savings plan for parents, you may consider targeting people who frequently visit parenting websites. Another example would be if your bank were to research their top most valuable customers, or potential customers based on their region, they could see if there was a mutual interest, such as tennis. If the most valuable customers are all interested in tennis, having a tennis player wearing your bank’s logo or used in an advertisement could help build that emotional connection.
• Evoke The Right Emotions, But Don’t Be Afraid to Show Reality: By using purposeful copy and design choices, banks can create advertisements and website pages that evoke emotion before a customer even contacts the bank themselves. American Express does this well by using a lot of colorful and fun imagery within their advertisements that evoke a feeling that life would be better, and more joyful, with an American Express account. In addition to imagery, using empowering copy within your advertisements could also evoke emotions from customers.

 YNAB, a budgeting app, used the copy “Enjoy guilt-free spending and effortless saving with a friendly, flexible method for managing your finances.” This copy appeals to a lot of people who are struggling to save or manage their finances, making them feel as though YNAB can help them in a way another app might not be able to. Principal Financial Group is another company that pulls on evoking emotions during their advertisements, but they take a slightly different approach. The ‘Helping You During Uncertain Times’ commercial is a good example of pulling on the emotions of viewers, as it gives prospective customers the idea that with Principal Financial Group they’ll be taken care of at any point during their life, even when things aren’t going as planned. By stirring emotions of reassurance and comfort during hard times, this approach goes beyond the basic promise of a happier life, creating an even deeper emotional connection with customers.

Balancing the Benefits and Risks 

When emotionally appealing to your customers is done successfully, and you’ve gained a client’s loyalty, your financial institution can expect to see many positive effects. 60 percent of customers who are loyal to a brand recommend that brand to their friends and family, meaning you’ll receive “free” word-of-mouth referrals. Additionally, repeat customers spend an average of 67 percent more than new customers, meaning you could increase your financial institutions’ revenue through a focus on customer loyalty. 

It is important to remember that emotionally appealing to customers must be done in a genuine way that is truly representative of your financial institution’s brand. If executed incorrectly, the customer could feel like the brand is insincere or that the brand is misunderstanding them and their experiences. There have been several businesses that have stood out for their emotional marketing, in both positive and negative ways, highlighting the importance of genuine and representative campaigns. Always, a popular feminine hygiene brand, received a lot of positive feedback from its “#Likeagirl” campaign. The campaign is centered around highlighting the negative connotations surrounding the phrase “like a girl,” and showcasing how these comments could diminish how strong a girl believes she is. This resonated positively with many people and it received 4.5 billion impressions, more than 1,880 earned media placements, and 133 thousand social media mentions.

On the other hand, Pepsi had a very unsuccessful ad, titled “Live For Now Moments Anthem,” which featured Kendall Jenner seeming to end a conflict between police and protesters by offering a can of soda. During the time of this advertisement, real-life tensions were rising surrounding police brutality and a lot of viewers felt that Pepsi was underrepresenting the severity of the issue and capitalizing on a social injustice. Pepsi ended up pulling the advertisement after a stream of negative feedback was received. To avoid this, ensure that your marketing and communication strategies align closely with your brand values and promise, and accurately reflect the message in your campaign. Additionally, evaluating and addressing customer feedback and insight is crucial in fine-tuning your approach and ensuring that your emotional engagement is both effective and received positively. 

If you think it’s time for your financial institution to work on emotionally appealing to customers, decide which option would be best for you, as advertising to segmented audiences may be more impactful than in-person interactions. As the campaign progresses, assess their success by analyzing things like the number of new clients acquired, the amount of new deposits, and the amount spent on each campaign. Over time, you should be seeing positive results and happy loyal customers. 

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