Location-based marketing of branches for Erste Bank

Case Study Overview

Customer: Erste Bank Austria

Application: Location-based marketing of branches

Product: WIGeoLocation plus custom-developed extension, Geocoder JoinAddress

Goal: Effective marketing measures in the catchment area of the bank locations, simplified customer management

Use: Branch marketing for more than 130 locations

Erste Bank Austria uses geomarketing to optimally manage branch advertising

Today, banks must focus more than ever on the needs of the customer. In terms of marketing activities, this means that banks should distribute advertising in such a way that it reaches the relevant target group as precisely as possible. The branch marketing of Erste Bank Austria already implements this approach in many areas with the help of geomarketing.

With the help of geographic analyses, they are able to plan efficient and personalized measures for each of their more than 130 branches. The geomarketing software that makes this possible comes from WIGeoGIS.

Increasing competitive pressure and decreasing customer loyalty are forcing banks in Germany to rethink their approach. One of the challenges for banks in general is that they need to focus more on customers and better align their service quality with customer expectations. This was the finding of the Lünendok Trend Study on the Future of Banks 2020. Ulrike Hofmann knows this well and has therefore relied on target group-oriented advertising campaigns for many years now. She is Head of Branch Marketing at Erste Bank Austria. Erste Bank acts as the lead institution of the Austrian savings banks.

Ulrike Hofmann interprets even more service quality and the fulfillment of customer expectations as follows: “Many companies flood their customers with advertising. We do not want to do that. My department is responsible for individual branch campaigns and it is very important to me to adapt to regional circumstances. We distribute our information in such a way that it is as relevant as possible for the addressees or customers and potential new customers. Irrelevant advertising does not receive any attention and, in the worst case, may actually be an annoyance.”

Geomarketing Makes It Possible to Optimally Align the Branch Marketing Activities

The first and most important step is a detailed catchment area analysis of the respective branch. The branch marketing at Erste Bank conducts such analyses with the help of branch-based geomarketing software from WIGeoGIS.

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Efficient and Effective Distribution of Household Advertising per Bank Branch

Ulrike Hofmann and her six-member team analyze the catchment areas of the various branches with regard to the target groups. This makes an optimal regional distribution possible. “With the geomarketing analyses, we know exactly where in a branch office’s catchment area concrete activities make sense, for example, for our current account, the most modern account in Austria. Here in the catchment area, we have selected the districts with the lowest percentage of customers that are located near the branch office. The target group specific alignment allows us to increase the relevance of the advertising mail and thus the effectiveness. We receive this feedback regularly from the branch offices,” says Ulrike Hofmann. Such spatial and content selection is only possible with geomarketing.

Optimal Location for Promotion Campaigns and Finding Regional Cooperation Partners

Erste Bank uses geomarketing analyses for more than just household advertising. “It is important for our branches to know where potential cooperation partners are located. In the case of spark7, the youth brand from Erste Bank, we use geographical analyses to search for places that are particularly frequented by young people. These include, for example, beauty stores or clothing stores that are particularly popular with young people,” says Hofmann. In addition, the geomarketing software helps you select the optimal locations for promotional activities.

Automated Assignment of Addresses from Advertising Campaigns to Branch Offices

The addresses of new customers are often kept in lists. “We can upload such Excel address lists to the WIGeoGIS tool. The program then automatically geocodes the data. The tool assigns each address to the branch office with the matching the catchment area. In the past, we had to assign the addresses manually, which was extremely time-consuming,” explains Ulrike Hofmann.

Erste Bank Uses Geomarketing to Manage Their Branch Marketing

Addresses from advertising campaigns and sweepstakes can also be optimally evaluated through geographic analyses, says Kai Barenscher, Senior Consultant at WIGeoGIS: “The geomarketing analyses show regional abnormalities in response behavior. Companies know in which regions and areas there was a lot or little return. This evaluation is not only helpful for checking the success of an advertising campaign. It also allows you to draw conclusions about regional preferences and interests. This allows banks and other companies to get to know their target group better.“

Geomarketing helps in many ways to make the branch marketing for banks more targeted and efficient. It is not good enough to rely on your gut feeling for regional marketing campaigns. They need to align advertising with customer expectations requires a much more sophisticated approach. Geomarketing is a possible way to achieve better accuracy and effectiveness in branch marketing.

"Many companies flood their customers with advertising. We do not want to do that. My department is responsible for individual branch campaigns and it is very important to me to adapt to regional circumstances. We distribute our information in such a way that it is as relevant as possible for the addressees or customers and potential new customers. Irrelevant advertising does not receive any attention and, in the worst case, may actually be an annoyance."

Ulrike Hofmann, Head of Branch Marketing ERSTE Bank AG

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