The recently held Net.Finance EAST conference in New York City confirmed 3 important lessons:

1. In this challenging and volatile market, customers are looking at you to ensure they are banking with the right financial institution. Building trust through better customer service, engagement and interaction drives a strong, assuring message to your customers.

2. As budgets are tightened, spend on online banking and online marketing must be substantial as your customers view online as THE CHANNEL-OF-CHOICE. Allocating budget for online is more important now than ever before.

3. Measuring online activity and understanding customer behavior through analytics must be optimized even more. Do not underestimate the information you have about your customer. Your customer data is your key to building marketing campaigns that can increase loyalty, conversion and engagement.

Watch out for the exciting changes in financial services. We are not talking about changes that will happen in 3-5 years. We are zeroing in on the advancements that will impact your marketing efforts in the next 6-8 months:

1. Mobile Banking or Mobile Financial Services - more and more financial institutions are implementing pilot projects to test mobile banking. The leading institutions have deployed mobile banking capabilities, but expect this to be a growth area for FIs in 2009. The wild card, as many are saying, is the phone technology as well as the carriers. They will be a critical player in the advancement of mobile banking.

2. Innovation is a key differentor: Many attendees argued that now is the most important time to be innovative and take the bold steps necessary to remain strong in the financial services industry. Creative marketing tactics cannot take a back seat. Your website is the face of your bank so continue to optimize it. Explore what social media really means to your marketing campaign and ultimately, your customer.

3. Mergers and Acquisitions will continue to happen in the next 6-8 months. Ensure a flawless customer experience and stay in touch with them through the integration process. Develop a consistent message to your customers to remain true to your brand and service and ensure the customer data is integrated seamlessly.

Want to attend the next Net.Finance conference?

April 20-23, 2009
JW Marriot, Las Vegas, NV

Registration is ongoing. Click Here.

SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL THE SPEAKERS WHO JOINED US AT NET.FINANCE EAST: