The best practices and biggest ideas from the brightest minds in banking.
FEATURED KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Guy Kawasaki
Former Chief Evangelist at Apple
If anyone knows how to build a breakthrough brand, it’s Guy Kawasaki. He has served as a strategic advisor to Google, and Chief Evangelist at Apple. He is also the author of The Art of Social Media, The Art of the Start, Enchantment, and ten other books. As one of the first employees to work with Steve Jobs at Apple, he was an instrumental force behind the legendary marketing of the Macintosh computer.
Randi Zuckerberg
Former Head of Marketing at Facebook
As one of the first 30 employees at Facebook, Randi Zuckerberg led major marketing initiatives in the company’s early, formative years. She helped launch the live streaming video industry by creating Facebook Live, now used by more than a billion people around the globe. Randi is a frequent contributor on The Today Show, and she was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2011. In her business-keynote-meets-one-woman-comedy-show, Randi takes a deep dive into the latest trends that are reshaping marketing, technology and business today.
Sallie Krawcheck
The Most Powerful Woman on Wall Street
Sallie Krawcheck is one of the banking industry’s most successful executives — and the highest ranking woman to ever lead a financial institution on Wall Street. She has a track record of driving growth and spearheading innovative practices, serving as CEO of Citi’s wealth management unit, president of BofA/Merrill Lynch, and CEO of Smith Barney.
She is the author of Own It: The Power of Women at Work, a book that picks up the conversation where Sheryl Sandberg left off, offering women a new set of rules to take their careers to the next level
Jason Dorsey
The World’s Foremost Expert on Millennials and Gen Z
After writing his first bestselling book at age 18, Jason Dorsey quickly became the most sought-after authority on generational marketing anywhere on the planet. Featured on 60 Minutes, 20/20, The Today Show, the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Fortune, he has shared his expertise and insights with millions of people around the world. Jason separates myth from fact with practical, actionable insights grounded in real research. With a unique, high-energy style, Jason shares unforgettable stories that help you unlock new potential, grow more relationships with today’s younger consumers, and drive measurable results.
Forum X
The world’s most notable experts and thought leaders give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. This series of short, high-level strategic presentations focuses on helping attendees prepare themselves and their institutions for the future. It’s like TEDx for financial institutions!
UX + The Power of Creativity
Catherine Courage
VP, Ads & Commerce User Experience at Google
Catherine Courage is an expert on innovation and design who heads up experience strategy at Google for a product line with over $60 billion in global annual revenues. Catherine is one of the most influential women in Silicon Valley, and co-author of the best-selling book “Understanding Your Users.” She is frequently featured in the world’s most respected business media, from the Harvard Business Review to The Wall Street Journal.
Disruptive Innovation
Brian Solis
Principal Analyst at Altimeter
World-renowned digital analyst, digital anthropologist and futurist Brian Solis creates new media strategies and leads interactive and social programs for Fortune 500 companies. He is a best-selling author who regularly appears in publications like Fast Company, BusinessWeek, Ad Age, Harvard Business Review and many others. He’s a TEDx speaker, and has also been named one of “Silicon Valley’s Top 40 Under 40.”
The Future of Financial Services
Jim Marous
Co-Publisher of The Financial Brand
Jim Marous is one of the most influential people in banking, and is respected as the world’s foremost authority on fintech and innovation in the financial industry. Marous has been featured by CNBC, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Financial Times, The Economist, and Forbes. He has delivered keynote presentations to audiences around the globe, and was an advisor to the White House on banking policy.
Killer Content
Joe Pulizzi
Founder of the Content Marketing Institute
Joe Pulizzi is widely regarded as the Godfather of Content Marketing. He founded the Content Marketing Institute, the world’s foremost educational and training organization for content marketing, back in 2007. In fact, Pulizzi wrote the book on how marketers can turn content into sales — actually he wrote five books. His best-selling works include Content Inc., Killing Marketing and Get Content, Get Customers.
Strategic Storytelling
Kindra Hall
Global Marketing Communications Expert
Kindra Hall understands the unique challenges financial brands face as they try to capture attention in a crowded marketplace. In her role as VP of Sales for a multi-million dollar enterprise, Kindra found one sales technique out-performed the rest: strategic storytelling. If you want your message to be remembered and inspire action, you need to tell a great story.
Makeovers
World class leaders in brand, branch and website design reveal their creative process and strategic decisions for real projects with actual financial institutions — live on stage!
Forum 2018 Website Makeover
Craig McLaughlin
CEO of Extractable
Your website is the biggest “branch” you operate, yet most banks and credit unions are way overdue for a web overhaul. This session will walk you through the process as a real financial institution gets a professional online makeover from a top-notch web experience firm specializing in the banking industry.
New website designs for the first time are revealed — live on stage — then attendees get to see the strategy, design decisions, and suite of features critical to success in the online channel today. Here is your chance to prepare for the strategic design decisions you’ll face in your next web project, while learning how to redefine your digital experience.
What You’ll Learn:
- How to navigate through the stages of a major website redesign — from initial strategy to launch
- Best practices for an optimal digital user experience
- Which design trends are fads and which ones are here to stay
Makeover Consultant
Makeover Participant
Forum 2018 Brand Makeover
Gina Bleedorn
Chief Experience Officer at Adrenaline
This is your chance to spy on the rebranding process, and a rare opportunity to learn firsthand how others solve their most pressing brand identity challenges.
Two concepts for a new brand identity will be revealed to one lucky retail bank or credit union for the first time on stage in front of a live audience.
Don’t miss this rare opportunity to experience first-hand how financial institutions like yours can transform their brand.
What you’ll learn:
- What it takes to create a differentiated image in the banking world today
- How to create, evaluate and refine a new brand identity
- The elements required to design an integrated world-class brand identity
- How you can prepare for your own rebranding initiative
Makeover Consultant
Makeover Participant
Forum 2018 Branch Makeover
Danielle Havlicek
Director of Design at La Macchia Group
Banks and credit unions around the world all want the answer to one, big burning question: “What should our branches look like today?”
Everyone agrees the role of branches is evolving, but there is little clarity about how branch designs should respond to these changes. In this session, the La Macchia Group, one of the best branch design firms in North America, will tackle a real branch project for a retail financial institution and present their design concept live on stage.
What you’ll learn:
- The principles of strategic design, and how to craft a dynamic branch experience
- How to shape your institution’s branch strategy by working through the common design issues retail banking providers face today
- How one of the banking industry’s leading retail design firms attack the challenges of branch design
Makeover Consultant
Makeover Participant
Breakout Sessions
Renegade Thinking: 4 Traits of The World’s Most Effective Marketers
Drew Neisser
Founder & CEO of Renegade
Why do some marketing initiatives go horribly wrong, while others are ridiculously successful? In this session, you will learn how the world’s most savvy marketers generate big results and achieve massive growth. Based on interviews with CMOs from over 250 of the most progressive and cutting-edge companies on earth, you will hear inspirational real-life stories that reveal the secrets and strategies used by today’s marketing masterminds.
What you’ll learn:
- The mindset and processes it takes to supercharge your marketing ROI
- How the best brands differentiate by taking daring risks
- A tangible methodology used by today’s marketing mavericks to build breakthrough brands
- How marketers are making smart, calculated bets on new approaches — even in financial services
The Amazon Prime Effect: New Mobile Strategies and Pricing Models for Financial Marketers
David DeFazio
Partner at StrategyCorps
Over 200 million people subscribe to services such as Netflix, Spotify, Dollar Shave Club, Costco and AAA, and more than half of all American households now belong to Amazon Prime. Subscription services are quickly becoming the dominant pricing strategy for the world’s most savvy marketers, triggering fundamental shifts in consumer behavior and tectonic shifts in the way people buy. Bank and credit union marketers must learn from these digital trendsetters in order to drive beyond transactions and connect with the digital lifestyle of today’s consumers.
What you’ll learn:
- How companies like Amazon leverage user experience design to deepen customer relationships
- How new approaches to UX are changing people’s expectations, and how financial institutions must adapt in mobile channels
- How in-home, voice activated devices are transforming everyday banking tasks
- How big banks are stealing techniques from digital subscription companies to win more customers
- How partnerships between banks and subscription retailers are delivering new value to consumers
One Size Doesn’t Fit All: Personalization + Machine Learning in Financial Services
Karl Wirth
CEO and Co-Founder of Evergage
Companies like Amazon, Netflix and Spotify have forever altered the relationship between companies and consumers. Today’s consumer now expects highly personalized experiences from every brand they interact with, including financial institutions. And yet two out of five banking providers say don’t personalize anything at all.
This session highlights how data and technology — especially artificial intelligence and machine learning — have fundamentally changed the game, and how financial institutions can deepen relationships by catering to each individual’s unique needs in real time and across all touchpoints.
What You’ll Learn:
- Why personalization is a must-have for financial institutions
- How to deliver relevant, meaningful experiences to prospects to drive increased loan- and account applications
- How to automatically identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities, and respond with offers in real time
- The critical role machine learning plays in delivering individualized experiences across channels in the Digital Age
- When and how to leverage your data for effective personalization, while adhering to stringent guidelines in a highly regulated environment
Strategic Leadership: The Art & Science of Navigating Digital Transformation
Karen McGaughey
Principal at Weber Marketing Group
Success with any digital transformation initiative requires big cultural shifts and a total organizational commitment. That’s where the art of effective leadership and focus pays off. But it also takes the science of a solid data analytics foundation — insights rooted in customer behaviors, people’s preferences, shopping signals, channel usage patterns and product propensity models. In this session, learn how to fuse it all together into one tightly-aligned strategic plan for digital transformation.
What you’ll learn:
- A proven systematic approach to digital transformation
- Where to get started, and how to drive the digital transformation process forward
- How to define buyer personas and create a profitable segmentation strategy within your digital strategy
- How to identify and tackle customer pain points and relevant lifestyle triggers
- How to make the shift from traditional marketing channels and product campaigns to digital media
- How to generate digital, video and social media marketing messages that are highly personalized, relevant and measurable
Strategies for Community Institutions: Getting Creative and Turning New Ideas Into Tangible Business Value
Jill Castilla
President + CEO at Citizens Bank of Edmond
Many of the biggest and best ideas around Citizens Bank of Edmond don’t come from the boardroom. They come from food trucks, coffee shops and social media. With a marketing budget of less than $80,000, Citizens Bank of Edmond has found the secret sauce when it comes to leveraging the digital world and building a true sense of community. Come learn how this small bank with only $270 million in assets has developed cost-conscious and forward-thinking programs that create huge results for both customers and the community alike
What you’ll learn:
- How to create your own disruption and build a culture where you fail forward
- Why you must always be true to your roots, stay engaged and be opportunistic
- Why it’s so crucial to be accessible and open, respond to community concerns
- How to turn your loudest critics into your biggest cheerleaders
The Art of Onboarding: Building a Killer Program That Grows and Retains Relationships
David Acevedo, SVP/National Sales Director at 360 View
Everyone knows how crucial the first few months are in any new banking relationship. And yet community banks and credit unions say they are deeply disappointed with their own onboarding efforts. In this session, you’ll learn how fix your financial institution’s onboarding problems by building a positive and effective program — one that grows your revenue, increases retention, and improves the experience.
What you’ll learn:
- The steps needed to build a strategic onboarding and cross-selling framework
- Why some onboarding programs fail
- How other financial institutions have generated big results by successfully implementing onboarding programs
- How to leverage new technologies to automate your onboarding program
How To Grow 10X More Loans With Digital Marketing
James Robert Lay
CEO of the Digital Growth Institute
CEOs don’t care about vanity metrics — clicks, likes, and follows mean almost nothing. These days, financial marketers are toast if they don’t have a digital strategy that moves the needle and gets real, meaningful results. If you want to impress your CEO, you need to show them how many new loans your digital marketing campaigns generate. But that’s going to take more than just a website, a Facebook page, and a few digital ads. This session will show you how to transform your approach to marketing by maximizing your digital growth potential.
What you’ll learn:
- How to build, grow and cultivate your digital audience
- Digital marketing KPMs that matter to your CEO
- How to turn your financial institution’s website into a digital growth engine
- How to run digital ad campaigns that target consumers and nurture leads throughout the entire buying journey
- Segmentation strategies that will grow your share of wallet
Retail 2020: Branch Transformation and Experience Design In a Time of Disruptive Change
Kevin Blair
CEO of NewGround
Retail environments in the financial industry will undergo more change in the next decade than they did in the entire last century. Nearly every bank and credit union executive is wrestling with huge questions about the future role of branches. Uncertainty surrounding retail delivery models will stretch leadership teams well outside their comfort zones. Retail strategies and physical branch environments must transform to meet the evolving demands of consumers. Learn how today’s top-performing organizations are repositioning themselves to meet consumers’ shifting demands, and are thriving amidst this sea of uncertainty.
What you’ll learn:
- The market forces and strategic considerations that will shape your retail delivery model
- The latest trends in retail distribution and branch experience design
- Case studies from the industry’s top performers — those who are implementing transformational change
The Digital Communications Revolution: How Financial Marketers Can Break Through the Noise in a Mobile-First World
Debra Jasper, PhD
CEO of Mindset Digital
People today have an eight-second attention span. Eight seconds! How can financial marketers get their message across in a world where people scan, skim and skip over content at breakneck speeds? You must rethink your entire communications strategy. If your marketing messages aren’t short, informal, engaging, visual and personal, they won’t generate the ROI you expect. This high-impact, high-energy session will show you the tricks to communicating more effectively in a digital-first world.
What you’ll learn:
- How to craft powerful new marketing messages, social content and emails that will wow the crowd
- How to forge powerful, emotional connections that break through the noise
- How to leverage the latest visual storytelling techniques to get people to engage with your brand
Crafting a ‘Branch of the Future’ Design Strategy in the Digital Age
Jean-Pierre Lacroix
President of SLDNXT
As the role of branches continues to evolve, banks and credit unions alike are wrestling with big questions about their retail strategy. How do you ensure your branch network remains relevant with today’s digital consumers? Should you consider alternative branch formats, and if so, which ones? How do you need to adjust your staffing model? What about universal bankers? Virtual tellers? And how should branches fit within your overall omni-channel retail strategy? This session will show you how to build a retail branch design strategy that maximizes your investment and drives new growth for your bank.
What you’ll learn:
- How to leverage retail design to build and shape your institution’s brand
- What bank customers want out of your branch that they are not currently getting
- How to create a branch experience that strikes the right balance between personal interactions and self-service, technology-driven transactions
- New emerging formats for branches and how they impact your retail strategy
- Who needs to be involved with your branch transformation project and how to build consensus among your team
- The role technology should play in your retail experience — now and tomorrow
- When, what and how to leverage consumer insights in your design strategy
Leveraging Human Psychology and Advanced Digital Strategies to Turbocharge Cross-Buying
Wei Ke, PhD
Partner at Simon Kucher & Partners
By combining the psychology of human decision-making with advanced digital strategies, you can radically improve your cross-sell conversion rates. Find out how bundling, digital choice architecture, interactivity and pricing options can be used to reduce price sensitivities and build engagement.
This session will show you how to use behavioral economics and gamify the purchasing experience to increase products per household and grow wallet share. Using real-world case studies, learn the psychological principles that create “cognitive ease” and encourage consumers to adopt more products and services.
What you’ll learn:
- Digital campaign strategies that increase response rates, triggered buying behaviors and increased sales
- Pull-based approaches that deepen customer relationships
- How to leverage behavioral incentives and value propositions that deepen audience engagement
- How to determine what people will pay for, and monetize new digital services with hybrid experiences
- How to leverage data analytics for precision pricing and to anticipate consumers’ changing needs
Smart Mobile Marketing Strategies That Captivate and Convert Digital Consumers
Michael Mothner
Founder and CEO of Wpromote
If most marketers were brutally honest, they would confess that they struggle in the mobile channel. Banks and credit unions are even further behind the curve. Financial marketers must leverage modern mobile marketing tools, tactics, tricks and techniques — from geo-targeted ads and in-store tracking, to localized search and voice search. In this session, attendees will learn the latest in marketing strategies that accelerate the customer’s mobile journey and help grow market share.
What you’ll learn:
- Innovative ways to engage and appeal to digital consumers
- How to influence consumers to take action when interacting with your institution in the mobile channel
- How to optimize your mobile experience and marketing messages for the thumb
- How you can target people within 50 feet of your branch with marketing messages on their mobile device
- Why your mobile marketing budget isn’t anywhere near what it should be
- Ideas and campaigns around e-commerce focused ad units
The Data Age of Banking: 10 Pragmatic Ways to Grow Your Brand, Revenues and User Loyalty
Don MacDonald
CMO of MX
Despite record earnings, there are some significant blots on the landscape for both banks and credit unions. Issues include an industry that is overbanked, that favors scale, that is losing loan volume to outsiders and countless fintech competitors. Most leadership teams now know that data is the big disruptor — not just in banking, but every industry — but everyone is struggling with how to get started. This session will show you how to win in the data age of banking by defining and implementing a practical data-driven strategy.
What you’ll learn:
- How to articulate a unique data strategy specific to your organization’s goals and objectives
- Ten crisp, practical examples of data applications that you can take back and execute
- How to roll out your initial wave of data initiatives
- A no-BS view of how data is fundamental to AI
How Data Analytics And Augmented Intelligence Are Redefining Financial Marketing
Allison Nygaard
SVP/Corporate Marketing at Regions Bank
The marketing landscape is evolving at a breakneck pace. How can financial marketers keep up? Don’t let data analytics and augmented intelligence become your enemy.
You must learn how to harness powerful new approaches to data that can fuel your campaigns, improve marketing efficiency and free up your time so you can focus on big picture strategies that move the business forward. The future hinges on one word — data. The winners and losers in banking will be determined by how quickly marketing keeps pace with the data revolution.
What you’ll learn:
- How data powers every part of your marketing strategy — from targeting and personalization to digital communications and ROI metrics
- The new data skills, tools and talent your must have
- How financial marketers must structure their data to yield optimal results
- The critical questions your analytics team must be able to address
- Ideas and use cases for augmented intelligence
David vs. Goliath: How Community Institutions Can Capitalize on Their Competitive Advantages and Win the War
Sean Payant, PhD
Chief Consulting Officer at Haberfeld Associates
Every financial institution has competitive advantages. Large banks offer anytime, anywhere convenience and wield massive marketing budgets. Community banks and credit unions have stronger connections to the local communities they serve, and usually know their customers and members better. But smaller financial institutions have no chance if they simply follow megabanks’ footsteps. Community institutions can’t beat big banks at their own game. Every financial institution — large or small — must maximize every opportunity to go beyond their basic advantages.
What you’ll learn:
- How to capitalize on your financial institution’s unique competitive advantages and take your financial institution to the next level
- How to expand market share by growing core relationships
- How to extract more revenues from accountholders with smart cross-selling and onboarding strategies
- How to leverage traditional + digital marketing strategies more effectively
Doorways to Creative Genius: Building a Culture of Innovation
Tim Harrington
President of TEAM Resources
Traditional banking providers are facing a crisis of innovation. This session will show you how to build a dynamic culture that encourages ingenuity and innovative thinking. Learn how to get everyone in your organization to overcome their internal creative roadblocks and the systematic obstacles that are holding your organization back. Any financial institution can tackle the challenges of digital disruption and fintech threats when everyone sees beyond the cloud of limitations that block their potential.
What you’ll learn:
- How to cultivate the creative potential lurking inside your organization and tap the creative genius inside us all
- A creative framework and a system to teach creativity to staff
- How to infuse everyone in your organization with a fresh approach to problem-solving
- How companies use creativity to grow revenue twice as fast as their competitors
- How creativity can be used to leapfrog the competition
How to Increase Revenue, Recall and Response Rates With Neuromarketing
Nancy Harhut
Chief Creative Officer at HBT Marketing
New research by neuroscientists reveals people don’t actually “make” decisions, they usually fall back on a reflexive response without much (if any) thinking. The truth is that consumers don’t make logical choices — particularly when it comes to their finances. In this session, you will learn how to strategically exploit the decision defaults that have been hardwired into people’s psyches. You’ll see numerous examples from financial brands using the principles of neuroscience, you can make their recall, response and ROI rates soar.
What you’ll learn:
- How to apply the latest discoveries in brain science to refine your marketing communications strategy and craft creative marketing messages that leverage consumers’ decision biases
- How to trigger desired behaviors using the surprisingly simple “Von Restorff Effect”, “Availability Bias”, “Single Choice Aversion” and other powerful principles of consumer psychology
- How reversing the order of two words can turn a 4% response rate into an astonishing 97% response rate
- The two most potent neuroscience techniques you can use to create headlines and subject lines people can’t resist
Artificial Intelligence and The Future of Financial Services: Turning AI Into ROI
Tom Edwards
Chief Digital Officer at Epsilon
Artificial intelligence (AI) and intelligent systems are rapidly redefining the customer experience. Banking providers are embroiled in an arms race to see who can best integrate AI solutions that enhance the user experience, improve marketing ROI, cut costs through automation, and increase revenues. In this session you’ll learn how financial institutions like yours can apply AI to deliver a more personalized experience, identify patterns and connections that humans can’t, and automatically field customer inquires in real-time.
What you’ll learn:
- The future of AI and augmented reality in the banking industry
- Where and how data-driven automation, machine learning and predictive analytics must be integrated into your marketing strategy
- How the 4P’s of marketing must evolve from “Product, Price, Place & Promotion” to “Psychographics, Predictive, Proxy & Pervasive”
- The potential impact new fields like ambient computing, brain-controlled interfaces and quantum computing could have on financial services
Harnessing The Power of Cognitive Analytics to Deepen Customer Insights and Grow Relationships
Louis Richardson
Chief Storyteller at IBM
In the past, it was easy to know your customer. You could meet them face to face in a branch and say hello. But these days more interactions occur in online channels than in the real world. Do you know who your digital customers are? How much — if anything — do you really know about them? This session will show you how to arm yourself with powerful new data-driven insights, so you can know your customers, learn what people want and understand what makes them tick.
What you’ll learn:
- How to build relationships and increase revenues by leveraging the rich streams of data available to financial marketers today
- How cognitive systems can help you and your customers make better decisions
- How augmented intelligence can help you navigate the complexities of the customer journey today
- The shifts required to make the leap from traditional data analytics and cognitive computing
Welcome to the Revolution – Where Customers Are In Control & In Charge
Carlos Dominguez
President at Sprinklr
The power has shifted from large brands to the individual consumer. Are you listening to them? Are you leveraging what is available? What does it take to thrive in this new environment? How do you build trust by adding value?
Remember – what you say doesn’t matter, it’s what consumers say that counts! And what they say, particularly across social channels, directly impacts your bottom line.
What you’ll learn:
- New rules of engagement across social channels
- Barriers to delivering great customer experiences and how to overcome them
- Best practices from some of the world’s leading brands
- Personal growth suggestions to help you remain relevant in this changing world
Turning Your Digital Banking Strategy Into a Marketing Growth Engine
Sam Kilmer
Senior Director at Cornerstone
Financial institutions can no longer count on face-to-face interactions to drive revenue. Everything is shifting to digital channels, but the focus has been mostly on the transactional side. Digital banking strategies must stretch beyond their nexus as “technology modernization projects” to become an explicit revenue generator. This means you have to take ownership for everything affecting your institution’s brand — from the digital experience and data analytics, to sales and service. Marketing leaders today have a simple choice: Either step up and take charge, or move out.
What you’ll learn:
- Best practices to turn your digital experience into a revenue generating machine
- How to build an integrated marketing strategy around a cohesive digital-first experience
- Why the most successful marketers are silo killers who assemble the right talent and hyper-coordinate teams
- How, when and where your digital delivery strategy must evolve
- How to craft relevant content fueled by the data-driven insights that digital channels now make possible
Deepening Human Connections in an Increasingly Digital World
Joe Sullivan
CEO of Market Insights
Every technological breakthrough has changed humanity in deeply profound ways, but one thing never changes: human beings will always crave a sense of connectedness. The tech-saturated, hyper-connected world we live in today feels less and less personal. That’s why financial marketers must find new ways to effectively blend digital+personal to create relevant, contextual and personalized experiences. This thought provoking session will challenge your thinking about what it means to be “a bank” today, and outline tangible actions every financial institution can take to deepen the human connection.
What you’ll learn:
- The Science of Human Connection – How our brains are wired, and how different psychological segments define value
- Humanizing Digital – How to deepen human connections and drive bottom line results by leveraging neurosciences, and fusing personal + digital experiences
- Best Practices – What successful organizations — both inside and outside of banking — are doing
- Competitive Differentiation – How to move beyond the endless battles of product, pricing and features, and position your institution in ways that truly matter
Satisfying The Google Gods: Secrets to Supercharging Your Search Engine Traffic
Wil Reynolds
Founder & Director of Digital Strategy at Seer Interactive
Content — it seemed like the Next Big Thing just a few years ago. Everyone ran out to create as much of it as possible, and waited for the traffic to come pouring in. But for many, it didn’t… why? For starters, Google began to answer the simple questions on its own. What else has the search engine goliath done to turn your SEO strategy upside down in the last year or two? This session will review new ways to “go deeper” and understand consumers search behaviors better, and turn your insights into answers that will drive substantial growth in your site traffic.
What you’ll learn:
- How to assess your own level of SEO preparedness, and evaluate your competitors’ SEO strengths and weaknesses
- How to prepare your search strategy for the changes to come and future-proof your approach to SEO
- How to steal clicks away from sites ranking above you
- How to identify organic keywords that convert at high rates — search terms you aren’t targeting today
- How to squeeze even more traffic from the keywords you already rank highly for
- How to uncover the “why” behind user intent in less than 5 minutes using PPC search queries
Transforming Financial Services: Kick Starting + Accelerating Your Innovation Program
Scarlett Sieber, Former Chief Innovation Officer at Opus Bank / Former SVP, Global Business Development at BBVA
What does innovation really mean, and what does it really look like — particularly in a risk-averse industry like banking, where change typically occurs at a slower pace? Scarlett Sieber, the former SVP of Innovation + Digital Businesses at BBVA, knows from first-hand experience. In this session, she will show you how innovation is best applied in a retail banking setting — how to set up appropriate expectations and metrics, the role that culture plays in innovative thinking, and some quick wins to kick start your financial institution’s innovation program.
What you’ll learn:
- How to define innovation — both incremental and transformative — to set expectations with board and C-suite
- How time should to allocate on internal vs. external innovation and the values of each
- How to run your own innovation competition that generates real results
- The critical role that culture plays for innovation success
The Financial Marketer’s Guide To Creating Compelling Content In Social Channels
Lux Narayan
CEO of Unmetric
Drawing on AI-powered analysis and insights, attendees will go on a visual journey highlighting best practices in social media for financial institutions. No boring data dump here. Attendees will see a year’s worth of compelling content in under an hour — real campaigns from their peers and competitors that drove engagement, action and real results.
What you’ll learn:
- How to craft the type of social content that resonates most with financial consumers
- How to create a content blueprint that engages your social media community and deepens customer relationships
- How to respond and resolve issues, and benchmarks for customer service in social channels
- How to leverage social media to promote cause marketing and corporate social responsibility initiatives
- How to celebrate your organization’s culture and humanize your brand
The Psychology of Irresistible Fintech
Barnaby Riedel, Ph.D.
Psychologist and Lead Researcher at Riedel Strategy
What makes some technologies irresistible? How can you incorporate those factors into your digital banking solutions? This session will give you the psychological explanations for why users adopt, obsess and even become addicted to certain financial technologies but not others. Drawing on insights and lessons learned from fitness trackers and social media platforms, you’ll learn how a deeper understanding of human motivations can inspire successful digital banking innovations.
What you’ll learn:
- How to apply the six factors of irresistible technology to your digital banking solutions
- How to maximize ROI on your tech investments and radically increase consumer engagement
- How to evaluate digital technologies through the lens of a behavioral psychologist
7-in-7
The Forum 2018 hosted two “7-in-7” sessions, each featuring seven different financial institutions with seven minutes to showcase a big idea that generated real results and had a big impact on their bottom line.
Using eTriggers to Segment and Automate Marketing Communications
Lynne Jarman-Johnson
Chief Marketing Officer at Consumers Credit Union
Inside Out: Rebranding With a Cultural and Organizational Overhaul
Mark Troske
SVP, Director of Digital at TCF Bank
Persona to Conversion: A Snapshot of the Buyer Journey
Jenn Wade
CMO at Deer Valley CU
Check Enclosed! Cashing In On Mobile Remote Deposit Capture
Rauly Butler
EVP – Retail Banking at The Mechanics Bank
Traffic Builders: Creative Ways to Build New Sales Opportunities
Deborah Robinson
Senior Partner at Centier Bank
Migrate Here: Getting Customers to Pick Your Bank
Paula Milsted
Director of Marketing at Chesapeake Bank
Lifestyle Lending: A Fresh Approach to Personal Loans
Katie Ullman
Marketing Manager at First Source Credit Union
Leveraging Financial Education to Acquire Millennial Consumers
Jonathan Hanson
Director, Product Marketing at Community First CU
Her Wealth, Her Way: Building Stronger Banking Relationships With Women
Kerry-Ann Stimpson
Group Chief Marketing Officer at JMMB Group
Holi-Days of Giving: Generating PR Buzz and Making Lives Better
Jeff McCarthy
VP, Marketing Director at First Bank Financial Centre
Overhauling Our Brand for Awareness and Growth
Tara Graff
VP, Marketing / Business Development at Royal Credit Union
Building a Strong Internal Brand: Living Our Values
Natalie Lemoine
VP / Marketing Director at Home Bank
Becoming a One-Stop shop for Small Business Clients
Tracey Zywicki
VP, Treasury Management at 4Front CU
Perception. Leads. Sales.
Josh Cook
COO at Community Choice Credit Union
Peer-to-Peer Roundtable Networking Luncheons
Attendees forged priceless relationships with dozens of their peers at these free intimate, two-hour, sit-down plated networking luncheons. They deep dived into a single topic as they shared ideas and discussed common challenges. No speakers, no formal agenda — just senior-level banking execs learning from one another.
P2P Luncheon: Branch Strategy, Experience + Design
Sponsored by DEI
Talking points:
- What strategic role should branches play in the Digital Age?
- What should branches look like, and how do you craft the ideal experience?
- Should you design something that looks like an Apple Store with a Genius Bar? Or roll out Capital One style cafés?
- How big should branches be, and how many FTEs do you need?
- How should you leverage various technologies (e.g., video tellers, iPads, cash recyclers)?
- Should you emphasize self-service? Or high touch?
P2P Luncheon: Digital Marketing Strategies
Sponsored by Salesforce
Talking points:
- What does your martech stack look like? Are you using CRM tools/solutions? Are they integrated with your marketing automation solution?
- How do you allocate your marketing budget between digital and traditional media?
- Where are you investing the most — SEO, paid search, display/programmatic advertising, email marketing?
- How do you segment your audience? Are you running look-alike campaigns? What about retargeting?
- What is your content marketing strategy? Where does social media fit? Video? Native?
- What is your approach to marketing in mobile channels?
- What are your biggest data challenges? Where and how are you finding and storing the data you need to bring your marketing campaigns to life?
- Do you have a sales/client advisory organization? Do they execute their own marketing campaigns with clients?
P2P Luncheon: Onboarding + Cross-Selling
Hosted by Avoka
Talking points:
- How many times do you touch a new accountholder in the first 90 days? What mix of media are you using?
- How are you leveraging next-best-product recommendations?
- Do you use lead scoring tools or similar segmentation models to determine who receives what message(s) next?
- How do you measure success? What metrics do you utilize (e.g., depth-of-wallet, products-per-household, attrition rates)?
- Do you utilize lifestyle triggers or behavioral cues to optimize your cross-selling strategy?
P2P Luncheon: Digital Transformation
Sponsored by AT&T
Talking points:
- What are the major milestones in your digital transformation roadmap and where are you in your journey?
- What technologies are you investing in? How are you handling legacy platforms? Are you considering a core conversion?
- Are you looking to become ‘digital first’? Or ‘mobile first’?
- Are you partnering with fintech players?
- What is your approach to innovation?
- How are you digitizing products/services and the customer journey?
P2P Luncheon: Data Analytics, AI + Machine Learning
Sponsored by MX
Talking points:
- How are you leveraging data sciences like predictive analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence?
- How are you stitching together all the various data streams inside (and outside) your institution?
- Do you have a Chief Data Officer, or are you planning to? How are you tackling your other data talent challenges?
- What technologies are you currently using? What other solutions are you considering?
- How are you managing data privacy concerns?
- Where does big data come into play?
P2P Luncheon: Customer Experience
Hosted by ForeSee
Talking points:
- How are you simplifying the customer experience, streamlining processes and making banking easier?
- In what ways are you personalizing and tailoring your experience to each unique customer?
- What’s your omni-channel strategy? How are you addressing the customer experience in non-digital channels?
- How are you responding to consumers’ expectations that everything be on-demand?
- How are you leveraging technology to redefine the customers experience (e.g., biometrics, voice recognition)?
Power Breakfast Sessions
Effective Branding and Messaging Without Breaking the Bank
Mitch Kane
Founder at Kane Graphical
This breakfast session will show small- to mid-sized financial institutions best practices for creating a dynamic in-branch experience — at a fraction of the cost of a typical renovation.
What you’ll learn:
- Declutter your branch to create a better customer experience.
- Draw attention to your brand, products, and services with clear, coordinated, and effective messaging.
- Easily and efficiently refresh your messaging without the expense of digital signage.
How Financial Inclusion Can Lead to Strong Prospects (But Not High Fraud or Credit Risk)
Solomon Semere
Director/Market Planning at LexisNexis
More services to more customers – that is the name of the game in the Financial Services. But the pursuit of this goal can often lead to competing interests between your marketing department and your risk department. Layer in the desire for greater financial inclusion and knowledge gaps can quickly become apparent between marketing and risk management strategies. This session will cover how best to address these gaps resulting in intelligence driven marketing for potential new customers that are underserved while ensuring low risk as customers are onboarded.
What you’ll learn:
- How to promote financial inclusion and market to traditionally underserved / underbanked populations
- How to boost response rates without increasing risk and acquisition costs
- How to build the foundations of an effective big data strategy for financial marketing
- Real life examples of companies who are using advanced analytics to drive growth and reduce costs
Out-Innovating the Competition: A Playbook for Community Banks and Credit Unions
Spencer Jones, SVP/Global Head of Retail Banking at Finastra
Robb Gaynor, Founder/Chief Product Officer at Malauzai
Mark Nelson, SVP/CIO at Horicon Bank
Community banks and credit unions are out-innovating the big banks. How? By taking their digital technologies to the next level of complete personalization – and it’s not that hard with the right tools. Offering a unique end-user experience starts with systems that ensure data precision from the core goes through the digital channels and right to the accountholder to create distinctive, revenue-generating opportunities. Once the power of the data is harnessed, the customization of the app is marked with clear marketing opportunities that accountholders will respond to. Join us to learn how community banks and credit unions can use their systems to create distinctive Amazon-like experiences.
What you’ll learn:
- How HBPay is changing the way Horicon Bank is enhancing their business customers’ with end-user payment and money transfer mobile applications
- How one credit union achieved an astonishing 54% mobile-only adaption
- The way one community bank is enhancing their business customers with end-user payment and money transfers via their mobile app
- How to take advantage of key core data to feed directly into your customized digital banking app strategy
- How a single-platform creates a cohesive user experience and lower total cost of ownership
The Art of Inception: 6 Insanely Clever Content Strategies for Engaging with Digital Signage
John W. Smith, CEO at DBSI
Whether you want to create a killer branch experience, foster relationships, boost sales, onboard to digital channels, or make your brand come alive, what you say and how you say it matters. Stop being ho-hum and learn the secret language proven by research to turn your digital signage and any branch communication into irresistible engagement tools. This fast-paced, example-jammed session will leave you armed with tangible strategies to be a master of persuasive communication.
What you’ll learn:
- Six highly effective content strategies for digital signage
- Which barriers get in the way of effective engagement
- What kinds of discovery tools are the most impactful for connecting clients with your brand, values, products and services
- How have other financial institutions used these strategies to successful results
Trash Your Marketing Calendar: How Trigger Marketing Doubles Loan Closings
Jeff Shood, CEO at Intuvo
You’ve probably heard of Intuvo in the past two years, it’s the fastest growing marketing automation platform in the finance space. Learn how the top lenders have doubled loan closings, raised NPS scores 20 points all while saving time. Utilizing data from millions of borrower interactions and $30b in closed loans learn how to move your marketing strategy from a calendar-based strategy to a real time trigger strategy based on customer data
What you’ll learn:
- How time your triggers for maximum response
- Highest rated messaging approaches
- 3 Keys to organizing your data
- A framework to transitioning to a data based trigger marketing strategy
Advanced Technologies for Unlocking the Full Power of Your Financial Institution
Jim Eup, Sr. Director of Product Marketing at Salesforce
Frank Dudley, CEO at Brand New Media
New competition, regulations, and consumer expectations are changing the banking industry at a breakneck pace. Banks and credit unions are struggling to keep up, and many now face a crisis of consumer loyalty. Retail financial institutions still hold two significant competitive advantages, however: (1) the strength of their product portfolios, and (2) the vast pools of rich data they own. Join Salesforce and special guests to discover how today’s banking providers can unlock their unique advantages, build loyalty, and connect all the dots by leveraging a powerful combination of innovative technologies — artificial intelligence, CRM, and marketing automation.
What you’ll learn:
- How to scale artificial intelligence to the frontlines, and transform your experience without recruiting an army of data scientists.
- How to connect your digital channels and core applications to your CRM, and why this is critical for a successful omnichannel banking strategy.
- Ways to embrace open banking principles with flexible APIs, an ecosystem of technology partners, and a shared software platform for sales, service, marketing and IT.
- Best practices for using low-code development and cloud-based technologies to drive continuous innovation and rapid speed-to-market.
Lunch & Learn Sessions
Don’t Get Ahead Of Yourself With AI: Make Sure You have Real intelligence First
Stephen Bohanon
Founder/Chief Strategy & Sales Officer
Alkami Technology
There’s so much hype today regarding AI and the supposed panacea it represents, but most financial institutions don’t even have the basic building blocks and data elements to effectively power such systems. With so many disparate back-office systems and data stores, the intelligence needed to deliver tailored, relevant and timely content to end users is out of reach for most. If you don’t have the data required and available to intelligently market today, how do you expect to program machines to do it for you in the future?
What you’ll learn:
- The basic building blocks needed to power a Business Intelligence solution that will last.
- How to acquire the data necessary to make your BI solution effective
- The importance of API’s and “all you can access” agreements with your technology providers
- How to take advantage of some low-hanging fruit to get some easy wins with cross-selling
How to Create a Branch that Connects with Today’s Omni-Channel Consumer
Anthony Burnett
Customer Experience Director at Level5
Consumers don’t want just a digital relationship with their financial institution. On the contrary, they are communicating, in unison, the value of the people in the branch to their every day lives. Therefore, financial institutions must respond with branches that create opportunities for connection, revenue and profit. In this session, learn how to create a branch that performs, and hear from a financial institution embracing a new kind of branch to connect consumers with their dreams.
What you’ll learn:
- The formula to develop a branch in three repeatable steps
- How to leverage technology with a human experience
- Learn from a peer how their approach positions them for the future
- Leave with a worksheet and process for creating a new branch
Digital Doesn’t Have to Be Daunting: Unpacking Tech CU’s Winning Digital Strategy
Doug Mowbray
CEO & President at Mogo Interactive
“Digital is ruining my life!” We know, digital can seem crazy complex. But we’re here to help. Hear Tech CU’s story on how they successfully shifted their narrative to create a #winning digital strategy (*hint hint* creating a more customized digital journey while guiding members down the purchase funnel). Come have lunch with us to learn a thing or two about excelling in digital. For your sanity’s sake.
What you’ll learn:
- How to craft a full-funnel digital marketing strategy
- How to turn leads into applications
- How to effectively prospect “intenders” and convert them to new members
- How to use multiple digital channels to increase brand awareness
- How to best measure your campaign ROI
Building a Trusted Lending Team on Social Media
Ben Pankonin
Co-founder at SocialAssurance
Networking and relationship building is a key success trait of any lender. As our world is quickly moving heavily into digital and social communications, lenders must be prepared to build and maintain relationships over social media. Social communications give lenders the ability to build their personal brand and make stronger connections. Few lenders however feel supported or prepared to take on social.
What you’ll learn:
- Build more successful lending teams
- Empowering lenders on social media
- Building lending opportunities through social networking
- Keeping the team compliant
Cracking the Code on Personalized Customer Experiences: The Breakthrough
Dennis DeGregor
Chief CX Officer at RedPoint Global
Consumers now expect truly personalized experiences, that are highly relevant and consistent across all channels. It is now possible to deliver innovative customer journeys that eliminate friction across channels, use a single customer view to drive relevance, and use machine learning to drive scale. This fast-paced session provides a hands-on “how to” approach to implement a simple 5-step strategic CX framework to finally “Crack the Code” on creating the new, 21st century financial services customer journey that truly differentiates your brand and beats the competition.
What you’ll learn:
- How to create the Customer “Golden Record” – the key to Enterprise wallet share breakthroughs
- The Omni-channel journey & cross-channel marketing
- Hyper-personalization
- Real-time interactions
- Advanced Analytics
Four Steps to Unlock the ROI of Content Marketing & Financial Education
Mike Lovell, VP of Marketing at EverFi
According to a study by Powered Inc., consumers that complete educational content as part of their buyer’s journey are 29x more likely to buy when compared to traditional media advertising.
In this session, you will learn how leading financial institutions are using financial education as content marketing and the impact to conversation rates and financial health they are seeing as a result.
Join Jonathan Hanson, Director of Product Marketing at Community First Credit Union and Mike Lovell, Vice President of Marketing at EVERFI, for a practical, hands-on session that will help you build a strategy to integrate financial education into your marketing plans this year.
What you’ll learn:
- Best practices from Community First to leverage financial education
- How to utilize consumer education for consumer marketing
- Which distribution channels are most efficacious for education
- How to gain buy-in and track the results of your content marketing
How to Kickstart a Personalized Website Experience, No Matter Your Financial Institutions Size
Jeff McPherson
Chief Digital Officer at Pannos/Silvertech
Personalization can be tricky. With so many options and features, marketers can be left feeling lost and unsure of where to start. In this session, we’ll guide you through the steps to create a prioritized personalization plan that will speak to your current and future customers and separate you from the playing field. Whether you are a single-branch, multi-branch, or multi-state bank, we’ll review real-life examples that you can effectively implement to make a difference with your ROI and conversion rate.
What you’ll learn:
- Five essential elements of a personalization plan
- How to scale your personalization to match your budget & resources
- Unique ways to discover your audience; what they like and what they don’t like
- Ways to address concerns about privacy and security when personalizing your digital presence
- How to integrate personalization throughout your marketing for true ROI and conversion
Data Informed Decisions: Lessons Learned and ‘Aha!’ Moments Reshaping the Future of Finance
Kimberly Munsell
AT&T Vertical Channel Manager – Finance
Get specific insights from industry leaders about the trends, technologies, and dynamic data that’s enabling a new level of customer engagement. AT&T Industry Specialist Kimberly Munsell facilitates this interactive session about connecting big ideas to emerging best practices for digital transformation.