Industry sign banking massachusetts rfp mobile
hello and welcome to the sink forum profitable print webinar think is an independent community of canon solutions America production print customers solution partners and print industry experts led by some of the most successful inkjet service providers in the country it provides a forum for members to networks gain knowledge discuss common challenges and share best practices this is a listen-only webinar however we encourage you to submit questions through your GoToWebinar control panel and we will answer them as they come in or at the end of the presentation also this webinar is being recorded and will be posted on think forum com in just a few days now for today's webinar I would like to introduce our presenter Lisa cross associate director at info trend she will be taking a closer look into the financial industry and share her insights on how you can gain market share welcome to the webinar Lisa well thank you andrea i'm happy to be here to speak about profitable opportunities in the financial services industry successfully selling communication products and services starts with understanding a customer's unique industry and the markets they serve and today's presentation is part of thinks focus on providing you with vertical market insight to help you spot and develop profitable opportunities in key industries that purchase communication products and services accompanying this webinar is an in-depth written white paper on the financial services industry that includes many of the key points covered in this presentation plus additional trends this paper is part of a series of industry profiles that also includes higher education healthcare insurance nonprofit and retail and you can find those papers on the sink forum website in addition to reading the financial services paper you may want to listen to the replay from the first webinar in this series where is the money targeting profitable print in that webinar it provided an overview of why and how to target the more get and it included a presentation from bay comp becomes chief strategy officer that highlighted the company success in targeting the financial services market if you didn't attend the webinar i recommend you listen to the replay here's the agenda for today's presentation we'll start off with an overview of the financial services industry and touch on those essential items you need to know and understand to serve the market seeing such as size types of firms how the industry operates and creates value what its sales channel looks like an important overall trends that you should know next we'll take a look at the profit opportunity for this part of the presentation I'm going to share data from an info trends research study where we surveyed over 300 financial services providers to learn about their communication requirements and usage so I'll present research findings on the types of communication products and print applications the industry uses along with industry communication spending trends after that I'll talk about how to sell to the industry here we'll review key trends and the opportunities they offer identify key buyers and influencers discuss the role of purchasing and provide some tips for following industry trends we like the presentation to be interactive so if we have any questions please ask them at any time via the chat box so let's get started financial services firms basically do two things they manage money and they manage risk in terms of size the US financial services industry includes about 470,000 establishments with combined annual revenue of more than 3.5 trillion dollars it's one of the largest industries and in many of the industry rankings that you might come across those rankings of industries based on size it you he falls in the top 4 the companies in the industry are primarily engaged in and/or are facilitating financial transactions that involve the creation liquidation or change an ownership of financial assets boundaries between firms in the financial services market have and continue to blur an example of this is banks which are major providers of financial services historically the general function of a bank was to provide clients and it still is the function core function to provide clients with a secure and safe place to store deposit their money but today these establishments also offer other financial services like loans mortgages insurance credit cards foreign currency services wire transfers and investment products the industry encompasses a broad mix of entities that include commercial banks investment banks credit unions insurance companies financial advisors credit card companies and stockbrokers financial service firms serve a wide variety of borrowers and investors and engage in transactions on behalf of individuals businesses and government agencies one thing all financial service firms have in common is they all require print to drive operations and sales when analyzing any industry it's really important to simplify the industry to its fundamental components doing this provides a high level understanding of how the industry work and creates value which is a critical step to developing successful communication products and services that are truly aligned with market demands and requirements now I've simplified the financial services industry into the fall in fundamental components the activities that trigger actions and product purchasing things such as borrowing money or creating wealth the channels available to enable purchasing and support products and services the marketing and sales activities pursue to promote products and drive sales and the revenue sources those products and services that funds operations and drive growth each component demands unique communication products and services to support their unique roles and activities the industry sales channel is made up of agents that either sell one company's products or multiple companies products it also includes brokers direct sales to customers or the sales of products to companies or professional groups who then sell those products to either employees or members an important characteristic of this video's channel is that it is mostly a distributed sales channel where products are sold through intermediaries or a distributed staff another important sales channel is the Internet it's not shown on this slide only because it's part of most of the channels that are shown here meaning agents brokers direct sales firms all of them use the internet to sell at least that we actually did have a question that just came in and since most of the sales channel for the financial services is distributed do you find that offering online ordering of communication materials is essential for serving this industry that's a great question I would say yes it is essential online print ordering is solidly taking hold in the financial services market and many organizations rely on the system's to streamline print ordering reduce and better control brand management we found in our research study of financial service providers that fifty-six percent of firms we surveyed had access to a web based purchasing platform from the print providers now these systems are popular because they meet financial service providers need to better manage and optimize their marketing supply chain and that's the chain of suppliers that an organization relies on to produce their marketing materials I mean overall online ordering ecommerce web to print systems whatever you want to call them provide financial service firms with an agile and powerful tool for ordering materials that reduces costs from over ordering enables faster production and assists in allocating dollars appropriately great thank you key industry trends to keep in mind demand for financial service products is typically driven by business activities return on investment and consumer income the profitability of individual companies depends on marketing operational efficiency and investment expertise this means that financial service firms want to work with providers that offer them the best marketing communication solution and printing solutions to support sales growth and deliver the best return on their investment dollars large companies often have advantages in terms of access to cheaper capital participation in large to large scale transactions and name recognition while smaller companies can compete effectively through offering better customer service might have more knowledge of a local market and might have more specialized services so whether you're targeting a small company a medium company or larger firms there's opportunity and the last point here is that this Turner is concentrated that means that the 50 largest companies in the US account for nearly fifty percent of sales and just an FYI in the written paper on the financial services industry that I mentioned at the start of the presentation that includes a list of those top 50 firms now let's look at the profit opportunity for print the financial services industry offers many opportunities for print service providers to sell communication products and services this chart is from info trends research study of financial services firms we asked which of the following do you use to reach and communicate with customers you can see here the top three responses were sales and marketing materials email marketing and business identity products and two of those top three responses are heavily supported by print this table highlights financial service firms average spending on communication and their average spending on print by size affirmed communication spending for firms with less than 500 employees on average was about a hundred and fifty five thousand dollars i'm rounding and about sixty two thousand dollars was spent on print while communication spending for firms with five hundred or more employees on average was about 67 million dollars and sixty million dollars was spent on print now compared to other industries that were included in this study financial services was a top spender on both communication products and print this chart is showing the distribution of communication spending by type so right here the screen at the bottom bar that's print so as we go up the bar video is orange yellow is online or I'm sorry yellow is audio online is blue events is gray and our mobile is the green at the top of the bar and you can see in this bar on the left that overall print makes up a significant or the most significant portion of financial service firms communication spending now if you look over here to this table this is showing the projected annual growth rate of each of these categories and moving forward respondents expected print share to decline by six point six percent and dollars shifted to video audio online mobile channels but despite this print will remain a top spending category print is important because printed marketing materials are helping financial services firms differentiate from the competition sending customers printed education materials on how to maximize their investments minimize their risk save money or reduce liabilities can really help build relationships and customer loyalty print is a key communication channel for financial services companies and the pie chart here is showing print spending share by application our research study looked at 28 print applications this chart is showing print applications we're spending share was four percent or greater the other category here represents the combined total of the 17 other print applications that we studied so our survey of financial service firms found that direct marketing or direct mail marketing materials business card statements and invoices newsletters presentations accounted for the largest share of print budgets from that we can take away that print products are essential in supporting firms in sales marketing day-to-day operations and mission-critical business at locations like financial legal documents and statements and invoices financial service firms use a wide variety of print applications to support key functional areas such as operations service delivery marketing and sales and revenue streams here is matched key print applications to those functional areas operations delivery channels marketing and sales and revenue streams so you can more easily view and identify application opportunities industry firms have many types of interactions with their customers and staff from a count update to service alerts to investment advice to special offers to reward programs to education materials another question came through are you seeing a trend in the industry toward more companies personalizing print application yes we're seeing a movement toward personalization Financial Services respondents to our survey reported that sixty-four percent of customer communication campaigns today are taking a more personalized or versioned approach as opposed to mass communication one casing the study found that that pertains to this question is that financial service firms are increasing their use of variable data firms were more likely to report personalizing communications to varying degrees then they were to report not personalizing at all competition for selling financial service products is fierce and customers want to buy products from companies that make relevant and appropriate suggestions based on their needs so producing printed pieces with messages and images tailored to individual recipients can make a huge difference do they answer your question great yes thank you okay so now we're going to move on to sell into the industry so when selling to the industry you can find the best opportunities by identifying and evaluating key trends so let me take you through a few examples competition for selling financial service products is fierce financial service industry is highly competitive and the boundaries between firms and the products and services they offer overlap considerably printed materials such as brochures Direct Mail signage all can play a big role in helping a customer's product stand out personalized direct mail campaigns that include images and offers that are relevant to potential buyers can help financial service providers take their marketing messages and get them noticed read and acted upon as we mentioned earlier financial services are sold through a number of distribution channels that include agents brokers direct sales professional groups and the workplace this wider sales channel can make brand compliance and marketing materials costs more difficult to manage and control therefore there is an opportunity and offering online job submission options to enable customers to maintain and control brand standards access updated materials order print on demand better managed print purchases and reduced costs for story materials financial service firms our providers they invest in analytic tools to drive efficiency and improve risk management firms in this industry use predictive modeling to improve financial product performance financial service firms have volumes of data on their customers and many clients are willing to let their providers leverage it for marketing purposes financial service firms focus on data analytics provides a great segue into the opportunity of selling digitally printed variable data marketing and transactional pieces and then the last item here is a targeting high net worth individuals doing that finding those clients can be difficult and variable data printing enhances message relevance which is a key factor and reaching this sought-after but highly elusive audience at least that if the industry is highly regulated and can you talk a little bit about you regulations that apply to print oh sure yes the financial service industry is highly regulated the injured industry itself must adhere to a long list of state federal and international regulators that oversee the industry organizations for example that trade securities are affected by rules in the US is established by the Securities and Exchange Commission or the SEC or any of the stock exchanges they might trade on like the New York Stock Exchange and there are other regulatory bodies that are often involved in regulating on the securiti
s industry meanwhile banks are regulated both the federal and state level depending on the bank at the federal level banks primary regulator could be the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or the federal reserve board or the office of the comptroller of currency in terms of communication products the key regulations that apply to customer communications center on things like information disclosure data security and protection of customer privacy producing mission critical communications and highly confidential terials requires a secure printing environment with restricted access continuous surveillance there could be rigid protocols in place to safeguard data there might be control audit procedures that have to be followed and other steps to protect privacy also you might need to use technologies to protect against forgery and alteration of financial documents and checks that can be important organizations that offer financial products or services to consumers must meet certain regulatory compliance guidelines in terms of providing customers with privacy notices and information disclosure practices regarding their information it can be a little bit complex and many times when people talked about regulation in this industry or any industry that kind of talk about an alphabet soup of regulatory bodies that have rules that must be followed but I will tell you if you look at the paper that I talked about earlier there is a section in there that goes a little bit more in depth into this and kind of includes or it does include a summary of key regulations great thank you a critical step in selling is identifying the right contact you know those with decision-making and budget Authority sometimes it's one person other times it's multiple people job titles and fires and influencers are varied this table is a starter list of key job titles to target it's broken out into three categories small and medium-sized firms larger firms and in-house printing operations in-house or implant printing operations are common in the financial services industry they produce recurring print work and often manage the outside purchasing of printed materials that are not produced in-house so there are opportunities for you to form partnerships within plans to pick up some of this outsource work also keep in mind that decision makers and buyers can be distributed across a financial services organization including office staff administrators in-house printing departments and multiple locations and even global locations now contacting the right I mean this is a great starter list for you but you know contacting the right person may require some investigative work like making telephone calls doing online searches or going through social media networking sites so let's just talk a little bit about some things you might do to identify the right contact identifying the right people with the ability to buy from you I can't say enough how critical that is in the sales process because if you can't find the right contacts you won't sell your services so here a couple of tips to help you find the right contacts you can conduct you know online searches to identify job titles I mean you could do something as simple as you know searching you know job titles in the financial services industry and you'll get some result or you can search on industry job sites that will have job titles like monster or indeed or you can look through LinkedIn something else that you can do is you can look for prospecting tools there are a number of companies out there that sales lead companies that provide databases that you can purchase we you can search for contacts based on your criteria so you can search online for you know evaluating those types of tools you can also visit the prospects website if there's a particular company that you're interested in selling to and the financial services industry you can go to their website and you might find contact information many financial service organizations do list the names and contact information of owners board members trustees executive staff in-house printing department managers on so you could look on on the websites and earlier i mentioned linkedin you can also just go to LinkedIn and search for companies and their staff and and sometimes you know you can see what some of the responsibilities are of people in a given company you can also attend and speak at industry trade shows or financial service industry conferences going to events provides a venue to meet p decision-makers one-on-one and face-to-face and you can also join industry associations to learn about the industry but also to access member directories a lot of associations have directories of their members that you might be able to access to help you in your targeting there are many avenues for finding the right contacts they're out there you just need to pursue them another important piece of information is to understand you know what's important to the buyer what do they care about when selecting a prim provider when we asked financial service firms to rank what was important on a scale of one to four where one was not important for was mandated by policy the top four were quality ability to meet deadlines competitive pricing the best value well no surprise is there those are givens but if you look at what closely follows expert advice ability to manage print and digital media relationship with a dedicated client representative strong IT resources and the ability to offer a broad range of services these types of services are important and financial service firms want partners that can help manage the complexity of their communication requirements and if you do offer many of these services it's really important to promote them now that might sound obvious but we talked to a lot of companies and many times we're surprised well no not surprised i'm going to say shocked to learn that a lot of the ancillary services they offer they don't promote them so it's really important to educate prospects on all of the prospect products and services you offer purchasing rules play a big role in this industry and procurement policies are often in place in large organizations and these policies seek to leverage buyer power control spending and ensure that essential job requirements are met understanding customers buyer practices and guidelines can help you with work in our research on communication requirements among enterprise size financial service firms and a price size being 500 or more employees we found that sixty-five percent of organizations adhered to standard standards and rules that govern print procurement and in addition most large financial service providers do purchase print to approve vendors there are times when they purchase print through a non-approved vendors such as when a contract vendor can't need a service method process or delivery requirement so there is an opportunity for non contract print providers to get in the door sell print and then win contract work larger financial service organizations often follow a competitive bidding process many of these organizations include bidding and purchasing roles on their website so visiting a website a client's website to learn about purchasing rules and current bids is a way to learn about them so basically there are three steps to the procurement process and I'll just touch lightly on them so you're aware of them first step is often the request for information or RFI and this is used to gather information to help decide which suppliers have the capabilities to meet job requirements determine next steps and develop an RFP or RFQ the request for proposal or RFP generally presents preliminary requirements for a product or service and it may dictate to varying degrees the exact structure and format of how a supplier is supposed to respond to an RFQ and then the request for quotation RFQ invites suppliers to bid on specific products or services now sometimes an RFQ and are p are used interchangeably so it's useful to have conversations with the person in charge of the bidding process to better understand proposal submissions another key point if you're targeting work that's awarded through a competi competitors vid process as you need to start selling well before that RFP is issued it's important to develop and maintain relationships with key decision-makers before the purchasing need goes into the RFI RFP r are a few phases you know providers that win bids are likely to have had input into the bid requirement so having a relationship that allows you to offer input into the proposal you know offers you an advantage in the process developing expertise in an industry is important and it is an ongoing process monitoring the trends in the financial service industry is really an activity that leads to developing those services that solve real-world customer problems keeping a close eye on an industry and the trends and the actions of key leaders in particular markets your target should really be a daily part of your and your sales teams routines I mean customers today expect you to bring them new ideas and insights and you really can't do that if you don't keep up to date on the industry ah the written paper that I've mentioned several times throughout today's presentation that includes a list of key industry resources and associations along with their website addresses so it's a great starting point for you to you know to start learning about the industry and signing up for industry newsletters and keeping up with the trends terminology is also important this is the last thing I want to talk about it's very important to speak the language you know of the industry you know when communicating with customers I would think you would really want to know that you were talking about the same thing there are a lot of industry glossary for the financial services industry that are readily available there are many resources that you can find online you can even purchase a glossary in a bookstore the more you demonstrate knowledge about your customers business and industry the more they will trust you and have confidence in you and that trust and confidence that our positions you to win work financial service firms today are looking for a trusted knowledgeable reliable partner that understands their unique needs and competitive environment so with that I'm going to stop and see if there are any additional questions a nun came through i'm at the end here lee festa i think you can move on okay so this wraps it up I just want to conclude with saying that you know the financial services industry offers solid opportunities for selling communication products and services firms in this industry are communicating with customers and prospects across a variety of media channels and print is a solid component of that communications mix financial service firms success depends on efficient operations cost control and solid communication channels that educate customers drive new business and manage operations digital printing is a core asset for supporting the success of industry firms and many financial service firms can benefit from digital printings ability to offer short run high quality personalization fast turnaround and just in time efficient production so just to conclude print is a profitable asset for the financial services industry thank you so much Lisa for presenting and sharing your insights today so for more information on today's topic and to download the financial services white paper that we mentioned please visit www think forum com we also hope that you join us for our next installment of the profitable print webinar series that will be all about the health care industry so sign up now and think forum and thank you for being with us today and I hope that you have a wonderful rest of your Wednesday goodbye you
