Project Review: Triggered Consumer Education – Testing the Waters with Tailored Financial Content

Campaign Overview

In a banking environment where product options and banking terminology can feel overwhelming it’s important to provide solutions that help consumers to make the best decisions for their financial situations. By empowering them to through tailored educational recommendations you can build confidence, gain trust, and further establish your bank as a subject matter expert for your consumers.

Pain Point: This campaign emerged from a request by the executive team to gauge how effective targeted, educational content might be in fostering engagement and driving product adoption when compared to non-tailored recommendations. The challenge was straightforward but crucial: determine whether customers would respond better to personalized financial education content delivered via email, particularly when it was triggered by their specific online behavior.

Solution: By leveraging Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC), Interaction Studio (now known as Marketing Cloud Personalization), and Everfi Educational Modules I worked with outside partners to create five distinct journeys. Each journey was triggered based on customer activity on the company’s website, specifically when customers browsed additional products they weren’t currently enrolled in. Within minutes of a qualifying visit, users received an email with educational modules about the relevant product category that included product offers. This content offered insights and guidance, ideally positioning the product as a solution to their evolving needs while empowering the customer with the knowledge to make the best decision for themself.

Results: Consumers Benefit from Tailored Recommendations

The metrics tell the story: the campaign saw notable improvements in engagement, education module completion, and even conversions, indicating that the timing and relevance of content were highly effective.

Key Stats

15% Higher Engagement Rate: The emails featuring tailored educational content significantly outperformed the average, indicating that the right message at the right moment resonated.

26% Higher Module Completion Rate: Customers who received educational emails based on their recent browsing behavior were more likely to fully engage with the educational modules provided, suggesting that they valued this type of timely, relevant content.

2.67% Conversion Rate in New Product Enrollment: Beyond engagement, the campaign also nudged customers toward action, with a portion of those who received the emails eventually enrolling in a new product. While this was not a main focus of the campaign, with adjustments to messaging positioning these numbers could easily be increased.

Further Breakdown

1. Strategic Execution:
This campaign is a case study in the power of timing and relevance in customer outreach. By designing triggers based on real-time data, the team ensured that emails were not just educational but also highly context-sensitive. The customers were likely in an exploratory mindset when they received these emails, making them more open to learning about additional product offerings. The rapid deployment of emails post-interaction meant the campaign was able to capitalize on heightened interest levels.

2. Tailored Educational Content as a Trust-Building Mechanism:
Financial services can be daunting, and education is often key to building trust and understanding. In this case, the educational modules served as a non-intrusive, value-first approach to cross-promotion. Instead of a hard sell, customers received information-rich content that helped them understand the benefits of the products they were exploring, turning the emails into helpful resources rather than just another marketing push.

3. Journey Mapping & Execution with Marketing Cloud Tools:
The use of SFMC and Interaction Studio was pivotal in bringing this campaign to life. By analyzing user interactions in real-time, the team could segment and deploy content to those most likely to benefit from it. Each journey was customized, making for a more dynamic experience that responded directly to user interests, driving the elevated engagement and completion rates seen in the final results.

4. Novel Reporting:

Leading into this project, we had limited insight into the full activity cycle of or consumers with a gap identified between the email click, navigation to the educational website, and ultimate product enrollment. By partnering with our data teams and our vendor, Everfi, we were able to build data integrations through Adobe Analytics that for the first time gave us full insight into the customer experience. Not only did this ensure we could track results on this campaign, but was implemented in future efforts to further our results data and reporting.

Insights and Learnings

This triggered consumer education campaign highlights the value of personalization in financial services. For brands, the lesson here is clear: the more in-the-moment and relevant your content, the more likely customers are to engage. Additionally, it underscores the importance of approaching cross-promotions with a focus on customer empowerment and education, particularly in sectors where understanding products can take time.

For other companies considering similar initiatives, the success here suggests that combining real-time customer insights with educational content is a winning formula for customer engagement, product education, and conversion.