What role does technology play in your financial marketing strategy?

Changing regulation, customer behavior, and competition are changing the way financial brands conduct marketing, and new technologies have become a vital part of the plan.

From marketing automation and sales enablement to data management and reporting platforms, there is an abundance of financial marketing technology available to help marketers take their brands to the top. (more…)

What is the biggest mistake firms make in their technology RFP process?  The answer: Failing to call references.

The request for references is almost always included when putting-out an RFP, but what’s shocking is that 75% of the time, firms never call them. The excuse is usually something along the lines of, “No one’s going to put down a bad reference, so why bother to call?”

This is a huge mistake. (more…)

Having run technology RFPs from both a vendor and customer standpoint, I’m disturbed by the trend I’m seeing.  RFP processes are becoming longer and longer. The depth and complexity seem to have little to do with the actual scope of work the customer is seeking bids on.

Without exaggeration, I recently received an RFP that had 171 long-response-format questions that, in the end, supported a deal that only had a three-year value of about $100,000.  Compare that to a 111 question RFP that we won in 2012 for a contract with a three-year value of over $1 million.

(more…)