How to Market Financial Services to Older ****s & College Students:
Research & Tactics from Bank of America

"We found that once [****s] are set with a brand, you see the same
behavior as with the general population," says Maura Griffin, Senior
VP Product Development for Bank of America. ?Once they've found a
brand they like, they generally stick with it.?

If Bank of America could get college students to sign up for a
checking account as freshmen, those students would likely become
life-long customers -- but only if the product was a cut above the
competition's.

Through syndicated research, focus groups, and a product development
survey for a new product, CampusEdge Checking (TM), Griffin's team
discovered five key factors about marketing to high school seniors
and college students:

-> Factor #1. ****s only *think* they're making decisions on
their own

Many students are out on their own for the first time and have never
been taught about financial issues, Griffin explains. They want to
make decisions on their own, but don't know where to turn for
financial guidance.

While students believe they're making decisions for themselves,
Griffin?s research revealed, they are actually highly influenced by
outside elements. Most often, they choose banks either through the
advice of a parent or through campus activities.

Marketing to ****s needed to focus on those areas of influence. The
team created marketing programs to three different sectors.

a. ****s themselves
Banking centers across the country reached out to ****s through
senior nights at high schools and on college campuses. They also
conducted direct mail to high school seniors. That way, by the time
entering college freshmen chose a bank, they may have had up to
three touchpoints with Bank of America.

b. Parents
All Bank of America banking centers changed their point of sale
messages, beginning in June, to target parents of graduating high
school seniors. The message told parents that students choosing
CampusEdge Checking would benefit from the parents' relationship
with the bank: the students' monthly service fees would be waived
while they were in school.

If associates at the banking centers knew that their customers had a
student heading off to college, the associate would talk to the
parent about the new checking account. A letter was sent to parents
as well.

c. College campuses
While most banks in college towns appear on campus during
orientation week to sell to students, Bank of America took it a step
further, creating the Bank of America on Campus program.
Through this program, universities with a business relationship with
the bank are eligible to team up with the bank to offer their
students additional benefits, including a monthly service charge
waiver while they were attending that university.

-> Factor #2. Parents look at the long-term; ****s look at "what
I'm spending now"

"Parents have had a lifetime to learn about finances and how to
handle their money, but ****s usually don?t have any experience at
all,? Griffin explains. ?That meant that we weren't going to send
the same message to the parent and the student."

The marketing message to students focused on the fact that with
CampusEdge they could receive free checking for at least six months.
If they had direct deposit, it would remain free or. If their
parents were Bank of America customers, it would be free for five
years (while they were in school).

Plus, Bank of America offered free online banking with free online
bill pay, which appeals to this tech-savvy market.

On campus, the bank offered promotional giveaways such as a digital
2-in-1 clock radio.

Messages to parents focused more on informing them about a specific
aspect of the product: the "Stuff Happens" ? card.

"Once a student has been with a bank, one major element of
dissatisfaction was the different fees they incur because of pure
inexperience," says Griffin. "So we created the Stuff Happens card,
which would provide them with a one time refund.? If a student ran
into an overdraft fee, for example, the Stuff Happens card would
allow the bank to waive the fee.

To redeem the card, students had to come into the banking center and
meet with a banking associate, who would talk to the student about
the activity that drove the mistake.

?Parents found this aspect of the product particularly reassuring,?
Griffin says. ?They realized that accidents sometimes happen,
particularly when dealing with a lack of education. They were happy
that the bank took the time to educate their children.?

-> Factor #3. Continuing ed

In addition to educating students on how to avoid the mistakes they
made, which triggered the need to redeem their Stuff Happens card,
Bank of America took several other pro-active measures to inform
****s.

All students who received a Bank of America Student Visa Gold
credit card also receive a Practical Money Skills for Life CD-rom.
This provided students with information on how to use a credit card
responsibly.

Also the Bank of America on Campus Program provided the option of an
on-campus seminar. This 2-hour seminar provided an overview of how
to manage a checking account and credit card effectively. At Spelman
College, for example, they actually provided students with college
credit for attending the seminar.

?The educational aspect is critical,? says Griffin. ?We want
students who sign up for one of our accounts to understand how it
works and works for them, by building a strong financial future.?

-> Factor #4. Educate sales associates

When selling to ****s, as with any other consumer, it's important to
keep the message consistent all the way down to the account opening.
Griffin's team identified the top banking centers that had had the
best results from selling to students in previous years, then did an
in-depth analysis to understand how they were selling and
cross-selling the appropriate products to students.

Then, the team created a training package that went to the banking
center managers in university towns. The training package included:

--Best practices
For example, "During a matter of a week or two, [banking centers]
could have hundreds of new students coming through," Griffin says.
?Managers made sure that the centers were optimally staffed to
accommodate the increase. We didn?t want students scared away by
long lines and waits.?

--Worksheets
Several banking centers created a worksheet to make the application
process easier. Griffin's team created a worksheet based on those.

--Competitive overview
This covered the products Bank of America's major competitors were
offering students. The training package encouraged each banking
center to shop the local competition to learn more about their
specific student offerings.

--Video
The video showed role-playing that helped associates deal with
objections. It talked about cross-selling and showed some of the
differences between selling to students and selling to their
parents.

-> Factor #5. Offer performance incentives to associates
To get all banking center managers involved, Griffin's team came up
with two different contests:

o Create a Business Plan
"We ran a contest that asked them to create a business plan based on
understanding their competitive environment, the dates they'd be
allowed on campus, and how they were going to address each of
those," she says.

Banking centers that won the contest received cash and were
encouraged to either have a "really good pizza party" or to purchase
university jerseys for associates to wear during the back-to-school
rush.

o Exceed Your Goals
The banking centers that exceeded their sales goals by the greatest
amount received a similar prize.

"This was the first year we extended our marketing beyond just the
student centers, to all banking centers where parents might be,"
Griffin says. "It significantly improved our penetration."