Our Guide to Cross-Selling for Banks

When it comes to your FI’s success, there will come a time when you will need to cross-sell products/services to your existing customer base. Read our guide on cross-selling below!

What is Cross-Selling for Banks?

Cross-selling is a common marketing tactic that involves selling a related product to a consumer, thereby doubling the sources of revenue and extending the longevity of the relationship between the consumer and the business. This can be done in a variety of ways, including retargeted marketing, personalized ads, and utilizing data intelligence to your advantage.

You see it in nearly every sector and every industry. Think of combos for fast food – automatically pairing fries and a drink with a sandwich – or bundling tactics from utility companies, which often offer water, internet, refuse, and other services alongside electricity.  

In the banking industry, cross-selling looks like offering clients a savings account when they open a checking account, offering homeowner’s insurance alongside a mortgage, or life insurance alongside a retirement plan. This practice can keep customers coming back to the same institution year after year, with the knowledge that they can find whatever additional products and services they need at their primary banking institution.

How is Cross-Selling Different from Upselling?

Cross-selling and upselling are two related marketing tactics, and they are often used in tandem by sales officials. However, the difference lies in the type of products each strategy attempts to sell to clients.  

Upselling involves marketers trying to sell clients a higher-priced, higher-quality version of the product they’re intending to buy. The product is usually the same, or at least very similar, to the already desired product.  

Cross-selling, by contrast, is a tactic that involves selling two related or connected products to a client who might have only been looking for one. The desired outcome is the same in both practices – not only do they increase the amount of revenue, but they can increase customer satisfaction and improve your reputation in the eyes of your customers.  

What Kind of Services Do Banks Cross-Sell?

Depending on your financial institution, your bank may offer a myriad of different products and services for your clients and customers. Below are just a few examples of services that banks can cross-sell to their clientele.

Bank Cross-Selling Guide Table of Contents

What is Cross-Selling?
- How is Cross-Selling Different from Upselling?
- What Kind of Services Do Banks Cross-Sell?

Benefits of Cross-Selling for Banks
- Increased Revenues
- No Acquisition Costs
- Build Brand Loyalty
- Fulfill Your Customers' Needs

Cross-Selling Tips for Banks
- Choose Products/Services That Complement
- Don't Be Pushy with Sales Tactics
- Build Campaigns Around Satisfied Customers

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- Offering Trusted Solutions Since 2009

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Loans and Mortgages

Banks might attempt to cross-sell on mortgages or other types of loans to existing customers. For instance, a bank employee might notice that you’re looking to take out a mortgage on your home and offer you a checking account to make the process easier. This can also be done with property insurance, a credit card, life insurance, debtor insurance, and more.

Investment and Retirement Plans

Similarly, a bank might try to offer investments if they recognize that you have considerable disposable income. On retirement plans, they might offer tax preparation services, knowing that the demographics that would be investing in a retirement plan might have too much income and not enough time to prepare their taxes themselves.

High-Interest Savings Accounts and CDs

Much like investment and retirement plans, a bank could try to offer certain customers high-interest savings accounts or CDs (certificate of deposit). These services would help customers build their savings in a passive way through earning interest on each of their deposits.

Benefits of Bank Cross-Selling

Effective cross-selling offers a number of diverse benefits to any banking institution. Check out our list of benefits below!

Increased Revenue for Your Institution

Cross-selling increases the amount of revenue per customer an institution can bring in by doubling the products they use. It’s a simple principle that has a relatively high conversion rate, and it offers some benefit to everyone involved.

If your existing customer is happy with the services you are offering and selling to them, your institution only stands to benefit in terms of revenue!

No Acquisition Costs for Existing Customers

Another bonus of cross-selling is that you’re usually pitching to current customers who are already using one of your services, and if not, they are at least already interested in one of your services. This lowers the amount of money, energy, and effort you might put into finding a new customer who would buy the same product.

Building Brand Loyalty Through Your Services

Cross-selling can also help bolster the brand loyalty of existing customers. By providing them with excellent services, they learn that their bank will help them to find the right products they need, making them more likely to return year after year.  

Additionally, the sheer fact that they pay for more than one service at your bank makes them more likely to return for the sheer sake of ease – when much of your financial activity is consolidated in one area, it’s much easier to manage through a website, phone call, or app. Think of cross-selling as a way of cultivating an ongoing relationship with customers.  

Fulfilling Your Customers' Needs

When done right, bank employees who engage in cross-selling opportunities can have the satisfaction of knowing that they’ve recommended a product or service that is genuinely very helpful for your clients. Though banks are for-profit institutions, it’s still undeniable that they provide much-needed services that help clients reach important goals and life milestones.  

Cross-selling is never meant to trick a customer into buying something they need – instead, they benefit from being directed towards a service that is useful or complementary to other services they already pay for.  

Cross-Selling Tips for Banking Services

Like any marketing strategy, cross-selling involves a certain level of refinement and finesse in order to avoid becoming a dishonest
or unethical marketing tactic. After all, the ultimate goal is still developing a client-business relationship that extends beyond the initial purchase.

Choose Products and Services that Complement
the Customer

Cross-selling can be a great source of revenue for banks, but ultimately, this strategy should also benefit customers and build their trust rather than erode it. A good marketer should be looking to make product recommendations that are accurate, well-informed, and that fulfill an actual need your client has. Otherwise, clients may feel as if you’re selling useless products to them for no reason beyond profit.  

When it comes to their finances, people want to feel as if they’ve given their money to an institution they can trust, and it goes a long way to develop a relationship with clients based on mutual respect.

Don't Be Overly Pushy with
Sales Tactics

While it’s important to pitch any service confidently, the line between good marketing and pushy, disrespectful hawking can be thin when it comes to cross-selling. Make sure you respect a customer’s disinterest, especially if they give you an explicit “no.” It can be tempting to try and change their mind, but this can come off as rude at best and transparently profit-motivated at worst.  

Beware of Quotas (WellsFargo Scandal)

Wells-Fargo is well-known not only for its cross-selling of services, but also for some of the pitfalls of instituting cross-selling quotas for bank employees.  

In 2013, the company was discovered to have fraudulently opened over 2 million accounts, with customers paying millions of dollars in monthly fees on accounts opened without their knowledge or consent. Wells-Fargo ended up paying $185 million in regulatory fines for the scandal on top of whatever revenue they lost from customers unwilling to deal with an under-handed company. The explanation for this enormous ethical breach was cross-selling quotas that left staff members desperate to reach them.  

Build Campaigns Around Satisfied Customers

Ultimately, prioritizing customer satisfaction is one of the best choices a business can make. It’s mutually beneficial, and it ensures an extended professional relationship with the most opportunity for revenue and usefulness for both parties. Don’t engage in sneaky marketing tactics with only profit in mind – instead, aim to maximize customer satisfaction alongside profits to build successful, long-term relationships with clients.

DeepTarget is a Trusted Bank Marketing Agency

Here at DeepTarget, we know better than anyone that trust is absolutely crucial to the development of a client base – especially when it comes to finances. Customers have to trust their banks to keep track of their money, and shady marketing agencies that engage in below-the-board tactics do nothing but harm consumer trust.  

With honest advertising, accurate and helpful sales practices, and over a decade of expertise, you can trust DeepTarget to develop the relationships with your clientele that you need!

Offering Simplified Digital Marketing Solutions Since 2009

For over a decade, DeepTarget has offered countless marketing solutions to financial institutions looking to grow their client base (or keep their current client base wanting more). From our Digital Experience Platform, to our mobile and online banking applications, to our 3D Story innovation, we seek to offer you technologies that are simple to use with tangible results!

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