Are banks Republicans?
I’m not talking in the sense that they like to keep all the money. I’m talking about being demographically tone deaf.
Barack Obama appears to have employed a cunningly stealthy re-election campaign, appealing to women, Hispanics and other minorities. Right until Election Day, no one seems to have noticed that the Democrats were out wooing these groups. That is, they weren’t noticed until they actually mattered, on Nov. 6 at the ballot boxes. Then all of a sudden they were noticed plenty.
Since then, the Republicans have been aflutter, realizing that if they only appeal to “angry white men” they’re not going to win national elections any more. They’ve got to start taking seriously the rest of the population that they’ve marginalized.
Isn’t this a lesson that banks ought to be paying attention to?
Numbers Don’t Lie
Just as national voting demographics have changed, so too have consumer demographics. Take a look at the 2010 census data (Obama did). In Massachusetts, women make up 51.6 percent of the population, and it’s long been known that women are the primary drivers of household financial decisions. Non-Hispanic whites still account for 76.4 percent of the population here – whiter than the national 63.4 percent. Yet since the last census in 2000, Massachusetts logged huge increases in Hispanics (46 percent), Asians (47 percent) and blacks (27 percent). The non-Hispanic white population dropped 4 percent over the decade.
The change is even more pronounced in cities like Boston, where the overall population grew 4.8 percent from 2000 to 2010, with 80 percent of that growth coming from Hispanics.
And for banks looking at commercial loans? Women-owned firms now make up 29.8 percent of all businesses in Massachusetts, 100 basis points higher than the national rate.
If community banks want to broaden their base, they ought to take a much closer look at overall demographics and do what the President’s campaign did – get more non-traditional customers into the system. But that’s going to require a whole new look at marketing and product lineup.
“How you sell financial services to men is not the same as how you sell financial services to women,” says Holly Blanchard, author of “Selling Financial Services To Women,” and a speaker last month at the New England Financial Marketing Association fall conference. “Men and women have different brains, different communications styles and different preferences and priorities when buying financial services and products. Even if they end up buying the same product, they may buy it for different reasons.”
Fabian Yepez is a partner at Rumbo Cultural Marketing, based in Tampa, Fla. He believes many banks miss the market for Hispanics because all they do is translate their materials into Spanish. They don’t specifically target Hispanic culture and customs.
Hispanics as a group have shown a distrust of traditional banking institutions. That can be overcome by being sensitive to what strikes home for Hispanics. Instead of Christmas Club accounts, try Quinceañera accounts, where Hispanic families can save for these culturally important Latina coming-of-age parties.
In the Bay State, the percentage of minority-owned businesses is running at half the national rate. That’s an opportunity. Be the bank that promotes minority-owned enterprise, and you’ll be the bank that enhances the economy and corners the market on our changing population.
If you want to be the bank that succeeds, be bold. Be a Democrat.
Vincent Michael Valvo is CEO of Agility Resources Group LLC. He can be reached at vvalvo@agilityresourcesgroup.com.
