You are on page 1of 14

SBI Retail Banking digital media marketing & Communication Strategy

Avinash Mekala, 1401085


Executive Summary:
The last few years have witnessed a transition of banking from a predominantly transactional
business to a customer centric one. To engaging the customer through the most relevant
channels has become key to maximising customer value and creating newer and more
innovative revenue streams for banks. I believe that digital platforms will impact the entire
ecosystem of the banking industry by redefining the type of interactions while necessitating
new innovative internal processes and employee skills to support these interactions. The
digital platforms provide opportunity to interact with customers on a regular basis in a more
personalised manner.
State Bank of India (SBI) is the largest and oldest retail banking player in India. They
position themselves as the Banker to every Indian'. They have retail operations in 22
countries, largest global presence of any Indian bank offering a wide range of deposit and
loans products and value added banking services.
Though it markets aggressively through traditional media, it presence
in digital media is passive. In recent years SBI started to focus on digital media marketing to
compete with other players. I found out that even SBI trying to market aggressively in digital
media extant, it lacks in several areas while compared to other players in this platform. Late
mover is one of the reason we can say but there are many things which can be in its control.
So, I analyse each and every channel to verify it present situation and its lack of presence.

As SBI doing all the campaigns already , I designed a simple 6 step process to verify SBIs
efficiency in each step and stated some of the uncovered approaches along with the
recommendations in each step bases on the my secondary research.

1 | Page

Client Brief1
SBI has wide range of products in its retail banking business. Those include Term Deposits,
Recurring Deposits, Housing Loan, Educational Loan, personal loan for Pensioners, Against
Mortgage of Property, Against Shares & Debentures, Plus Scheme Medi-Plus Scheme, Rates
of Interest and Debit/Credit cards. SBI has its presence all over India with 16,000 branches.
Background
Digital Media:
Digital marketing is a tool for interactive marketing of products and services using digital
technologies to reach customers. The marketers promote brands and increase sales through
various digital marketing techniques. They mainly use the Internet as a core promotional
medium.
Why Digital Media Marketing is important:
Digital marketing differs from traditional marketing because it involves the use of channels
and methods to analyse marketing campaigns and also can understand where they are lacking
and what to improve. The growth of Digital media users has been rapidly increasing. Surveys
showing that up to 2013 there are majority of traditional customers but from 2013 to 2019
period, the digital converts are the majority and 2020 and beyond digital native customers
dominate the market ( Apendix1).
Digital Media in BFSI space:
Digital Media especially Social Media, today is playing a significant role in Indian banking
sector. Every brand is there on one or the other platform and trying to engage with consumers
online. The most important performance indicators a BFSI Brands must keep in mind is
Engagement Ratio. The 5 social media platforms which are best suited for BFSI Brands
keeping in mind the nature of the business would be
Facebook: To Engage with the users
Google Plus: To Build community
YouTube: Video is the best form of expression so express
LinkedIn: To create engagement with their brand
Twitter: To create buzzword
The main reason for the necessity of social media banking is the opportunity for interacting
with customers and also obtaining required data for analytics to serve them better. Social data
analytics could also provide banks with information about potential defaulters on loans.
Another reason for banks to have a presence in Social media is to obtain positive reactions to
customer service.

1 Www.sbi.co.in
2 | Page

Secondary Research & Findings:


Need for Research:
It is important for SBI to be a active player in digital media and able to compete with other
players who are doing good job in this medium from considerably longer period than SBI.

Analysis of SBIs presence in Digital Media:2


SBI is making all efforts to connect with its customers on social media. It is trying to
strengthen its social media presence with the launch of its channel on video social networking
site YouTube and has launched its presence on Twitter. Initially YouTube channel have
information about the banks products and services and its legacy to begin with and will
gradually include philanthropic initiatives. At the moment the day old YouTube page has got
a handful of subscribers and 9 videos uploaded on to it. The videos that have been uploaded
are showcasing the legacy of the bank. There are videos especially to assist customers to
bring knowledge about their services and give guidance for example SBI freedom app
installation etc. The official twitter account has 260 followers whereas SBI card account has
43.3 followers and has 31.8 tweets. The news of the new launch comes on the heels of the
launch of its Facebook page. The Facebook page today has more than 3.7 million fans and
has been quite aggressive in sharing informative content with the fans. However, the page has
blocked fans from posting on it.
SBI has introduced six digital branches across the country to offer banking solutions to its
Internet and mobile customer base. The SBI In touch branches are currently operational in
Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore and Ahmedabad with the Kolkata branch expected to be
opened shortly. It has tied up with Accenture for this initiative, which helped the bank in
designing the branch layouts, implementing the digital processes and provided back-end
integration, including employee training. These digital branches are apparently equipped with
interactive wall and info tables to allow customers plan their finances.
SBI launched SBIePay a new payment solution for merchants. SBIePay offered real-time
credit card, debit card, net banking and mobile payment transaction validation processes. It
had also launched a prepaid mobile wallet service called Mobicash Easy that allows users to
transfer funds and make bill payment among others. It also partnering with e-commerce
2 http://www.medianama.com/2014/07/223-sbi-digital-branches/
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/companies/sbi-launches-youtube-channeltwitter-is-next/article5609936.ece

3 | Page

players like Amazon and snap deal to fillip to e-commerce and brings lots of value to their
retail business.

SBIs position in comparison with other players3:


Though the industry leader in revenue and digital media coverage of Share-of-Voice lost to
HDFC, ICICI and other 3 players in Social Media Quotient (according to data available till
2014)(Refer Apendix-2).SBI dont have its presence in blogs, Google plus and Pinterest. The
SSI score for SBI is 43 as compared to HDFCs 80 is very poor. (Refer Apendix-3). Owned
media and earned media split up, it stood 5th and 4th position respectively (Refer Apendix-4).
Comparing overall buzz in social media including owned and earned, it stood 5 th position
with 9% of share (Refer Apendix-5). It has very less share of fans 3% on Facebook, very less
compared to other players like ICICI, Axis and HDFC (Refer Apendix-6). SBI has 260 k
followers whereas Yes bank has 556 k followers. But it is observed that there was a drastic
increase in the count compared to last year (30K) due to its active approach in twitter.
Comparing its customer service, the major service required in SBI card_connect. It is
observed that in twitter it is lacking in retweets and pro-active tweets where Yes Bank is
doing a good job here hence it is able to get better presence in twitter than SBI(Refer
Apendix-7). To respond to their queries, most of them ask their customers to contact them via
DM, Email or a contact over phone. Here is it observed that SBI dont communicate much
with the customers through email (Refer Apendix-8). Analyzing time taken to respond the
queries SBI has poor performance as it has more percentage greater than 1 day time replies
(Refer Apendix-9).
The analysis of sentiment about the brands by analyzing the positive posts and negative posts
on facebook, SBI has neutral sentiment but where as in twitter it has some negativity (Refer
Apendix-10,11).
Apart from Social media there are other channels like Search Engine Optimization
/Marketing, pay per click ads, online banner advertising are some of the other important
digital media tools that should be concentrated. I found SBI, especially in retail banking is
not doing a good job in terms of Search Engine Optimization because when searched
regarding banking in Google search engine (widely used famous search engine) , the results
for SBI are coming after HDFC,ICICI and Axis which shows less popularity in ranking or
web site content designing (not applying optimization techniques) (Refer Apendix-12). When
searched about loans and credit/debit cards its appearance in the page in far below which
represents poor page rank for those key words.
It has greater visibility in IRCTC in terms of display Ads and there is scope of many other
website which would be discussed in the campaign part.
3 http://simplify360.com/
4 | Page

So , the overall SBI especially in retail banking has presence in digital media but lacking in
several aspects. The campaign part is designed in such a way to address the problem or
develop its presence throughout all parts of digital media.
Campaign Design and Scope of improvement:
First to start with basic design of the campaign let us analyze 6 step process of the design
STEP 1 SEGMENTATION: Which understand the market, accounts and buyers and ensures
the strategy is differentiated from the competitors.
STEP 2 PLANNING: Which leverage the segmentation findings to develop revenue, budget,
product/solution, campaign and content.
STEP 3 ENGAGEMENT: Which Define the processes for how the marketing team is going
to interact with prospects and customers.
STEP 4 ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE: Make sure the organizational structure is set
up correctly so the right people are in the right roles to execute the processes.
STEP 5 EXECUTION: Executing the core strategy
STEP 6 CUSTOMER SUPPORT: Engage with customers in problem solving.
Though SBI has followed the same design to implement digital media strategy, there is need
to be an improvement in all the steps especially in Execution and Customer support part. In
segmentation step the geography based and psychographic based segmentation is not clearly
visible because the professional news sites and shares related sites, you dont find SBI ads
related specifically related to loans, pensions etc. I felt a proper segment wise targeting is
necessary in up-front. Coming to the Engagement and Org parts, SBI has now partnered with
Accenture to obtain proper technology support and development in their digital processes and
partnering with amazon to fillip into e commerce space which has done by other players
relatively earlier. It should focus more on these partnerships to develop and expand its digital
processes.
Planning & Engagement:
Efficient planning and engagement can improve customer acquisition and onboarding.
Growing customer base is top priority for every business. So taking advantage of richer,
cheaper data access is the best option to plan further. One of the advantages of digital boom is
the availability of data for lower costs. The objective is to not only acquire the contacting
potential customers, but to go a step further and accurately measure the possibility of lead
conversion through analytics. Banks utilize social data to profiling customers and to
understand their individual requirements. Search engine optimization and search engine
marketing also the best tools to acquire the potential customers. Target news blogs ,
professional sites for suitable customer for the some of the retail business products would be
a great option.

5 | Page

Partnership with e-commerce sites and aggregators:


Partnering with other online market spaces is another strategy for customer acquisition. With
phenomenal boom being observed in the e-commerce space in India, SBI can use these
channels as a means to reach out to new customers, including those in smaller cities. Apart
from exploring regular advertising strategies on these websites, joint product offerings could
be a better opportunity Ex: HDFC partnered with snapdeal .SBI should leverage its scope by
partnering all majot ticket booking sites like ticketdada, bookmyshow, redbus etc.
Leverage smart phone capabilities to improve app functionality:
With the huge increase in the number of affordable smartphones being launched in the Indian
mobile market through aggressive pricing strategies, device penetration is expectedto
experience sizable growth. According to an eMarketer report, by 2016, India will have more
than 200 million smartphone users, overtaking the US as the worlds second largest
smartphone market4. But if we analyze the availably of apps for SBI is less compared to
others. It recently launched SBI freedom app and there is huge scope for increasing apps foe
each service makes easier to access.
Improve Search Engine Optimization/Marketing:
As observed in the analysis part the page rank for sbi sites is less due to improper Search
Engine Optimization. So, improve in Search Engine Optimization/Marketing is very
necessary SBI to be efficient in digital media and to compete with others.
Some ways to improve Search Engine Optimization:
1. Publish relevant content. Quality content is the number one driver of your search engine
rankings and there is no substitute for great content.
2. Update your content regularly
3. Use Metadata
4. Have a link-worthy site
5. Use alt tags.
6. Use text more than multimedia as keyword number is necessary to improve page rank

4 eMarketer. (2014). 2 Billion Consumers Worldwide to Get Smart(phones) by


2016. Retrieved from http://www.emarketer.com
6 | Page

Customer Support/Servicing:
Keeping your customer connected to your brand:
This can be achieved through efficient utilization of social media. As we have seen in the
analysis part the share of voice /share of quotient values are less compared to other major
players. The overall buzz and SSI index is also very less for SBI. So, the first step to keep the
customer connected to the brand by creating buzz in the social media. Though it has good
presence and following in the facebook it has scope to improve in twitter by creating buzz.
For example take low interest rate for student loans. It can make buzz about it by creating
hashtag #kamsepadojyadapado or it can target the special days like fathers day by giving
more discounts on that day and crate hashtag #mydadisahero (obviously dad has to give
surety and has to repay in worst scenarios). Create some creative videos with the same
concept and upload it in youtube channel to make the channel more interesting.
Create separate page for each and product in the retail business channel. And allow them to
post as SBI doesnt allow users to post on its walls. It is kind of gives a negative impression
on brand and challenges its commitment towards customer service. Improve youtube channel
by making more creative ads which looks channel interesting and also create videos just for
to assist the customers to solve their issues / giving any information.
Improve its presence through all available digital platforms making available in google plus,
Pinterest etc also.
Efficient customer problem solving:
As discussed in the analysis part SBI is taking comparatively more time to respond to the
customer problems. The percentage of retweets taking more than one day is higher for SBI.
This is very bad part on SBI because customers expect immediate reply especially in the
mediums like twitter. It has to improve in this part. It is also not reaching customers much
through email especially in assistance based scenario which can also be leveraged some far.
SBI doesnt allow its consumers to post it on the walls in some pages. It has to be changed to
give proper assistance in customer problems.

Create official SBI blogs for discussions and addressing the customer problems.

7 | Page

Conclusion:
SBI operated in retail banking sector has improved its digital media presence in the recent
years but still in lack compared to other major players like HDFC, ICICI and Axis. Some are
under the scope and control of SBI which can easily turn over and improve its presence in the
digital media. Hence I suggested a campaign which includes all basic steps to design a digial
media campaign and in each step I proposed how to execute and scope of improvement.
On concluding the to sum-up all the recommendations, To develop its digital media strategy
by improving
1. Search Engine Marketing : Through content strategy and SEO or through Paid Search
Advertising (Adwords)
2. Social media promotions Paid advertising on Facebook, promotion on Twitter, Pinterest
and Google+.
3. Mobile market promotions Development of native apps and submission to the Google
Play and Apple Store
4. Email marketing Promotion of products or services through email marketing campaigns

8 | Page

Appendix1: Expected growth of digital natives

Appendix2: Social Media Quotient and SOV of SBI compared to others

9 | Page

Appendix3:

Appendix4:

10 | P a g e

Appendix5:

Appendix6:

11 | P a g e

Appendix7:

Appendix8:

Appendix10:

12 | P a g e

Appendix11:

Appendix12:

13 | P a g e

14 | P a g e

You might also like