THE CHALLENGE
This multi-national Fintech company was undertaking a complete overhaul of its North American sales, marketing and customer support strategy and sought an independent, informed perspective on the unique complexities and characteristics of the technology buying journey within community banking.
THE GOAL
The ultimate goal of this work was to identify and validate the buyer journey for community financial institutions, and in particular understand how prospects arrive at the decision to acquire new systems technology, and how prospects learn about, identify, and evaluate prospective vendors who can address their needs. As a result of this analysis, Galapagos sought to identify ways in which marketing can influence the buyer journey.
APPROACH
Data Collection:
Data was collected via interviews with key client and industry stakeholders, email surveys of FI contacts, and intensive interviews with community bank and credit union partners. Additional research was undertaken to identify key segments of influencers and decision makers within FIs of different asset sizes and an analysis of the client’s sales and marketing data was performed to identify key events and points of influence in the sales pipeline, together with the effectiveness of marketing materials.
Formation and Test of Hypothesis
An initial hypothesis of the likely prospect buyer journey was formulated as a result of the data collection. That hypothesis was then put to the test with additional interviews, after which buyer journeys were mapped and marketing recommendations were developed.
