Savings Bank Group Finland: Get wealthy with us.

The Savings Bank Group is a human-friendly bank group, which wants to make its customers more wealthy. The group in Finland includes 24 independent banks, an insurance company, a funding company, a real estate chain, and an own central bank.

When I started my job as a CMO (Group’s Head of Marketing and Communications), the banking industry was under global disruption. Consumer’s decision and buying processes had changed through digitalization, regulation had increased, and new digital players were coming into markets.

My main goal was to make Savings Bank brand more desirable by improving customer experience as a group level. I belonged to the group’s leadership team, led a Markcom department, and managed the group’s marketing budget.

When I started, there were neither proper analytics nor marketing funnel or digital lead generation model in the group. So, one of my first tasks was to build them. We also developed and launched a new brand promise, brand identity, and creative concepts. Then we created Key Performance Indicators to show us the right way.

The job was not easy because the group was very heterogeneous. The big banks in big cities were very different from their minor and remote friends. To reach our goals, we had to develop new group-level guidelines, tools, and MarkCom operations. We also had to improve the group’s internal communication and coordination.

The banking is nowadays digital, so we built a plan for a new web platform that offered first time all group’s services from one door. We did the planning work with Valve, and my team later developed and launched the platform successfully with Siili.

My team succeeded well: The amount of digitally gained new customer leads grew 25 % in 2015 and 40% in 2016. In 2016 the group’s customer experience was voted best in Finnish banking according to independent customer research made by Data-Driven Marketing Association.

ClientSavings Bank FinlandTeamKatja Änkilä, Nina Pakkala, Outi Piipari, Teemu SalmiMy roleHead of Marketing and Communications (CMO), Member of Leadership TeamResults1) The number of digitally gained customer leads grew 40 % 2) In 2016, Savings Bank Finland was voted first time the best in customer experience among all financial companies Year2014-2017