What Are You Going To Do To Compete With Costco In Banking?

by The Story

by JEFF

This morning on NPR there was a piece called “More Large Retailers Ease Customers’ Path To Credit,” about the way retailers like Costco are using their scale, distribution channels and bargaining power to get into the consumer financial services industry. You’ve probably already heard of Bluebird by Walmart and American Express, and you may or may not have known about Costco’s efforts.

So how are you going to develop a bank or credit union marketing strategy to combat Costco, Walmart and the others?

In my experience, most banks and credit unions will do one of two things:

  1. Ignore it. Pretend it’s not happening. (Maybe not even know about it!)
  2. Create a reactive strategy that tries to combat it

My advice? Take a better, third option:  Reinforce your own brand and positioning. Instead of worrying about what they are doing, instead focus on solidifying your own value proposition:  decommoditizing YOUR offering by being the best “you” possible.

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