The objective of this course is to introduce students to the marketing of financial services. All financial institutions, including consumer banks and corporate finance services, practice some form of marketing. Some firms market themselves better than others, as evidenced in the competitive value of their brands.

This course will demonstrate to students the benefits of using an analytical approach to marketing in the financial services industry, and will show students how to undertake that analysis. An analytical approach helps firms to  (1) identify marketing options, (2) calibrate the opportunity costs associated with each option, and (3) choose the best option to achieve the firm’s business goals.

This course operationalizes several marketing concepts such as segmentation, targeting, and positioning. By the end of this course, students will know how to segment customers, what kind of data are required to do so, what are the different ways to segment, which customers to target, how to determine the best positioning of your brand in customers’ minds, how to develop new products/services that add value to consumers and firms, how to price financial products,  how to efficiently manage multiple brands across multiple segments in order to meet corporate bottom-line goals, how to develop a brand, how to migrate a brand when brands are acquired or merged, and how to co-brand financial services.

Upon successful completion of the requirements for this course, students will be able to:

1. define, explain and illustrate some of the frameworks and approaches that are helpful in marketing financial services;
2. describe how:

• marketing contributes to success in modern financial institutions;
• the marketing of services like financial services differs from tangible goods marketing;

3. discuss how:

• segmentation is used to understand and manage customer behaviour;
• to position value propositions, products and brands in customers’ minds;
• to develop new products (goods and services) that add value to consumers and firms;
• to price financial products;

4. outline how to identify which customers to target; and,
5. outline how to efficiently manage multiple product or brand portfolios across multiple customer segments, and how to develop an effective marketing strategy in modern financial service organisations.

Assessment will consist of written assignments (50%), examination (30%), and tutorial contributions and presentations (20%).

3 hours of seminars over 13 weeks

For further information please refer to the Course Website