Word-of-mouth marketing strategy not working for Ghana’s two biggest banks; GCB and Ecobank
Word-of-mouth marketing strategy or advertising employed by GCB and Ecobank, according to Ghanaian research firm Global InfoAnalytics, is not achieving the required results demanded by the two banks.
Per the Q2 2022 Banking Brand Health Check report by Global InfoAnalytics, the word-of-mouth marketing strategy by the banks, for the first half of the year have been ineffective.
According to the report, GCB and Ecobank for the period under review made average scores of 47.81% and 43.11% respectively in the Net Promoter Score (NPS) metric – the metric that measures the word-of-mouth marketing strategy.
According to Global InfoAnalytics, a score of 50 percent or more suggests that the word-of-mouth marketing strategy or advertising is working for the brand.
An NPS score below 50 percent implies that the bank’s word-of-mouth marketing strategy isn’t working for them.
Aside GCB and Ecobank, the report revealed that the word-of-mouth marketing strategy was also not working for banks like ADB, Absa, Access, Zenith and CBG.
For Stanbic Bank, National Investment Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and First National Bank, the word-of-mouth marketing strategy is effectively working for them.
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures customer loyalty and how likely they are to refer the brand, products and services to others.
Word-of-mouth marketing is when a consumer’s interest in a company’s product or service is reflected in their daily dialogues. Essentially, it is free advertising triggered by good customer experiences.
A study indicates that 64 percent of marketing executives believe word-of-mouth is the most effective form of marketing and 82 percent of marketers use word-of-mouth marketing to increase their brand awareness.
Another study by Nielsen also asserts that 92% of consumers believe suggestions from friends and family more than they do advertising, making it one of the most valuable sources of marketing for companies.
Brand loyalty
In terms of customers’ loyalty to their banks, the research firm asserts that its survey found 90.17% of all banking customers being loyal to their banks with only 4.95% being disloyal.
Some 4.87% of customers were neutral (neither loyal nor disloyal).
Brand Satisfaction
The survey revealed that most banking customers are satisfied with their brands as 80.64% of respondents indicating that they are extremely satisfied or satisfied with their brands.
0ver 15.71% of the respondents were neural whilst 3.66% were either extremely dissatisfied/dissatisfied with their brands.
Brand Satisfaction (BS) is the number of times a brand is mentioned on the web against competitors. Share of voice covers both brand awareness and customer engagement, as it reflects how often a brand is seen online.
The Banking Sector Brand Health Report seeks to highlight how the various banks are performing on Key Brand Metrics (KBM) and provide insights that help the banks assess how they can track their performance against competitors.
The key brand metrics assessed are; Brand Recall, Purchase Intent, Brand Visibility, Net Promoter Score (NPS), Brand Equity and Brand Satisfaction.
