Why Data-Driven Marketing Fails in Banking

Jim Marous (00:11):

Since the beginning of my time in banking, financial institutions have said they're data-driven, however far fewer can prove where it really matters most in customer acquisition and relationship building.

Jim Marous (00:26):

At a time when marketing costs arise and response rates are under pressure, and every financial institution has access to the same channels, data is often the difference between growth and wasted spend.

Jim Marous (00:50):

I am joined today by Preston Carroll, Director of Data Analytics and Eddie Tu, Principal Statistical Analysts at Franklin Madison Direct. Together, they work at the intersection of data science, marketing strategy, and financial services growth. We're going to unpack what actually works, where institutions get it wrong, and how leaders can move from simply data awareness to data advantage.

Jim Marous (01:20):

So, Preston, I'm going to start with you. Anybody who's been listening to the podcast long enough knows, I have known Franklin Madison for a long time, but Franklin Madison Direct is still relatively new to many of our audience. What does Franklin Madison Direct do and how does it fit into the broader Franklin Madison organization?

Preston Carroll (01:40):

That's a great question. First of all, thanks for having us, Jim. It's great to be here. The way that we think about this or the simplest way to put it, is that Franklin Madison is tasked with engaging current customers or members of financial institutions by way of insurance product offerings.

Preston Carroll (01:58):

On the Franklin Madison Direct side, we are tasked with acquiring new customers or members. Both use data-driven, direct marketing, certainly to back both of those missions and we're two branches of the same company.

Preston Carroll (02:12):

Whether an institution wants to pick a door and only work with Franklin Madison on the engagement side or only work with the direct side of our business for acquisition, ultimately comes down to their needs as an institution, but both offerings are made available to all the institutions that we work with.

Jim Marous (02:33):

I think it's interesting because knowing Franklin Madison for as long as I have, what's interesting about your direct marketing strategy has been since I was in banking, is that the only way the direct marketing works is if you're generating revenue and new account balances. Bottom line, it's a model that's built on if you aren't successful, the whole model breaks. It's not like your direct marketing agency that can go in and out and if you don't succeed, so be it. Your existence depends on your success.

Jim Marous (03:06):

So, Eddie, how has the role of data in customer acquisition changed for banks and insurers over the last few years, and what is forcing institutions to really rethink their marketing as it relates to both data and the channels available?

Eddie Tu (03:23):

It's a great question, also, great to be here, Jim. Thanks for having us. There's been a lot of changes with data strategy in recent times with how we're approaching marketing. And I think there's mainly been in financial institutions, a dramatic shift from sort of broad, demographic targeting to more of this behavior-based predictive modeling.

Eddie Tu (03:48):

You know, 5, 10 years ago, financial institutions would market customers that fit certain attributes that they hypothesize would be responsive; things like zip code, income level, and then market all the customers with those attributes.

Eddie Tu (04:05):

Compared to what we do more recently and today, where we take a look at hundreds, maybe even thousands of data points regarding a customer's behavior, their life events, their attributes, and we build models on top of all of that data, and we find customers using those models that are a good fit for a product and service.

Eddie Tu (04:28):

And then on top of that, we can then validate how those models perform and how good they are at making predictions. So, a big shift from this sort of broad, slightly more mass marketing approach, to more targeted approach that I think matches customers better with the products and services that they need.

Jim Marous (04:48):

It's interesting too because unlike the past where there was pretty good revenue and direct marketing, it's gotten slim, and you have to look at not just those that may need a product, you actually have to look at those who are going to respond to your offer. How has that changed the whole modeling aspect of everything, Eddie?

Eddie Tu (05:10):

Absolutely. And I think this also aligns with what you mentioned earlier that's kind of driving some of that change, that the cost of customer acquisition has risen, and this what you bring up also … both these things sort of force us to optimize a little bit better our strategy, that we have to consider all these things and input those into the models to have better marketing, to have more accurate marketing.

Eddie Tu (05:45):

Not just customers that are good fit but potentially those that are actually going to respond, and looking at that response behavior too in the models as well. So, that's a big part of what's driving our changes in our data strategy approach.

Jim Marous (05:59):

So, Preston, how do you coordinate the direct marketing side of the business with the digital channel, so they actually compliment each other, and what does the data indicate about performance when institutions use more than one channel, more than one way to connect with a consumer? And it may get as basic as (and I'm going to call them statement inserts) messages on the mobile app?

Preston Carroll (06:24):

We like to call it in our halls surrounding the audience with that omnichannel targeting approach. Procedurally speaking, what we're doing is targeting that same audience that's getting a direct mail piece with digital tactics before or leading up to, and at the time of that mail delivery, the goal being to boost that awareness and impression count to make the mail the most effective.

Preston Carroll (06:49):

Because at the end of the day, comparatively speaking, direct mail's going to be leaning a little bit more costly, so we want to make sure that we're priming that audience to respond to that more premium touchpoint.

Preston Carroll (07:02):

And when we're comparing the data of performance or response across those that are only leveraging direct mail versus those that are leveraging a cocktail of direct mail and digital tactics, historically, we've seen that response rates are lifted by 20% on average, but it can be as high as 40, if not 50%, depending on the channel mix, the frequency of those digital tactics, the timing of them, certainly the spend that you're allocating to that online or non-offline channel marketing.

Preston Carroll (07:40):

And some are even post-campaign, let's say after the mail has been in homes for 30 days or so, some are turning that digital tactic back on to try and wake the audience up or at least stay relevant with them rather than sending another direct mail piece.

Preston Carroll (07:57):

Again, ultimately, it comes down to what the institution's goals are, and we thankfully are able to kind of pull those levers on the channel mix to make sure that we're efficiently targeting, but then also extending the life of a program to make sure the performance is strong and then again, efficient.

Jim Marous (08:17):

It's something that both of you take for granted because you're in the business at Franklin Madison forever. But something that our audience should realize is that your organization works with how many organizations, financial institutions?

Preston Carroll (08:33):

Over a hundred institutions, and then I believe on the direct side, non-financial institution world, it's upwards of 75 non-financial institutions. So, we get a lot of exposure for that.

Jim Marous (08:48):

So, look at those hundred; those hundred you're doing testing on an ongoing basis based on product, but also based on channel mix. Every one of these clients benefits from every one of their results and results of others around, and there's very few direct marketing agencies that have a hundred clients that are in the exact same industry.

Jim Marous (09:10):

And I think this has really got to be emphasized over and over again that as you're testing with different organizations at these teams working with one and working with another, the reality, it's not all brand-new stuff, you're dealing with basically, for the most part, the same services, the same products, different markets, and maybe different mix of channels.

Jim Marous (09:31):

But every time you learn something new, you apply it because it benefits not only your customer base, but you as an organization because your finances are also driven on the effectiveness of the direct marketing, correct?

Preston Carroll (09:47):

Certainly.

Jim Marous (09:50):

So, when you're coordinating the different channels overall, Preston, what customer sponsor engagement patterns are you seeing today that may surprise banker credit union executives? And actually, I'm going to set that up for both of you. I'd love to know what you've seen that you said, "Oh, ah, wasn't expecting that."

Preston Carroll (10:12):

Eddie, I'll jump in first and then you can validate or expand or refute anything that I'm saying. In our world today, I'll say, not just in our agency or company I feel like there's a lot of digital, call it inundation, a lot of consumers are met with a lot of those digital apps, whether it's on social, online, what have you, and I think that that's kind of permeated to the marketer's perspective that offline media like that of direct mail may be dead.

Preston Carroll (10:47):

And what we found, not only in our experience, but in also just industry surveys that we've canvased, is that direct mail isn't dead, it's thriving. And through a 2025 survey that we ran, the exact stats are going to escape me here, but bear with me. We surveyed over 600 marketers and subsequent consumers to try and get at … and I should mention that's all across several industries not just limited to financial institutions, but they were inclusive of financial institutions.

Preston Carroll (11:23):

We found that the response rates or engagement rates with direct mail were increasing across those respondents around 70% or so over the last 12 months. So, that's a signal to us that offline media is still alive and well, certainly in the context of direct mail. And of that total respondent group, we found that 90% of them or around 90% were planning to increase or keep their spend flat in direct mail in 2026.

Preston Carroll (11:57):

So, both of those data points are signaling to us that in the world of digital marketing, where anyone and everyone has met with several ads a day, and they're certainly tried to get acquired by any all institution or any or all brand or service, that direct mail can kind of cut through that noise and be that premium personal touch.

Preston Carroll (12:23):

And we've found in our performance data that direct mail's effectiveness is not specific to a certain demographic. It's kind of what I'll call agnostic to the type of consumer you are, but rather it's all predicated on the effectiveness of our targeting or segmentation, and thus meeting that consumer where they're at, life event-wise, age-wise, income-wise, et cetera.

Preston Carroll (12:52):

The effectiveness of direct mail is widespread across all demographics and it just ultimately comes down to how effective is your targeting and is that offer resonating or message resonating with the consumer that we're targeting.

Preston Carroll (13:08):

So, direct mail in the digital world can be seen as kind of like a complimentary or an awareness builder, but we found that it's not only that, it's also its own great engine for customer acquisition and engagement and retention, and I think that that kind of gets lost in the noise nowadays.

Preston Carroll (13:28):

So, as we're entering 2026, we've entered 2026, we're hoping that that message resonates with all marketers and they can continue to expand their channel offering and not just focus on a one trick pony of digital because it's more efficient, so to speak.

Preston Carroll (13:48):

But efficiency is only driven by the performance that it drives. So, if we can, or if any marketer in a financial institution or otherwise can leverage the right mix of channels and meet the right consumers or right members, ultimately, that's what's going to drive growth, optimization and scale of your business.

Jim Marous (14:14):

So, Eddie, from your perspective, what have you seen recently that was kind of like a, "Well, that's interesting, I didn't expect that to happen?”

Eddie Tu (14:22):

Well, first of all, I'll just second Preston, what he says about direct mail marketing versus digital. I think we're definitely in a time where the digital market is flooded with marketers and it can be a little bit exhausting for consumers. So, direct mail does provide this different approach, which can be more of a personal touch, which is a lot less flooded than it used to be in the past because of these additional channels.

Eddie Tu (14:52):

I think I'll let Preston speak more to the things that he sees and the interesting things that he's seen, the surprising things that he's seen because he works more on that and in terms of the direct mail marketing results. So, yeah, Preston, I'll let you add to this.

Preston Carroll (15:15):

I think it's not been surprising to me per se, but it's been surprising to the institutions and other brands or products offerings that we work with, is that just kind of doubling down on the earlier point that direct mail is incremental to those other channels that they're targeting with or leveraging.

Preston Carroll (15:37):

When we've run several incrementality tests throughout the past 12 months and beyond, and by that, I mean gauging direct mail's effectiveness versus that of an unexposed direct mail audience to see if they're organically responding to other channels or if direct mail's proving effective. Again, in this world of digital marketing, a lot of people are skeptical or apprehensive about direct mail actually being worth it because they are already targeting these people.

Preston Carroll (16:09):

And what we found is that direct mail is, again, not only complimenting those other channels, but it's highly incremental. It's driving enough of a lift to warrant that incremental spend or added spend in direct mail because we're finding that those people would not have responded anyway.

Preston Carroll (16:26):

And it's been eye-opening for those marketers because again, I think they're drinking the Kool-Aid of the world saying, direct mail, it's kind of an old hat channel, digital's the future. And while digital is a part of that future, I think that a lot of people are surprised by the fact that direct mail is here to stay, and here to compliment and also be incremental to all those other channels too.

Jim Marous (16:54):

It's interesting because I'm old school, I go back a long ways and I've been in direct marketing a lot of my career, actually longer I've been in content. But the reality is if you look at human behavior, it's one of the few channels now that you have a completely captivated audience for a limited section of time, maybe it's 45 seconds. You have them in from the point of mailbox collection to wherever they're going to the waste paper basket for lack of a better term.

Jim Marous (17:23):

The reality is nothing else has impacted them at that time. There's no other channels, there's nothing else hitting them, they're dedicated in addition, compared to what it was like when I was in direct marketing, I'm only competing against one, two, maybe five pieces of mail in a week that I have to worry about.

Jim Marous (17:43):

So, I'm not competing against that much, while in the past, I remember when every bill, every communication came via direct mail, and so bottom line, is you had to go through 15, 20 pieces of mail, that's not true anymore.

Jim Marous (17:57):

So, human behavior alone says there's probably not a more captive audience where they can't just screen swipe away. Yes, if you don't get their attention relatively quickly, which sometimes means don't put anything but the institution name on the outside because at least they'll open it, which is half the battle sometimes — it makes sense when you think of it that way as opposed to saying, “Yeah, I don’t read directly out.” Well, but you do see it, and you do understand it. You may not look at billboards, but do they impact what you're doing.

Jim Marous (18:28):

So, the title of this podcast is Why Data-Driven Marketing Fails in Banking. So, obviously, not every organization does it right. So, Preston, where do organizations most often go wrong when they're trying to connect data, personalization, and a channel strategy?

Preston Carroll (18:49):

I wish we had time for another podcast to hit on this topic alone because we could go quite long on all the different pitfalls, but I would say it drills down to I'll keep it short to two, maybe three if we get there. Overall, I think that a lot of people are treating or marketers are treating the realm of data personalization, and then the channel strategy to target that segment separately or in silos.

Preston Carroll (19:20):

They're not having a lot of call it collaboration, for lack of a better word, between them, and based on the depth of knowledge that you have on that target audience, whether it's a current member customer or you're trying to acquire something new, someone new rather — if you're not letting that fuel what you're personalizing the message to be based on all you understand and know about that consumer, you're falling short.

Preston Carroll (19:49):

If you're not letting that knowledge and understanding of that consumer and that the personalization dictate what the channel strategy would be, you're falling short. If you're treating them separately, there's not going to be a lot of efficiency in one, planning, but then also performance. You're not positioning your campaign to be as successful as it could be if all those things are complimenting one another and working together for that same goal; drive engagement, drive acquisition.

Preston Carroll (20:21):

Another way that people are, I guess, falling short of that, call it collaboration between those things is the legibility of the result. So, as marketers, what our goal is, is to not only send a campaign out or execute a campaign that is successful, but it's legible in the sense that you know exactly why it worked or why it didn't work.

Preston Carroll (20:45):

If you're testing several segments of data for consumers, members, and you have different channels going to them and there's no, call it common control group that you can measure against, that might be the best data point in the world, but you didn't learn anything, and it's not going to help you in the next effort, and it's certainly not going to help you long term.

Preston Carroll (21:07):

So, treating a marketing effort regardless of the channel or personalization tactic or target audience, I think ultimately, that gets lost a lot of times because those three pillars of a program are certainly levers that you can pull to learn. But if you're not having pointed and direct and sophisticated test set up, I don't think that you're going to learn much, and that’s where I think a lot of programs see a great result.

Preston Carroll (21:39):

They chase it, and then the next time they go out, it's not repeated, and they can't understand why a lot of that comes down to the test design. So, I would say the more we can have those three things working in tandem, the better performance should be, and the better legibility will be. And again, those two things are kind of the fuel to all marketers and sustaining performance, increasing performance. So, that's my soapbox, but Eddie, I'm not sure if you have anything else to add to that.

Eddie Tu (22:13):

Yeah, I think kind of, I guess I'll speak more generally. I think some common missteps in the utilization of data is that I think not just organizations and financial institutions, but organizations in many industries kind of struggle and fail to use the data that they have and the data teams that they have properly. I think there's still in some organizations, traditional strategists that still rely a lot on human instinct over what the data is telling them, and what the story of the data is saying.

Eddie Tu (22:53):

And they are nitpicking and choosing which data that they want to use to support their arguments, same data that confirms their beliefs and hypotheses is good, but then data that refutes that they will question and lack trust in. And then on top of that, there's sort of a confirmation bias where we've executed a strategy a certain way and we saw these results. And based on that, entails success and we should keep repeating this particular strategy.

Eddie Tu (23:27):

But I think that also loses the notion that is this optimized, this is strategy optimized, can you improve upon that strategy, and how do you use data to do that? So, I think this is a big gap that organizations have, and for a good reason, this sort of utilization of data in this way, and the big data age is a very recent thing in sort of helping lots of different strategies at companies.

Eddie Tu (23:55):

So, a big part of what we do, what Preston and I and other people that work on data teams have to do, is being a big component of education for bridging that gap so that there is that understanding in how to use their data because all the answers could be there, but if it isn't responded to and understood in a way with quality data literacy, then it goes to waste and the potentially incorrect strategy could be used.

Jim Marous (24:25):

I'm going to add one of my own because I've seen it too often, is financial institutions still treat marketing as programs as opposed to processes. You know, every financial institution now has new data going in and out of that organization daily as opposed to monthly, quarterly, or annually the way it was in the past.

Jim Marous (24:47):

In addition, those opportunities are becoming aware on a daily basis, we don't buy financial services anymore on a seasonal basis. We don't have an equity credit season or an auto buying season as much as the auto buyers, auto industry may want you to think that the fall when the new models come out is that, because most people are buying used cars now, so they aren't impacted by the seasonality of new car sales.

Jim Marous (25:13):

The reality is, if you look at your overall programs, you'll almost always reach your goals if you continually modify programs over time and don't look at it as a January program, a March program, an April program, a June, a July, a September program. If you look at it as being an everyday process where you're going after consumers for specific objectives, you're going to do much better.

Jim Marous (25:41):

And today's way of analyzing data, using data, applying data, and building direct marketing programs that are highly customizable and personalized makes it all possible at easier numbers than what we did in the past.

Jim Marous (25:56):

In fact, the same back-office drives programs that run twice a year as drive programs are run twice a week or three times a week. And I think financial institution and marketers, they are overwhelmed by that, but this is why you build partnerships with those firms that do this for a daily piece of their work because bottom line is they know how to manage the data, they know how to manipulate data, how to deploy the data in a way that can get your results higher.

Jim Marous (26:23):

And it frustrates the living day autonomy because I look back and I go, "I wish I was still in marketing today based on the tools that are available to a marketer that has so many channels, so many markets, so much data, both internal and external that can make it so I can be successful, and the ability to measure immediately how good that success is," to your point, Eddie.

Jim Marous (26:47):

So, when we look at this overall, when we look at direct marketing, when we look at marketing in general, what data sources or technologies do you both believe will be the most transformative to marketing and financial service going forward?

Jim Marous (27:02):

I say this because people come up to me that are marketers and say, “I just got on university, I just got an MBA in marketing, what do I have to know?” And I usually say you have to know that what you just learned is going to be applicable maybe for two, three years, but the whole marketplace in marketing is changing so fast, you're going to have to continually learn.

Jim Marous (27:24):

So, what do you see on this near horizon for data and technologies that make you believe that financial services marketing will even get more transformative going forward?

Eddie Tu (27:38):

I think your example of moving away from seasonal campaigns and having real time data and acting on that real time data with our marketing really hits on like … what I'm thinking about when you ask this question, when people talk about emerging technologies and emerging data sources, so much of the conversation's really centered around AI. We hear that so often these days.

Eddie Tu (28:09):

I think something that I like to think about a lot more when we talk about emerging technologies, especially for our industry is talking about more modern data infrastructure and a modern data stack. I think that's one of the most impactful ways to improve financial services marketing, to improve the financial sector as well. And I think we're a lagging bit of behind in terms of compared to, let's say, the tech industry and big tech and other industries in that regard.

Eddie Tu (28:42):

And I think this is the topic that I want to talk about more when it comes to emerging technologies, because it's essentially laying the foundation for all the other great technology that we're talking about. Whether it's integrated AI, whether it's machine learning that's being refreshed automatically from a customer action.

Eddie Tu (29:04):

You know, older data infrastructure, we have these more static data warehouses, we have files all over the place that are not centralized. You know, a modern data infrastructure can really change a whole organization and how they work with data.

Eddie Tu (29:19):

Having dynamic data lake house that update from customer actions, transactions a lot faster, get inputted into a model, the model gets refreshed and updated, and that system can take action right away.

Eddie Tu (29:33):

So, just like this example that you were referring to earlier, that kind of real time marketing approach allows businesses to be more communicative with their customers and more timely with their customers and I think that approach can't work with this sort of older data infrastructure, this older data infrastructure approach. So, I think that's where we can see a lot more impact.

Eddie Tu (30:03):

And I think financial services industry, financial services marketing, that's the place where there can be a lot of growth. Because you've seen in tech that this approach to having this modern data stack, you've seen the impact of that. Those businesses have really advanced themselves and optimized themselves with that modern data infrastructure approach.

Eddie Tu (30:23):

Our industry can definitely do that as well, and that's a great space to really move to. And it's not to … I don't want to point the finger at anyone saying why is our industry behind, why is financial services, financial sector behind so much. Our institutions are a lot older, so they carry with them this legacy software, these legacy processes. You can't just expect us to leap into a modern framework right away the way like a tech startup could leap into this right away.

Jim Marous (30:54):

We have risk dynamics, but also the magnitude of data is both a boon and a bane. It's one of these things that yes, it works really well that we have all this information more than any other industry, but oh, by the way, as you said, we have to structure it correctly, we have to leverage it correctly to make impact.

Eddie Tu (31:14):

Absolutely, yeah. And I think this is going to lay the foundation for these financial institutions going forward. I mean, I definitely want institutions to invest in AI, AI can definitely make an impact. But when we're talking about AI helping data-driven marketing and AI helping the data teams in an organization, it's not going to be effective if data isn't centralized, if you have files everywhere.

Eddie Tu (31:44):

It's going to work really well if your data is centralized, AI is going to help those data teams that have good data architecture and data infrastructure, that's where it can be impactful.

Eddie Tu (31:55):

So, as much as the chatter is about investment into AI technologies to really advanced institutions, I also want, if an institution wants to do machine learning and to have more integrated AI, I want leadership also to have this conversation to talk about modernizing their data infrastructure as well. I think that's just as important as the AI conversation.

Jim Marous (32:16):

What excites you, Preston?

Preston Carroll (32:19):

I would double down on what Eddie was saying because at the end of the day, like you said, Jim, all of the knowledge is there, it's just taking the fine-tooth comb through the data set to find the diamonds in the rough, to find the attributes that are most predictive, et cetera, to fuel future marketing campaigns.

Preston Carroll (32:40):

But if we can get, call it the housekeeping in order, that's going to make all the downstream processes so much easier to implement and streamline, and it's going to make the visibility, legibility of all the understanding that this data team has at the financial institution or a partner — it's going to make that more relevant to any all marketer or person at that financial institution because it's not in a silo, it's not in a black box, it's not in something that's big, scary and audacious, and that I have no idea or no willpower to go and investigate.

Jim Marous (33:20):

Well, it's interesting because we interviewed a while ago now, Raja Rajamannar, the Marketing Director for Mastercard who wrote the book Quantum Marketing. And I always refer to the fact that if you want to be scared and excited at the same time, read that book because it talks about as both of you kind of referenced, we can now capture conversations: We can now capture the dialogue that goes on between, maybe it's our customers and a bot that's basically serving them on some question they have, or the human being, we can capture all this.

Jim Marous (33:54):

I look at Bank of America and Erica, the Alexa device, and you all of a sudden realize that they've been capturing these conversations for so long, and those conversations get to the point of saying, "Oh, what I really need is X or at least alluding to that, we now can capture that and act on it where we never had that before." That's pretty doggone scary and exciting at the same time.

Jim Marous (34:19):

And consumers now more than ever are apt to almost expect you to act on what they converse to another division, another person, in another time, on another channel in much the same way that we all know, we say something, and all of a sudden our phone starts giving us information about that trip to Hawaii that we mentioned at a cocktail party that we weren't going, somebody else was going, but they want to make sure they take advantage of this. We flip out to a degree, but we expect it.

Jim Marous (34:46):

I think financial institutions have to expect that they can reach out to consumers based on people alluding to what's going on. And actually, it becomes a form of empathy and trust where overall, by responding to them with a marketing message that says, you may be in the market for this rings true. It shows that you're actually listening across channels and listening to things they say maybe to a direct channel to the bank that we've never been able to capture the information before.

Preston Carroll (35:17):

Kind of goes to the theme of marketing kind of is being seen as transactional almost rather than relational. And I think that while a lot of the targeting that we're doing or any institution would be doing is backed by a lot of transactional data, ultimately that's fueling the relationship we're trying to strike between this insurance product and that consumer or whatever product or service in that consumer.

Preston Carroll (35:46):

So, I think there's that fine line between yes, we're leveraging transactional data, but that doesn't mean that the marketing in and of itself is transactional too. I think that gets lost and I think what you just said hits that right on the head.

Jim Marous (36:01):

It was referenced, I think by Eddie that said, we have to have another podcast just on the challenges that financial institutions have. The reality is I hope we do, because as you both know, and as your company knows, I'm a unashamed, biased observer that says, if I had to pick a direct marketing firm, I certainly want one that works with a lot of financial institutions where I can learn on their dime, especially if I'm a smaller organization.

Jim Marous (36:27):

You work with a lot of mid-size and smaller organizations that benefit from everyone else's experiences. And as we move towards people capturing conversations, people using outside data to drive results, people that look at different channels, look at pacing differently and all those other aspects, it always benefits us if we're not the sole partner that's in the financial services industry that is working with that firm.

[Music Playing]

Jim Marous (36:55):

When your lives, the both of your lives are completely focused in the financial services industry, in the direct marketing world and having to make sure that every dime works because it's not only the future of the financial institutions you work with, but for your company as well, the longevity of your organization speaks to itself and saying, you know what, it wouldn't be a bad time to kick the tires on a partner that actually can drive these results for you in a way that's been proven through other clients.

Jim Marous (37:24):

So, thank you both for being on the show. I'm sure we're going to meet again. We've met a few times in the past, but really good to have you discuss some of the things that organizations have to do as we enter into 2026.

Preston Carroll (37:38):

Thanks so much for having us, Jim. Catch you next time.

Eddie Tu (37:40):

Thanks, Jim.

Jim Marous (37:42):

Thanks for listening to Banking Transformed, the winner of three international awards for podcast excellence. If you enjoy what we're doing, we would really enjoy a positive review. Also check out my recent articles in The Financial Brand, the research we're doing for the Digital Banking Report.

Jim Marous (37:58):

This has been a production of Evergreen Podcasts. A special thank you to our senior producer, Leah Haslage; audio engineer, Chris Fafalios, and video producer, Will Pritts.