Abstract:

Searching for direct ways to reach the customer is today's trend in the marketing techniques applied by Dutch banks. Cutting out the middleman, relationship building and the ability to anticipate the customer's ever-changing moods are believed to be the main objectives for this new approach. This paper presents the first empirical research findings on the success of direct communication in the Dutch banking industry. The results presented here are based on data collected by means of a questionnaire, mailed to 827 executives of as many banks in the Netherlands. Broadly speaking, these results show that general advertising is used to realize long-term objectives, and direct communication for the realization of direct response objectives. Furthermore it appears that banks use a wide variety of communication instruments. Some significant relationships were found with success measures.