Optimize the content supply chain to unlock extra dollars

Like many of us, I signed up for my first bank account when I was a teen. At the time, all I really needed was somewhere to save the money I made working as a medical receptionist and a way of withdrawing that cash to spend at the mall.

However, our banking needs change significantly between the ages of 15 and 25 — and again as we start families and develop our careers. Banking customers tend to care less about weekends at the mall and more about financial independence for the future the longer they’ve had their bank account open — and this is something that banks must acknowledge and accommodate with their marketing content.

Banks and financial institutions have a huge opportunity to retain customers throughout their lifetimes using personalized content. If you emailed me with mortgage offers or retirement advice when I was a college student, I might have ignored, deleted, or even unsubscribed. But now if you email me inviting me to speak to an adviser about saving for my kid’s college fund because you know I searched for this on your website on Sunday afternoon, then you’ve got my attention.

Personalized experiences aren’t just a savvy marketing move — 72% of banking customers find it desirable as well. Coupled with the pandemic leading customers to engage more with digital content from their banks, it’s clear that financial institutions need to deliver quality, relevant, and personalized content to their customers.

Part of my role at Adobe is making sure their content supply chains are set up to do just that.

Today, a bank’s content supply chain isn’t working as it should

As it stands, many financial institutions don’t have optimized content supply chains. Instead, we see multiple departments working in silos and not communicating effectively with one another. There’s the in-house agency working on one aspect of a project, the creative team working on another, and the marketing team working on a third. The lack of communication and alignment between departments also leads to less content reuse, meaning that pre-existing materials need to be reproduced rather than repurposed.

This setup leads to decreased transparency and efficiency. With the need for stakeholder alignment and compliance and legal approval at every step of the content creation process, the speed at which banks can deliver content to their customers becomes glacial.

A financial institution might want to offer relevant, personalized content, but the process is just too slow to deliver the content where and when it’s needed.

Banks are aware of the issue, with 45% reporting that they believe they could be using content better than they currently are. And that’s exactly why a top regional US bank reached out to us for support in optimizing their content supply chain.

This regional bank operates almost 3,000 branches across the US. They had been working with a partner to assist with content management and delivery but were not satisfied with their efforts and expertise in the area of content supply chains. The bank’s marketing operations group contacted Adobe Professional Services (APS), knowing that we have close relationships with other departments at the company and had produced tangible results and successes in our work with them.

By partnering with Adobe Professional Services, the bank was able to tap into our vast experience and expertise in the content supply chain space. But they could also benefit from the people-first approach we take when working with all our partners.

How to optimize the content supply chain

Here’s an example of a content supply chain built with best practices in mind:

• Assign the customer a segment and stage of the customer journey.
• Identify the optimal content to deliver to the customer.
• Check the digital assessment management (DAM) repository to see if there are assets that can be reused or repurposed and delivered.
• If not, align across departments (including stakeholders) at the beginning of planning.
• Centralize the process so all plans, assets, and materials are in the same place.
• Plan, produce, and deliver content across all channels.
• Retain assets on the DAM for later reuse if needed.
• Gather feedback and analytics after delivery to continue optimizing the process.

You might feel a million miles away from that today, but your Adobe Professional Services team will work with you to design and achieve an optimal setup for your content supply chain. The first thing we will look at is how your current content creation and delivery process is working by asking these questions:

• What does it look like today?
• Where are the optimization points?
• How ready are the people, process, and technology?
• What is the distribution of assets? Where are they stored?
• What level of automation do we have, and where can we introduce automation?

This should be an ongoing process, constantly measuring feedback and optimizing your approach as you plan, create, and deliver content to customers.

Once we know how your process is working in its current state, we can identify potential bottlenecks in the supply chain and figure out how to mitigate these to improve the velocity of content delivery.

It’s important to note that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to creating an optimized content supply chain. We take a nuanced and in-depth approach to understanding your business and technology landscape. We’ll assess how your people and processes are working, where you are on the maturity curve, and what stands in the way of optimization and achieving greater maturity.

We can then take steps to fine-tune your supply chain.

Application review

A big part of streamlining your content delivery process is assessing whether you are using the right tools for the job — and if you are, whether you are using them to their fullest potential.

Let’s say you’re using Adobe software for various elements of your content supply chain today:

• Adobe Creative Cloud for content creation
• Adobe Workfront for content planning and management
• Adobe Experience Manager to go beyond delivery and optimize content reuse

Other providers may sell Adobe tools, but they don’t have the experience and implementation and integration expertise that we do. First, we will look at exactly what applications you are using — Adobe products, third-party solutions, or a hybrid stack. Then, we will identify exactly what you hope to achieve with your applications. From there, we can determine the best approach to optimizing your application use.

This may just be using the applications you already have in your stack to their full potential. There’s no reason to implement new technologies if you’re not using all the features in your current solutions. We will also help you choose, implement, and integrate the best tools for your goals if new applications are required. Of course, we believe in the power of our products, but our extensive experience in the area means we can help you to implement the application solutions that work best for you.

Providing actionable recommendations

Once we have a full overview of your people, process, and technology, we can offer actionable recommendations and implementation support.

Some of the common opportunities we uncover include:

• Viewing the content production process as one unified supply chain rather than as siloed departments working in parallel but separately
• Creating alignment across departments, including with stakeholders, to improve transparency and content delivery velocity
• Centralizing content using a DAM to improve content reuse
• Using Adobe Analytics across the supply chain for feedback and optimization moving forward

The strength of employing these recommendations is that content production becomes not only more efficient but also highly personalized. By improving the speed at which you plan, produce, and deliver content, you can identify and target customer segments with personalized content as and when that content is most relevant.

Optimizing supply chains for today and tomorrow

The content supply chain isn’t just about the content that exists today but where banks want to think about developing content in the future. There are many exciting developments in content likely to become major forces over the next few years. I’ll touch on just a couple here.

Storing large video files

Video content had an online audience reach of 92% in 2021, and we are seeing more banks embracing this type of marketing.

File size can be an issue when working with video content — video assets are often weighty, creating difficulties with storing and managing these heavy assets. It is crucial for banks to optimize their content supply chains now to position themselves as effectively as possible to exploit video content further down the line.

Using AR, VR, 3D, and the metaverse

Some banks are considering nascent technologies, like the metaverse, as well as next-gen content, such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and 3D.

These are all on the Adobe agenda, too. Our content management tools are designed for the future of content, and our consultants have the expertise and experience to support customers in using emerging technologies to meet their commercial goals.

Kick-starting your content supply chain optimization

When looking to optimize your content supply chain, it’s best to start with these questions:

• What are we doing now?
• How can we optimize people, processes, and technology — today and in the future?

Once you have the answers to these questions, you can begin to implement actionable recommendations to streamline your content supply chain and deliver personalized content to your customers wherever they might be in the customer journey.

Get in touch with your local Adobe Professional Services representative today to start your move toward a highly optimized, personalized, and people-driven content supply chain.

If you’d like to find out more about how Adobe can help optimize your content supply chain, we recently ran a webinar doing a deep dive into the subject. See the overview flyer here. You can also [listen to the recording](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0gWoYGhcvvBYShYAeMHfbd?si=7076f247e1e24db4&nd=1#_blank) as these experts share tips for simplifying your content supply.

If you’re ready for the next step, get in touch with your Adobe Professional Services representative today to start your move toward a highly optimized, personalized, and people-driven content supply chain. Our team is helping banks deliver improved customer experiences. To learn more, click here. If you’re ready to speak to one of our experts, click or tap here to get started.

Judy Chow has over 17 years of experience in financial services and technology as a digital marketing executive, with demonstrated success across large growth initiatives. She brings a blend of industry and consulting experience to influence and define enterprise transformations with a focus on marketing strategy and optimization. With responsibilities overseeing the consulting delivery across some of Adobe’s largest strategic financial services and insurance clients, Chow is passionate about deepening brand relationships and accelerating digital growth.