#HowTheyDidIt: Starling Bank – empower customers
Starling Bank is a London-based digital, mobile- only challenger bank founded by former Allied Irish Banks COO, Anne Boden. It specialises in Personal and Business Bank Accounts and Payment Services.
Since its launch in 2014, the company has raised more than £50m funding and is now seeking to raise further £80m in additional capital from new investors.
In September 2018, they reached 250k accounts and got listed on LinkedIn’s Top 25 Startups for 2018.
Be human
Like Monzo and Revolut, and majority of the other challenger banks in the market, the mobile-only Starling Bank is focusing its business strategy and model on the consumer – ‘The Starling account is all about empowering customers.’ But an interesting aspect of its marketing strategy is that it’s taking a soft approach to acquiring new customers.
Instead of aggressively shouting out loud an appeal to ‘Switch’, the company is encouraging people to try its services first and make up their own minds. This is a very smart strategy, bearing in mind the fact that people are more likely to get divorced than switch their bank account - about 40% of the UK population, for example, have never switched their bank accounts. Thus, Starling’s ultimate marketing goal is to build trustworthy customer relationships and offer a unique user experience.
To achieve this, they used a number of well-known marketing tactics that have already been successfully used by other players in the industry, such as gamification and waiting lists, getting customers involved in the development of their products and creating unique buying experience.
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