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Allan Greer
Welcome to Bank Marketing Today by Vya. I'm your host, Allan Greer, and if you're looking for fresh ideas, expert insights and the latest trends in the world of bank marketing, you've definitely come to the right place, whether you're a marketing pro or just dipping your toes in, we're here to help you navigate the ever evolving marketing landscape for financial institutions, one conversation at a time. Today we've got an exciting guest lined up, so buckle up and get ready for another great episode filled with tips, strategies and stories to take your bank's marketing game to the next level. Let's dive in.

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Allan Greer
Hello and welcome to Bank Marketing Today by Vya. I am Allan Greer, and I am truly excited and elated to talk with Avi Patel with Fulton bank today. Avi is the Chief Data scientist and Chief Marketing Officer for Fulton Bank. Welcome to the podcast, Avi.

Avi Patel
Thanks. Looking forward to the conversation, and in our conversation, what I share is not reflective of my employer, and it's gonna be based on my experiences.

Allan Greer
Yeah, we're excited to hear. I think it's so fascinating from the data and the marketing side, and those two things are intertwining so much today and but we haven't really talked with anybody about the data side and marketing coming out of one department. I understand there may be two different segments, but they're intertwined. And I think it's very, very fascinating. It's probably good to get started with your background. Can you give us a little bit of information on your background and how you got to where you are today at Fulton Bank?

Avi Patel
Yeah, absolutely. But on the point of marketing and data science, right? So I look at marketing as a corporate utility, and I get to manage that here at Fulton. Data science is also a corporate utility and I have the honor and privilege of managing that as well. So as far as the background, it's an interesting one. 20 Years ago, CMO was nowhere in my headspace. One of my true passions in life is coding, computer programming, programming machines, and I've been doing that since I was about 15 years old. That will be important as I tell you about my journey. I started out in accounting and finance in the early 90s, and this is when lotus and excel were in play and because I knew coding and programming, I was able to automate lot of things that accountants and financial analysts would do. And when I was in one of the one of the largest credit card companies in the mid 90s, one of the managers in marketing analytics tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Hey, look, you have the analytics background, coding background, we could use you”. So I said, “Okay, let's try it out”. And that's how I got into marketing, through marketing analytics. Over time, I had a chance to work on product development, product marketing, strategy, a little bit of research, and then ultimately, in the early 2010’s, I had the opportunity to become a CMO, and I joined Fulton Bank in 2013 as a CMO, and then later on, also got the opportunity to lead the data science group.

Allan Greer
Okay, great. I also know you have a very cool YouTube channel and some other things out there, which is fascinating, because I got on there, I had no idea what I was looking at, but at the same time it was very cool and I could see some of the things you're doing and some of the information that you're sharing out there, I think that was a that was a very cool thing, and not something I hadn’t seen before. So that was fun to go through. With the banking, you know, the industry kind of leveraging AI and machine learning these days, you know, I'm just kind of curious, you know, when it comes to marketing, bringing all those things together. And I kind of think, I don't know if you'll agree with me or not, but AI kind of seems like the Kleenex version of the industry, but there's so many different aspects of AI, correct? So I'm just kind of wondering how you intertwine that and how that benefits the banking customers.

Avi Patel
Machine learning or even AI has been around for a long time. So in the mid 90s, when I was a very large credit card company and we were doing predictive analytics back then as well. What it has evolved to today, it's what people know as ChatGPT or Google Gemini, the generative AI element but the machine learning has been around for a while. Now to your point about AI and ML in marketing, I think it's all about the customer in the end, so I think there are huge opportunities from the customer experience perspective, for marketers to think about AI and ML. Bringing the power of prediction to what the customer may experience. For most of us, not just in banking, pretty much any industry we're really good at reactive sort of elements, right? We'll take care of the customers. Think it would be better to think about, how do you leverage data and insights to become more predictive about what might happen to a customer and take care of it before it actually happens to me, that sort of is a future that I see happening in marketing, and I think it's something we should be shooting for. Now, granted, it's not an easy task and is really hard to pull off, but you asked me where it’s headed, I think that that would be a good path for it to head to with AI and data.

Allan Greer
With AI and data, you hear about things that are not genuine or made up or whatever. I'm just kind of curious from the data side, because data is data, but do you think there's any danger in it being affected by AI?

Avi Patel
Yeah, outcomes of any models are only as good as the input into the model, which is data, so if there's something corrupted about that data the outcomes are also going to be corrupted. Data is one of those things, there’s a lot of cleansing and lot of like manipulation of data that needs to take place upfront before, you know, we think about using that to become predictive.

Allan Greer
I think it's very interesting going back to the data side and the marketing side, but how do you combine those in an effective manner?

Avi Patel
I think in terms of core principles. So I think about, when it comes to marketing, what is that core principle of being a marketer? For me, it's about generating demand for the company, generating demand for the goods and services of the company. So if I start there, then I can start to build up and say, “Okay, that's the case, you know, kind of generate demand for the products and the capabilities of my company then how do I best do that?” Right? I'm always thinking, How do you do that most effectively and efficiently? And that's where the insights and data can start to help us become more efficient and effective in what we have to do as we go through the funnel, whether it's brand awareness all the way down to purchase like, how can we leverage insights to get the maximum outcome.

Allan Greer
Yeah, how do you feel the consumer knows it, do you know what I mean? It's like, how do you think you are getting them to feel like the bank knows me, they know what I want without feeling intrusive, because sometimes I see that things that I get, I'm like, wow, they kind of know more about me than maybe I want necessarily, but is that something that's a concern or no?

Avi Patel
No, it is a concern and should be a concern. I think this is where one has to sort of experiment and test and learn and make sure that what we intend to do is really happening in the back end, right? And we have all seen examples of after we buy something, and all of a sudden you're bombarded with the same product from another company telling you can have this for 20% off. It's like, I already bought this. Part of this analytics and modeling and AI is being really good about what the objective is, and really thinking through all the steps. I think part of this is actually working out the sort of scenarios, right? What don't you want it to do? What should it not do?

Allan Greer
How do you split your time between the data and the marketing side? What do you think gets most attention?

Avi Patel
Marketing. It depends, right? There are times, maybe for a couple of days, I'm focused more with my data scientists, because we're trying to get something finished up and deployed. But, you know, marketing is a bigger function for any corporation, so from that perspective, it would be marketing. The nice thing is, especially when it comes to marketing, as I said, so much of that is for me, thinking about the different elements of marketing. So I think of marketing is something that's full stack, right? How to become a full stack marketer? Marketing is a mix of psychology, economics, technology, research, analytics and so many other things. And that's what I really, actually love about marketing is that it's not orange and yellow or black and white. It is fairly nebulous, and got to be thinking about all of those things in a connected way to get the maximum outcome. So yeah, I spend a lot more time on the marketing side.

Allan Greer
What do you think is, this is kind of a two part question, I guess, what do you think is your biggest challenge and then what are you doing about it?

Avi Patel
I think opportunity for marketers and CMO’s is that being current about what does a marketer need to possess in terms of attributes and characteristics? Think just from 20-25 years ago, that set of attributes look different today as I said, we really have to think about that being that full stack marketer. And I don't need everyone to know, psychology, economics and all those things. However, over time, you know, it's going to be important for us to keep those attributes and characteristics that we want to have as a collective Marketing Group, and so that's, I think, is very important, over time, do we have the right skill sets and the mindset to achieve the objectives for the for the company?

Allan Greer
Yeah, you know, with all the technology available today, are there any things out there that excite you the most, or is there anything coming up, or is that a big question?

Avi Patel
We could do a whole podcast on that, right? I do think one area of technology that I know will be even more helpful is that when marketers can have platforms in their marketing technology stack that are more autonomous, they will make us more effective and efficient. What I mean by that is, many of the platforms that we use in marketing, not just here you know, any marketer, there's a still a huge element of human brute force or human element to make things happen, right? We still need, you need to put in a lot of human effort for us to get the most out of the platform. And I think platforms that sort of make that more autonomous, that's what excites me. I know it's been happening in the industry where it's becoming more autonomous, so that does excite me. And then this generative AI thing is also exciting. You know, you talked about my YouTube channel. It's a creative outlet for me. So with my passion around coding and programming and all things AI, I do videos on the art of the possible with generative AI. What I have seen firsthand is that it's getting better and better, and there's going to be an opportunity for marketers and many other disciplines to think about how to leverage Gen AI so that it's augmenting, it's supporting, it's enhancing what you already do. And I want to be very clear, it's not about subtracting. I think generative AI will add to what you already have, right? I think about my copywriter who would benefit greatly using generative AI to produce some very, very simple communications, right? Why spend time putting it together? Get some help, right? If you get a 70% of the work done through Gen AI, that's a heck of a head start.

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Allan Greer
Where do you think the banking industry is going?

Avi Patel
Yeah, I go back to core principles, sort of a mindset. Banks historically were set up to take deposits from the customers so that they can be safe, and then, you know, lend that money back out in the community to enrich the community and people in that community. So I, you know, I stick with core principles that can that's that cannot change. That's what must be, must happen in the future as well. It’s how customers interact, or want to interact, or need to interact with the bank has changed given the technology. So take, for example, online banking or digital products that we have to develop and for businesses, you know, they want to optimize the cash flow, so how do you apply technology to help them do those things, right? So how has evolved over time, given the changes in technology. What, and that's what I'm talking about, that’s just me. I think core principles. What has not changed. How has changed, given what's changed around us, especially in technology.

Allan Greer
Okay, we mentioned the learning aspect, where do you go to learn? What do you access to gain knowledge? Just in marketing in general, I guess, or in data for that matter, too.

Avi Patel
I do a lot of things you know. A Bunch of it is just online. I subscribe to a whole lot of things. There's this outlet called medium.com, so I subscribe to that, and there's a lot I can gain from that, and many other outlets that I subscribe to, and I force myself to look at things that I don't know or are intriguing, and then I'll double click into that and just go as far as I need to until I'm satisfied, I suppose. Usually, that's how I sort of learn And intellectual curiosity is something that's important for all marketers.

Allan Greer
Yeah, absolutely. You know, we didn't talk about this earlier, either, but I'm kind of curious, because a lot of our listeners maybe have aspirations to become a CMO one day. What would you recommend for somebody coming up in the industry?

Avi Patel
I’ll answer that in two folds. One, I would say that unlike 25-30 years ago, when one thought about going into marketing, it was pretty narrow, right? Like you usually had to come out of the agency side, or you went to the agency and but what has transpired over the last couple of decades, three decades, is that because marketing is so much more than just the traditional sort of thinking brand and thinking top of the funnel and it's more about using technology and research and data and insights. So marketing departments tend to have job functions that didn't exist 20-30, years ago in marketing. So if you're starting out, coming out of college, think about marketing more broadly. And then to aspire further and to want to be a CMO, I do believe that understanding the full stack of being a marketer. So think of marketing as many disciplines making that a mix of marketing, psychology, economics, technology, research, analytics and many others, not saying that one has to master those things. I think there's probably a couple of areas that one's going to be passionate about. You probably want to go pretty deep with that, but at least have the breadth of understanding of what it means to be a full stack marketer.

Allan Greer
It's valuable because it's like, you know, I think the mentorship is such an important thing. You gotta find people doing it and find out what they do and how they do it.

Avi Patel
People say there's breadth of experience and there's depth of experience. I always tell folks, find one or two areas that you're really passionate about, go really deep, like build the depth there, but be broad about what you know as well. You don't have to go deep with everything.

Allan Greer
Avi, the full stack marketer, has come up quite a few times. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Avi Patel
Yeah, so let me give a concrete example. And I kept saying it's part psychology, part economics, part a lot of different things. You know, behavioral economics, behavioral science, has been around for a long, long time. So think of your customers either being motivated or not to do something. And then if they are motivated, do they actually have the ability to do something about it? And I give you that framework because it's, you can Google it, it's out there. A lot of people use it in other industries, but starting to think that way, right? Like bringing that element, and then you can, you know, double click into that and say, Okay, how do I actually, if they have the ability, how do I actually trigger that? And so it's thinking that way, right? Like when I say being in full stack, think about other disciplines and tying that to the marketing outcome.

Allan Greer
Well, is there anything else that we didn't cover today you'd like to mention, or feels important for people to know out there?

Avi Patel
One of the things I always emphasize is intellectual curiosity is really important and just be curious. Think of marketing as a whole lot of different disciplines, and think of how you can connect them to achieve better outcomes and maximum outcomes.

Allan Greer
We certainly appreciate it. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today, and I wish you all the best. We are here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which is a really cool town here in Pennsylvania, so I appreciate you letting me visit.

Avi Patel
Yeah, Lancaster is really cool. Come visit. Thank you so much for having me on I appreciate it.

Allan Greer
And that wraps up another insightful episode of Bank Marketing Today by Vya, I hope you enjoyed our conversation and picked up some fresh ideas to level up your marketing game. Make sure you check out the show notes to any and all links we mentioned during the episode. Remember, the world of bank marketing is always evolving. So stay curious, stay creative, and, most importantly, stay connected. Thanks for tuning in, and if you liked what you heard, don't forget to subscribe, share and leave us a review. You can also reach us at vyasystems.com, and that’s V-Y-A systems with an S dot com. I’m Allen Greer, and I'll be with you next time with more tips, strategies and stories to help you grow your bank's marketing impact. Until then, keep making marketing magic happen.

Link to Avi Patel’s YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@AviPatel68

Please note:  Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.