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Smart Digital Marketing of Financial Services to Millennial Generation using

emerging technological tools and buyer persona

Conference Paper · November 2019

DOI: 10.1109/ITT48889.2019.9075106

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 Smart Digital Marketing of Financial Services to Millennial
Generation using emerging technological tools and buyer persona
Vishwesh Akre Amala Rajan Jinesh Ahamed Aisha Al Amri Shamma Al Daisi
Division Chair and Program Coordinator Lecturer - Student Student
Assistant Professor, and Assistant Networking,Computer Applications Applications
Computer & Professor, CIS and Information Development Majors, Development Majors,
Information Science Division, Higher Science Division, CIS Division CIS Division,
Division, Higher Colleges of Higher Colleges of Higher Colleges of Higher Colleges of
Colleges of Technology, Dubai Technology, Dubai Technology, Dubai Technology, Dubai
Technology, Dubai Women’s College, Women’s College, Women’s College, Women’s College,
Women’s, Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Dubai, United Arab Dubai, United Arab Dubai, United Arab
United Arab Emirates, Emirates, Emirates, Emirates Emirates
vakre@hct.ac.ae arajan@hct.ac.ae jahamed@hct.ac.ae H00308032@hct.ac.ae H00306785@hct.ac.ae

Abstract It is well-known that we are in the “converged

Digital Marketing is term used to describe marketing
products or services using digital technologies. It is
mainly based on the internet, and it can refer to
advertising through digital channels such as search
engines, websites, social media, email, and mobile
apps. Millennial generation consists of individuals
born between 1982 and 2002, they are the
demographic social influencers. Financial Institutions
such as banks are searching for new ways to market
products and services to attract millennials. It is
important for banks to use digital marketing for
millennial generations since they are avid fans of the
visual platform. Buyer Persona is a semi-fictional
representation to represent what prospective
customers are thinking and doing, as it gives real data
about existing customers. In order to focus on each
category of customers, its necessarily to create buyer
persona. It is one of the unique methods banks could
use for marketing. This research has examined digital
marketing tools and consumer behaviour of millennial
generation and have proposed the techniques of
creating specific buyer persona through a framework.
This framework could be used by banks in order to
create specific marketing strategies for marketing
financial services to individuals of the millennial
generations.
Keywords: Digital Marketing, Buyer Persona,
Millennial Generation, Big Data, Internet of Things
(IOT), Search Engines Optimization (SEO), Social
Media, Mobile Marketing
Introduction
Digital marketing is the marketing of products or
services using digital technologies, it is mainly used
over the internet, but also including mobile phones,
and display advertising. It has become one of the first
options that the marketers use when they want to get
others to know their products [1].
lifestyle”, where businesses need to continuously
rethink the way they interact with their customers. [2].
Many organizations are recognizing this strategy
necessity, and many are not devoting enough
resources, as putting the majority of their spending in
inadequate traditional methods. The focus of
understanding customers today in a digital-centric
global world requires new thinking and new
approaches [3]. The requirements of the project were
very well understood with the help of the interview
done with the bank, and the requirement is given as
below:
There are a lot of banks using digital marketing, but
most of them have similar ones. Different kinds of
digital marketing can be further specialized for
millennials generation, in order to enrich customer
experience, reduce costs, anticipate customer needs,
strengthen customer loyalty, increase accessibility of
services to customers. Conducting buyer personas will
help the technologies tools to achieve the millennials
goals and exhibit their directed behaviors [3].
The aim of this research is to investigate and identify
the impact that the digital marketing can have on the
millennials.
The objectives of this research are stated as follows:
1. Identify and understand the requirements of
digital marketing from UAE perspective.
2. Investigate and Identify the various
technological factors that are currently
impacting the digital marketing.
3. Analyze and understand the positive and
negative impacts and propose methods to
overcome the negative impacts.
Identifying and understanding the requirements
through visiting the bank and conducting and
interview. Investigate the various technological
factors through literature review.
Trying to understand the positive and negative impacts
and create a framework which clearly explains the
positive impacts, risks, methods to overcome the risks,
and supporting the solution with the help of buyer
persona.
Research Methodology
This research would incorporate exploratory,
explanatory and analytical research methods. In the
Exploratory part, research team would explore and
identify what digital marketing is. Research team
would also explore the security shortfalls of possible
implementation of IOT at a given bank. In the
Explanatory part, the research team would investigate
and explain various technological factors that are
currently impacting the digital marketing. In the
Analytical part, the research team will study the
positive and negative impacts and propose an
implementation framework for them to integrate the
risks and methods to overcome them and support the
solution with the help of buyer persona. This research
will use primary and secondary data collection
methods – primary collection would employ use of an
interview survey that will be conducted, and secondary
collection would include desk studies such as data
analysis and literature reviews collected from
authentic.
Research Questions
This research study would try to answer the following
research questions: -
RQ1: What are the technological factors that impact
digital marketing process on the millennial
generation?
RQ2: How can the positive impact of these factors be
enhanced, and negative impact of these factors be
minimized?
Literature Review
As per the digitalization in banking sectors, the vital
target becomes the pushing of the customers for the
purpose of fulfilling the gap of the sales so that the
survival becomes easier in the long run of the
competitive market. The barriers were that the
inappropriate target to the customers is faced, and also
the communication barriers seemed to be raised while
conducting the activities of attracting the customers
for the fulfillment of the sales. The task of finding out
the potential customers to reach the services of the
banks becomes a tough due to this reason, the actual
need of the customers is overlooked [4]. The
monitoring tool must be implemented for the removal
of barriers are identified. The tool is helpful for
attracting the customers but could be lagging from
communications perspective.
Thus, the proper explanation of the barriers is made
with defining the problems as faced by the banking
sectors during the conducting of this activity. There
are two digital marketing eras the first one is
traditional, and the era is modern.
The modern era considered the digital marketing tools
are playing an important role for the purpose of
carrying out the activities in the banking sectors. The
social media users are enabled of defining the work in
an appropriate way and also the huge increment of the
followers can be easily made with achieving the
positive views of the services provided by the banking
sectors. This is enabling the banking sectors to attract
the new customers and also the advertisement costs
can be easily reduced with the implementation of
digital market tools [5]. The influence on the people
can be easily established which was a challenge for the
banking sectors in the traditional point of views. The
continuous improvement of the customer feedback can
be easily received which will engage the banking
sectors with the existing as well as the new customers.
The proper follow up of the reviews are essential as
per the characteristics of the opinions and the
feedbacks are varied with the variation in the
preferences of the customers. The smart outlook of the
services can be easily established by defining the
proper management of the feedbacks and also the
removal of the traditional banking processes becomes
essential with implementing the digital marketing
tools [6]. Thus, banking sectors can be easily able to
engage themselves in analyzing the competitions in
the market as well the products and the services will
be appropriately delivered to the customers with
monitoring the activities. The brand marketing activity
can be easily continued by showing the proper
formation of the marketing processes as per the
establishment of the digital marketing setup is made.
This is the overall view of the modern generations as
per the digitalization in the banking sectors are
undertaken.
Traditional Marketing vs Digital Marketing
Traditional marketing uses tangible items such as,
business cards, prints ads in newspapers or magazines,
it includes posters, commercials on TV or radios, word
of mouth, billboards, and brochures. Traditional
marketing is more expensive than modern digital
marketing. When companies do Traditional Marketing
techniques they don’t know if the information will be
delivered to the people, because they throw the
information and they hope people will make an action.
Digital marketing use tools like, websites, social
media, YouTube videos, App developments, web
design, email marketing, online chatting, and banner
ads.
Digital marketing is usually not expensive as it uses
internet platform and thus it makes it easy to deliver
the information to the audience, because by using the
internet they can reach the entire world, and the
business or the company will receive customer
feedback.
Digital Marketing Tools
Digital marketing is simplified down to just 5 key
techniques which are essential for businesses to
manage today, and for individual marketers to develop
skills [7].
1. Big Data
2. Internet of Things (IoT)
3. Mobile marketing
4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
5. Social media marketing
Figure 1- Digital Marketing Technologies
Big Data
Big data is a term that describes a large volume of
structured, semi-structured and unstructured data that
has the potential to be mined for information and used
in machine learning projects and other advanced
analytics applications [8]. For banking sector, big data
will benefit them in highlighting the fundamentals of
growth productivity, innovation, customer
relationship and it is important because it minimize the
confusion related to its usage. The advantages of the
Big Data are that it helps the organization to develop
new growth opportunities and also the entire new
categories of the company can be easily able to analyze
and combine the industry data [9]. Big Data is also
prone to risks such as Marketing Risk, Operational
Risk, Credit Risk, Personal information could be
stolen, Privacy invasion could happen, Time and cost
risks and risks due to lack of clarity of new and
advanced technologies [10]. If the banks do not
overcome those risks, there will be major issues. In
order to overcome those risks, executives must be
prepared to manage the politics, and create and
efficient pipeline in verity of different data sources.
Internet of Things (IOT)
The Internet of Things (IOT) is a dynamic global
network infrastructure with self-capabilities based on
standard and interoperable communication protocols
where physical and virtual ‘‘things’’ have identities,
physical attributes, virtual personalities and use
intelligent interfaces, and are seamlessly integrated
into the information network” [11]. IOT is a
computing of living, objects and machines that are
embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and
network that will be able to identify them [11]. The
advantages of the IOT are it helps in saving time as
well as money. The tracking on both the viability and
the quality of the things are well continued [12]. There
still exists much scope for wider range of IOT devices
such as wearable devices, robots, and others to be used
for adding efficiency to banking operations and
enhancing the security off the same. However, smart
devices do not usually come with the enhanced
security features and may lead to breach of customer
privacy. To leverage the benefits of the cutting edge
IOT technology, banks much also weigh the
associated risks and create a secure platform for
integrating IOT technology into customer facing
applications and operations.
Mobile marketing
Mobile marketing is the art of digital marketing
strategy that market your business to appeal to mobile
device users. Kalakota and Robinson [13] define
mobile marketing as “the distribution of any kind of
message or promotion that adds value to the customer
while enhancing revenue for the firm”. In many ways,
it is fortunate that the majority of risks surrounding
mobile marketing are people-centric in nature as that
means they are easily thwarted by anyone who knows
what to look out for, such as: unauthorized third
parties gaining access using login details that have
been stolen directly, or published online following a
data breach extracted from the victim themselves via
social engineering, good old-fashioned ‘shoulder
surfing’ whereby a criminal looks over a victim’s
shoulder (or watches them on CCTV) when they login
on their computer or mobile device, login details
‘sniffed’ (stolen) over insecure Wi-Fi networks and
rogue hotspots, phishing scams – emails that appear
and social engineering via the telephone [14]. In order
to overcome these risks, users must use their own VPN
when they are not at home in order to overcome any
breaching and stealing [14]. Third party sites have
often been known to host rogue version of popular file,
so it will better to download the app from official
sources such as apple’s app store and google play.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process or
technique of designing a website to improve its
ranking and increasing the quantity and quality of the
traffic by the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural”
search results on search engines that provide web sites
fact reachable [15]. The benefits of the SEO are
increase in the traffic with maximizing the business
efforts, lowers the costs and enables the organization
to achieve the higher brand credibility [16]. Search
engines risks can harm the users, such as site
advertisements, which lead to viruses, warm and
hackers. It takes long time to open the page,
incomplete or Unoptimized meta data title and tags.
Such risks could be overcome by hiring a specialist to
work with social networking, as well as a professional
coder [17].
Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing is a system which allows the
marketers to engage, collaborate, interact and harness
intelligence crowdsourcing for marketing purposes,
presents an opportunity for banks which strategically
adopt it into its organization [18]. Social media brings
great benefits to the businesses, but it can be
exceptionally risky if it will not be monitored and
protected properly. The risks are employee privacy
violation, reputation damages, and data theft [19]. To
overcome those risks, you have to monitor your social
media channels to avoid malicious software attacks,
and engage on social media corporate crisis, as well
give your employees social media training and
perform a regular audit [20].
Millennial Generation
Millennials are the demographic that is maturing
rapidly in terms of their social influence, political
power and economic strength. Millennials are the
generation born between 1982 and 2002, they are
imposing significant challenge and opportunities for
potential growth for the banks. Both male and female
Millennials are very much concerned about the online
transactions. The digital platform has provided wide
opportunities to the people for carrying out their
transactions. The Millennials see value in the
accessibility, mobile support, ease of use and
convenience [21]. The banks are implementing an easy
way for transferring funds between the account
holders and non-account holders through digital
channels. The Millennials are increasingly depended
on non-traditional and secondary providers for the
financial services such as credit cards, investments,
and loans. Both male and female Millennials are
attracted towards the online advertisement. The
internet usage has been increased among the
Millennials that have provided wide opportunities to
the organizations.
The difference in the characteristics of male and
female leads to the change in the views and
preferences. The banks are implementing strategies to
attract these people. The marketing strategies help to
attract the Millennials as they always search for new
products and services [22]. Male Millennials are
actively involved in the digital world, and the banking
sectors are focusing on the implementation of new
technologies and process for attracting the customers.
The female is also attracted towards the digital
platform and the marketing tactics used by the
organizations.
How Digital Marketing can help Millennials
The digital marketing strategies that attracts the
millennials are provided in the following points:
• Leveraging the influencers: The celebrities make the
impact on the millennials and so the social media
celebrities are involved for attracting the millennials
in an authentic and accessible way.
• Getting the feedbacks: The millennials are tending
towards the passion and the orientations are involved
with managing the campaign. This is simply defining
that the opinions and the crowdsourcing reviews are
gathered for involving the millennials in the marketing
campaign [23].
• Making it Visual and Cohesive: The millennials are
the huge fans of the visual platform, which means that
the marketing campaign’s needs, can be relied on
capturing the interests through the visuals. The more
the millennials are attracted, the more the development
of the platform is seen.
Buyer Persona
Buyer Personas considered to be one used method of
marketing which is useful to consider goals, desires
and the limitations of brand buyers and users.
Customers data used to be abstract, for that reason
personas are conducted to identify key demographic
attributes such as age and location. Furthermore,
conducting buyer persona will enable ENBD to
organize marketing strategy so that they can
efficiently reach millennial. Millennials are attracted
towards the advertisement given by the organizations.
Both male and female need all the information
regarding the products and services provided by the
organization. The purchasing behavior is influenced
by the advertisements. The digital marketing tools
have enhanced the efficiencies of the organization by
attracting customers. The increase in the use of
internet and social media sites by the Millennials has
allowed the banks to provide significant information
to the customers. However, in short run, the banks
focus on attracting a large number of customers, but
they do provide the required services that led to the
dissatisfaction among the customers [24]. Generation
Y is very concern about the products and services
provided by organizations.
Both the male and female are very much active, but they Based upon above criteria, we have created a buyer
are also very much concern about their safety and persona for a millennial male and a millennial female
security. Male Millennials quickly switch their attention as follows: -
and depicts frugal and skepticism attitude and style
through their perceptive manner. The Millennials are
empowered and entitled self-organizers and can also
form nongovernment collectives that are collaborative,
self-paced and independent. The buying behavior of
both male and female Millennials are influenced by the
advertisements. The organizations are focusing on
attracting the customers with the implementation of new
techniques and strategies.
Research Framework
Using the literature based on digital marketing
techniques and characteristics of millennial generation,
this research has created a framework to provide the
strategy to apply digital marketing tools to market to
millennial generation. Banks could use this framework Figure 3 Buyer persona of millennial female
to create unique buyer persona of their customers and
especially those from the millennial generation. To
create the buyer persona banks would need to use
digital marketing tools – big data, search engine
optimization and social media. Once the buyer persona
has been created for a millennial customer, the bank can
use a different category of the digital marketing tools to
create an exclusive and customized marketing strategy
for that customer [25]. The digital marketing tools used
therein could be Internet of Things (IoT), Mobile
Marketing, Search Engine Optimization and Social
Media.

Figure 4 Buyer persona of millennial male

Figure 2 Digital Marketing Tools Framework
Creation of Buyer Persona
In order to create buyer persona, you may answer
different questions which have been explained below
for males and females. Different digital marketing tools
maybe used to answer each of these different questions.
• What do he/she do daily?
• What do he/she want to achieve?
• Do he/she have any financial obligations?
• What do he/she struggle with?
• What is He/she attracted towards?
• What is his/her salary?
• What is his/her daily challenges?
Conclusion
This paper has discussed the identification and the
impact of the various technological factors on the
millennials. The requirements were identified from the
perspective of United Arab Emirates banking sector.
The investigation on the various technological factors
that are affecting the digital marketing have been
explained in the literature review [26]. The analysis of
the positive and the negative impacts of these factors
have been discussed with respect to the Millennial
Generation. Based on this research, a framework has
been created and presented. The aim of the framework
is clearly explaining the positive impacts, risks and the
methods to overcome the risks. The implementation of
the framework has been explained and corroborated
through creation of the buyer persona for male
millennial and female millennial. These results could
be validated by conducting case studies in specific
banks in the UAE or other countries. The findings of
the research could be of significance to banks
considering such digital marketing strategies.
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