Extensive Marketing Strategy of Capital One – Detailed Explanation

Updated on: Jul 28, 2022
Marketing Strategy Of Capital One - Featured Image

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In the previous article, we learned about the detailed SWOT analysis of Capital One. Today in this blog we are going to learn about the marketing strategy of Capital One, an American banking holding company.

The purpose of this article is to learn about Capital one and gain insight into it and how it became one of the largest leading banks in the United States.

As you can see, the world is now completely online, and marketing is at the core of every business. If you want to cope with these business marketing strategies and want to know more about digital marketing then check out our  Free masterclass by the CEO and founder of IIDE, Karan shah Free LIVE MasterClass | IIDE

We will fully cover the marketing strategy of Capital One in this blog. By the end of this blog, we will have learned about Coolberg’s full marketing plan. Let’s continue with the company’s story, target audience, and digital presence before we dig too deep into it.

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About Capital One – Company Overview

When we talk about which bank specializes in credit cards, auto loans, banking, and saving accounts then the name comes is Capital One. Capital One is one of the largest bank holding companies located in the United States. It is also listed in the Fortune 500 as the 97th best company to work for. Also, in 2016, it was the 5th largest credit card issuer by purchase volume.

Being a technology focused-bank, Capital One financial corporation is a bank holding company specializing in credit cards, home loans, auto loans, banking, and savings products. Its headquarters are located in McLean, Virginia. 

The company helped pioneer the mass marketing of credit cards in the 1990s, and it is one of the largest customers of the US Postal service due to its direct mail credit card solicitations. Capital One 75% of revenue generates from credit card selling.

The minds behind establishing this big bank were Richard Fairbank and Nigel Morris. As per 2016 records the company employs 47,300 people across its various offices. It conducts its business in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada.

 

Quick Stats on Capital One
CEO Richard Fairbank
CMO Johanna Murphy
Area Served The United States, Canada, United Kingdom
Industry Credit cards, auto loans, banking and saving account
Market Share/ Revenue $32.033B
Vision Committed to bringing ingenuity, simplicity, and humanity to banking.
Tagline What’s in your wallet?

 

Marketing Strategy of Capital One

Let’s take a deep look at Capital One’s marketing plan. And how Capital One carries out the marketing effort, among other things.

Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning

They have been segmented into geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioural. Geographic segmentation divides the whole market into geographical units such as countries and continents. Demographic segmentation divides the general public into smaller groups and segments primarily on factors such as gender, income, occupation, and age. 

Psychographic variables are used in marketing to classify lifestyle-oriented interests, activities, and opinions. Buyers are divided into groups based on their attitudes, product knowledge, product uses, and other responses to a product in behavioural segmentation.

Keeping in mind what they want in three years, what the market wants, and how the market uses the product, one should target something. Individuals, small enterprises, and commercial organisations are the company’s target market.

Arranging for a product to hold a clear, distinct, and desirable position in the minds of target consumers in comparison to rival items. A focus on credit card lending and technology has helped them to position themselves.


Marketing Campaigns

Marketing Strategy of Capital One - Campaign 2

“What’s in your wallet?” is the slogan of their commercial campaign for march madness, which has featured celebrity spokespersons such as Jimmy Fallon, Jennifer Garner, and Samuel L. Jackson. Capital One credit or debit card is mandatory to be in your wallet is what the video highlighted. The campaign and the video on the internet got a lot of viewership.

Marketing Strategy of Capital One - Campaign 1

The #RoadToOne social media campaign aimed to give college basketball fans a seamless experience between their digital presence and television commercials starring Samuel L. Jackson, Charles Barkley, and Spike Lee. This provided more options for fans to connect with and engage with our brand.

Marketing Strategy of Capital One - Campaign 3

For promoting their mobile app they used the #WhileBanking campaign to make it popular around the world and which happened also.


Social Media Marketing

Capital one is quite active on social media networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. Where they frequently post about their company updates and new campaigns. If you want to connect with them you can connect with them on Twitter by tweeting #AskCapitalOne

Social media handle No. of followers
Facebook 39,42,544
Instagram 116K
Linkedin 57795
Twitter 205.3K


They are most active on Twitter, where they frequently reply to customers and update about their company status.

The content they mostly follow on social media handles is the one which promotes them and helps them to gain more customers.

SEO strategies

Marketing Strategy of Capital One - SEO

According to SEO rankings, a low number of keywords (under 500) is considered terrible, a high number of keywords (over 1000) is considered good, and a high number of keywords (10,000+) is considered exceptional. As we can see, www.capitalone.com has 1,456,437 organic keywords, which is an amazing number. That means Capital one’s digital marketing gathers a lot of knowledge.

Also, the monthly traffic above 20K+ visits a month is good. As a result, we can see that Capital one SEO strategies are doing great and helping them to achieve better.


Influencer Marketing

Capital One has worked with several YouTubers, Instagram influencers and others for marketing purposes since the beginning. They have a large number of influencers with 500k+ followers on Instagram. Influencers promote Capital One so that it becomes more popular and sales improve and not only that, they get more customers.


E-commerce Strategies

Capital One has a website where consumers can apply for credit cards. And not only this they can access digital payments, so it makes it easy for the customers in paying and keeping the account in their bank.


Mobile Apps

They have their mobile app by the name Capital One Mobile where you can easily keep an eye on your account and bank balance with utmost security. There are many benefits except this like you can instantly lock your credit card or debit card if it ever gets misplaced or stolen. You can get your bank statement without going anywhere, just by sitting in your home through this app.


Content Marketing Strategies

On social media handles, they don’t only post promotional posts but also keep us updated with current news and the benefits of digital payment with the help of Instagram and Facebook.

 

This ends the elaborative marketing strategy of Capital One. Let us conclude our learning below from the marketing strategy of Capital One.

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Conclusion- What’s unique in Capital One?

Capital One in marketing strategy is gaining love all around the world. Capital One emphasises an information and technology-based strategy to increase brand awareness. Social networking apps are also used to increase client interaction. For example, contests and popular hashtags can be announced on Twitter. Capital One also employs a witty video web series to promote its mobile banking services. The corporation is also cooperating with marketing agencies and employing Instagram campaigns like “What’s in Your Wallet?” to highlight its extensive credit card portfolio. Capital One also uses a well-known celebrity to tell its customers about “Gronkonomics,” a personal finance book that offers money-saving advice.

As we all know, pandemics have impacted every organisation, and digital marketing has changed dramatically as a result. In this digital era, everything revolves around technology and hence, digital marketing has never been more important. Digital marketing is one of the best careers to get into right now with respect to hiring demand and pay.

If you want to learn about digital marketing, check our Online Digital Marketing Course if you want to learn more and improve your marketing skills. Alternatively, you can enrol in one of our free online masterclasses led by IIDE’s CEO, Karan Shah, to gain insight into the field of digital marketing. 

We hope this blog on the marketing strategy of Capital One has given you a good insight into the company’s marketing strategies.

If you like such in-depth analysis of companies just like the marketing strategy of Capital One check out our IIDE Knowledge portal for more fascinating case studies.

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Aditya Shastri

Lead Trainer & Head of Learning & Development at IIDE

Leads the Learning & Development segment at IIDE. He is a Content Marketing Expert and has trained 6000+ students and working professionals on various topics of Digital Marketing. He has been a guest speaker at prominent colleges in India including IIMs......[Read full bio]

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