360° Marketing Strategy of Discover – 3rd Huge Credit Bank in the US

Updated on: Sep 19, 2022
Marketing Strategy Of Discover - Featured Image

  Hey there!

My name is Aditya Shastri and I have written this case study with the help of my students from IIDE's online digital marketing courses in India.

Practical assignments, case studies & simulations from Harvard Business Review helped the students from this course present this analysis.

Building on this practical approach, we are now introducing a new dimension for our online digital marketing course learners - the Campus Immersion Experience.

If you find this case study helpful, consider leaving a comment below.

In our previous article, we learnt in detail about the Complete Marketing Strategy of AU bank with STP Analysis. In this article, we are going to elaborate on the marketing strategy of Discover Bank – the US Third largest Credit Card Brand.

The Objective is to gain insight from primarily issuing a credit card to buying Pulse in 2005 (US’s electronic fund transfer network) to enhance their service by issuing debit and ATM cards.

From getting your account open to paying your bills, the world is becoming digital every single day. So, why not capture some awareness about this Digital world? Get Registered yourself now for a Free Masterclass on Digital Marketing by our CEO and Founder, Karan Shah.

We will fully cover the marketing strategy of Discover in this blog. Before we begin our detailed examination, let us start by learning the company’s story, target audience, and digital presence.

Digital Marketing Academic Challenge 2024 - DMAC

About Discover – Company Overview

Being the leading digital bank and payments services company, Discover financial corporation is a bank holding company specializing in credit cards, home loans, auto loans, banking, and savings products. Its headquarters are located in Riverwoods, Illinois, U.S. 

Discover is a credit card brand issued primarily in the United States which also offers check and saving accounts, personal loans, home equity loans, student loans and credit cards. 

Discover is a subsidiary of Sears (the largest retailer in the U.S.) which was introduced in the year 1985. When it was introduced, Discover did not charge an annual fee and was offering a higher than the normal credit limit which was something big in the credit card industry. 

Quick Stats on Discover
CEO Roger C Hochschild
CMO Kate Manfred
Area Served United States (primary)
Industry Financial services
Market Share/ Revenue $810 million in 2021
Vision To be the leading digital bank and payments partner.
Tagline It pays to Discover

 

Marketing Strategy of Discover 

Wanna dig down in more precise knowledge about the marketing campaign, position,eCommerce and SEO strategy, etc. Of  Discover Bank? Then stick to this article for a more explanatory Marketing Strategy of Discover.

Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning

Discover Finance Services have two operating segments: Direct banking and Payment service.

  1. Direct Banking:- It offers banking services online and by telephone to remote areas as it doesn’t have any branch network. The Direct  Segment offers some main products and services which are: credit cards, student loans, personal loans, home loans and home equity loans, and deposits.
  2. Payment Services:- It contributes 3% to the company’s revenue. The main product and services which are offered by the Payment Service segment are PULSE- It’s an ATM or debit network which provides cash access in over 120 countries. Diner Club – Target those audiences who travel frequently and provide a charge and credit card to them.

The target audiences are those who want Satisfaction, to grow their money, manage their account through an online app, and have the highest customer experience. Discover offers no fees to any account, giving 1% cashback every month on debit card purchases up to $3000.

Discover has been honoured by Cardrates.com 2022 Editor’s Choice Award for its dedication to Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion. Most of the time Discover is on the list of the best high-yield savings accounts and best money marketing accounts. From a rating perspective Discover has stood stable from negative.


Marketing Campaigns  

Marketing Strategy of Discover-look on the brighter side campaign

Discover encouraged people to “ Look on the brighter side ” in a new messaging platform from the credit card company. A guy explains to his friend how the faulty website from where he bought the turtle has stolen all his personal information. The friend asks if he “looked on the brighter side” and then he flips the turtle along and he reveals the shining message from Discover that they never pull cardholders responsible for the unlicensed purchase.

“That’s my turtle” – Discover’s first creative broad campaign that highlights how the company has evolved to offer a broad range of financial services, including matching cash-back rewards, free FICO credit score checks with more online calculators to track savings & loans, and debt as well as college planning advice.

Marketing Strategy of Discover-yes/no campaign

Discover rediscovers its super bowl LIV approach around the relation of the Yes/No dynamic. This campaign spending reached its highest level in February 2020. It slips its ad buy into two clips highlighting the feature of Discover that it’s accepted almost everywhere and doesn’t charge any annual fee.

Both ads show the snatch of the movies-” Mean girl,” “Ted,” “Old school,” and “clueless” that acknowledge the questions “Do you take Discover?” and “Does discovery change annual fees?”. 

Marketing Strategy of Discover-Live at Discover

“Live at Discover” has been hiring employees since the beginning of 2020 which brought together around 1,200 employees who hadn’t visited the suburban Chicago headquarters. The leaders took part in the “Ask Me Anything” panel where new hires pose questions on any topic. Throughout the week, employees participated in networking opportunities where they got to meet colleagues and volunteer events to directly know how Discover supported their communities.

Social Media Marketing

Discover has a very nice expansion on every social media account. They are super active on every social platform, posting content related to finance, loan, and of course services, they provide for their customers. Talking about the number of followers on each platform – on Instagram, there are 48.1k followers, on Facebook 1,614,302 followers, on Twitter 104k people following. They are also having a youtube and Linkedin account where discover has 46.5k subscribers on youtube and Linkedin 15k employees followed by 137k followers.


SEO Strategies

Marketing Strategy of Discover - SEO

As per SEO ranking, the keywords below 500 are bad, above 1000 is good and 10000+ are amazing. As we can see that https://www.discover.com/ has 391,081 organic keywords which are amazing. That means Discover is gaining awesome awareness. 

If we have a glance at the traffic per month is 5.2M which is stunning. This shows that discovery is performing incredibly and they should carry their services in the same fashion.


Influencer Marketing

Discover partnered with PayPal in 2020. Starting July and running through August cardholders earn 5% cashback when shopping at Paypal and restaurants up to $1,500. 

Shannon Kors (vice president of card rewards and benefits at Discover) said they want to partner with that merchant where their cardholder loves to shop. 


Ecommerce Strategies

Discover has its site where one can log in themselves and can access the various sections of the site. The online facilities are provided so that you can apply for any loan like a student loan, home loan, or personal loan by sitting at home only. Apart from this, you will be provided with a credit card and an online banking option.


Mobile Apps

Marketing Strategy of Discover-Mobile app

What’s better than having a portable and one-click manageable bank account? Discover has an easy-used mobile app, it is self-explainable where you can register an account or get logged in. For any query one can reach the bank by contacting us option in the app. Also, you don’t have to approach a bank to open your account, just simply access the option “open an account” and Yeah! Welcome to Discover. 

Content Marketing Strategies

Discover is super active on social media platforms. They post content related to their services, job, events, and many more on LinkedIn. Discover is more engaged on Twitter, Insta, and LinkedIn where they update people about their new campaigns or services. So, people stay aware of the new opportunities. Discover has a Newsroom selection on the site where one can read blogs or get up-to-date with the news. 

This ends with an elaborative marketing strategy of Discover. Let us conclude our learning below from the marketing strategy of Discover.

Digital Marketing Academic Challenge 2024 - DMAC

Conclusion – What’s Unique in Discover Marketing?

Digital marketing is crucial since it links a company with its clients when they are online and is effective across all sectors. It links businesses with ideal consumers through SEO and PPC on Google, social media marketing, and email marketing. If you would like to learn more and develop skills, check out IIDE’s 4-Month Digital Marketing Course to learn more.

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 Discover 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 Discover check out our IIDE Knowledge portal for more fascinating case studies.

Thank you for taking the time to read the marketing strategy of Discover, and do share your thoughts on this case study marketing strategy of Discover in the comments section below.

Share post via

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]

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Related Posts