Marketing Strategies for Building Societies

This article appraises the current marketing policies of the building societies and suggests an alternative strategy based upon an assessment of the motivations of investors and the dynamics of the funds market. In particular a short review of the societies' growth over the previous decade shows their extremely successful performance (giving timely perspective to the recent and well‐publicised difficulties of the movement), but a detailed analysis of the marketing programmes and “products” offered by the societies does suggest that societies as a whole have been slow to adapt to the maturity and size of the market in which they now operate. It is argued that these delays have accentuated the recent difficulties of the movement, and clearly they hold serious longer‐term threats to growth. Finally a strategy of market segmentation is outlined which is based upon the heterogeneity of investors and the nature of competition for funds.