While listening in class and taking notes about distribution strategies, I heard Tamar talk about location, being at the right place at the right time…etc and then, she went on to talk about hours of operation. This immediately made me think of TD bank and the commercial I keep seeing about TD extending their hours of operation.
TD is probably one of the only banks that operates until 8pm on weekdays. Other banks such as BMO usually operate until 4pm and sometimes till 6pm, but never until 8pm. Not only that but TD also provides “24-hour-a-day access to your accounts through Green Machine* ABMs, EasyLine™ telephone banking, EasyWeb™ Internet banking and Interac¤ Direct Payment.” Because TD is a bank and it offers services instead of products, it is important that they are able to create a good distribution strategy that is convenient for their customers. Extending their hours of operation is a great way to enhance their service distribution because it gives their customers more flexibility in deciding when to go to the bank. For example, this may be a big benefit for customers who work until late.
Extending their hours of operation is not the end of it too. Recently, I heard from one of my friends who works at TD bank that they are even planning to start operating on SUNDAYS! This is a big move as there are pretty much no banks that operate on a Sunday and some credit unions, that offer similar services, don’t even operate at all on the weekends! Distribution strategy is such an important component in marketing because without it, no one would know anything about your product or service not matter how amazing it is.
Some companies like Koodo like to be very persistent with ads and make sure you see them everywhere you go, from buses to commercials – as explained by Kim’s marketing blog post. Other companies simply use the internet -such as Facebook from Calvin’s blog. All TD is doing is extending their available days/hours to make it more flexible and convenient for customers knowing that time value is big, current social trend.