Digital Marketing with Impact: Leveling the Playing Field for Community Banks

Big banks = big marketing bucks.  It’s been the equation for decades.  Large institutions laden with deep brand recognition and muscular budgets could simply target a market and go to town on glomming market share.  Often the same town as community banks which had been laboring long and loyally to support their hometown’s financial health and quality of life.

But that imbalance has changed with digital marketing.   Community banks now possess a powerful marketing weapon with the potential to level the playing field…and impact the incursions of larger competitors.

Under the umbrella term of “digital marketing” dwell multiple subset components–properly optimized website for voice and mobile searches, highly targeted digital advertising, robust analytics that show ROI, etc.  Like any powertrain, these components must be coordinated to work together.  But with all in sync, the result is a nimble community bank marketing vehicle able to outpace and outmaneuver your more muscle-bound contenders.

Industrywide, 17% of banks committed more than 50% of their marketing budgets to online media in 2019, up from 14% in 2017. Still, many smaller banks are struggling to keep up with this race to the digital space.  Why?  Two reasons:  mindset and money.

Changing the Marketing Mindset

A Pennsylvania community bank careerist with more than four decades of experience as a top-level marketing executive with larger community institutions and as the founding president and CEO of two successful de novos banks,  John C. Soffronoff offers a “past is prologue” view of digital marketing.

“For decades I was concerned about markets without a strong local daily newspaper since most promotions centered on print.  Obviously that has all changed with this new world of marketing communication and to succeed we must change our media mindsets to evolve with it.

“But as community bankers, it’s important to pursue this future approach guided by the experience of the past,” he insists.  “Yes, the media choices have changed, but the messaging itself is immutable–particularly content that conveys the value propositions unique to hometown banking–a personalized customer experience, responsive service, flexibilities in product design, and ongoing support for quality of life issues for local businesses and families.”

Money Wise:

Tighter Targeting, Less Waste, More Impact

ROI is where an effectively executed digital marketing effort will really shine.  Instead of the shotgun approach of traditional media, digital can be targeted to highly specific audiences.  For an HEL or HELOC campaign, for example, you could pinpoint home-owning adults 35 to 54 with HHI of $120K+ living within a 2 mile radius of any specified bank location.

In addition, digital media campaigns can be customized with almost mind-blowing capabilities.  One that has proven effective is “geofencing” in which all mobile phone users within a small geographic footprint receive a special offer message once they set foot inside a specified perimeter.  In our own agency experience, we have geofenced visitors to a competing big bank branch with a high monthly minimum and other checking fees and served them ads for our client’s truly free checking product available right across the street.

New Voice and Mobile SEO a Must:

Get an SEO Check-Up Soon

Incisively-crafted community bank marketing messages are vital but SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is how they connect with the right prospects.  Many smaller banks have not updated their websites on a regular basis and are losing out in organic searches of prospective customers. This provides an opening for the competition to seriously outflank your marketing efforts.

Community Bank Marketing Challenge: With more people “asking” mobile devices for information, new types of localized SEO are emerging. But your marketing content must now be fully optimized to appear in both mobile searches and voice searches.

K-N Solution: It is imperative to tailor all content and keywords to meet these new needs. Adjust content sharing strategies to offer SHORT, PRECISE answers for mobile and voice users.   Our professionals can assist you with an SEO check-up and assessment. For more facts, visit www.keenannagle.com/Banks.