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The Opportunity for Community Banks has Never Been Better

Most households have always been pretty reluctant to move their primary banking relationship. However, the pandemic and rise of new digital banking options have altered switching behavior, creating a big opportunity for those financial institutions that are aggressive and a risk for those that ignore this shift in attitudes. Marketers who understand the psychology of why people switch banks and create communications to connect with these prospects will undoubtedly attract more new households than they lose. We are entering the age of “Hybrid Banking Consumers”. Community banks that were active in helping business customers and prospects secure PPP loans saw a substantial number of these customers switch their banking relationships. Retail banking has seen a similar pattern. Consumers’ intent to change their primary financial institution or to move their accounts to other providers (traditional or otherwise), appears to be rising sharply. Before the pandemic, “switching intent” among people who said they were changing primary banks in the next six months had been about 9% of consumer households and 14% of businesses.  These numbers have remained steady for several years. Rivel Incorporated conducted a significant research study of 104,000 consumers from November 2020 through January 2021 and found switching intent went up to 17% among consumers and 31% among businesses, almost double the normal levels. As always, there is a difference between switching intent and switching financial institutions. However, this research uncovered two additional statistics:

• 31% of consumers were unhappy with their current banking provider
• 15% said they were going to switch in the next six months

Both of these numbers have been tracked at historically high levels and are considered to be statistically significant.

Three Other Research Studies Provide Support

Three additional research studies were completed in early 2021 that substantiate this new switching activity as a result of the pandemic.  Mobiquity, a digital consultancy, surveyed 2,445 U.S. adult consumers in January 2021, FIS conducted a similar type study in February of 2021 and Visa also completed a study on hybrid consumers. All this evidence doesn’t necessarily mean that consumers are moving their primary banking relationship. In a survey conducted by Visa, more than a quarter (27%) of the banking population is made up of “hybrid consumers”. Those consumers are people who have both digital-only and traditional accounts. Consumers in this segment are six times (6x) more likely than average to have three or more bank accounts. However, they are also highly unlikely to give up their traditional accounts. In fact, 77% said they would never do so. Understanding account switching among hybrid customers may mean a change in the depth of the relationship rather than a complete loss of a customer.  For example, that customer relationship may shrink from six accounts with $50,000 in balances to just two accounts with less than $1,000 balances. To learn more about this research and strategies to help you take advantage of this trend, give us a call @ 262-436-4080, or fill out the contact form below.  We look forward to hearing from you.

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A Proprietary Footprint Development Process.

Leap Strategic Marketing has developed a proprietary process that works for all lines of business at your bank.

The goal of this process is to develop a targeted approach that effectively delivers customer and prospect messages in your bank’s primary trading areas while eliminating waste.  Currently, it’s being used by community banks to target new consumer deposit and loan households, commercial and small businesses, as well as, wealth management prospects.

Learn more about Leap’s digital capabilities here and how our clients use their digital footprints.

Developing Your Marketing Footprint

As a community bank, you know that your customers are your net-promoters and their perception of your brand is what will help grow your customer base. Financial services industry best practices has shown that one of the best ways to grow your customer base is to utilize your net-promoters to influence prospects to choose your bank. As a result of this research, Leap can use net-promoters to anchor a bank’s marketing footprint. This will produce the best results on a short and long term basis.

Leap Strategic Marketing segments your bank’s main target areas for each line of business, products and services by creating smaller footprints for each. When each one is combined, it represents your bank’s overall brand marketing footprint.

Combined with industry metrics and insights from available research sources, this provides a comprehensive view of your customers and provides opportunities to leverage your marketing footprint for future growth.

Learn more about these research sources by visiting our Better Community Bank Targeting blog.

Why You Need A Marketing Footprint

Digital transformation in the financial services industry has reached the stage that community banks need to start using online platforms to communicate with customers and prospects. Defining your bank’s marketing footprint is the first step to maximize the changes in media usage in your trading area.

Learn more about Leap Marketing’s Media Planning process.

Major changes in local media over the last five years have affected your bank’s ability to market effectively in your trading areas. Here are some major changes taking place not only nationally, but locally.

The demise of local newspapers | Large and small market

• Regional and national news content sites have grown to the point that local print sources are extremely costly and many are facing extinction.

The fragmentation of local radio station listenership

• Streaming services and apps are slowly carving away at best listeners and market share.

The fragmentation of TV viewership via local broadcast and cable television 

• Streaming services like Hulu, Netflix, YouTube are growing their viewership at a rapid pace due the growing number of cable cutters.

People’s growing reliance on internet access anywhere | anytime

• There is an APP for almost everything you want

To learn more about these media changes please visit Banks Need FI Communications Specialists blog.

According to The Financial Brand, digital ad spending continues to grow and is being used for branding and acquisition messages every year.

It’s forecasted to increase by nearly 20% in the next two years and is primarily focused on display, digital video, search and social media marketing channels.

The Leap Approach to Bank Marketing

Leap brings a business-insider approach to bank marketing and offers a more comprehensive range of services dedicated to community bank marketing.  We know the market is constantly changing and building a marketing footprint for your bank is one of the first steps to building a successful and affordable marketing communications plan for your bank.

To learn more, or to schedule your marketing footprint analysis, contact us at 262-436-4080, or complete the form below.

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Harness The Power of Digital Video Advertising!

This blog will help you understand how you can elevate your bank’s brand messaging with digital video. Most community banks have never been able to justify the cost of spot television because of the inability to target their messages to just their bank’s footprint. In fact, according to The Financial Brand only 10% of community banks have ever used spot television in their local advertising and marketing programs.

The fragmentation of broadcast and cable television has been accelerating over the past several years spawned by cable cord cutters/nevers and their desire to watch what they want when they want.  Streaming internet video services (Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, Sling & many more)  have continued to fragment television viewership and OTT (Over-The-Top Digital TV) is growing rapidly.

Programmatic digital media is powerful and a necessary weapon for local community banks to employ in today’s local media mixes.  One of the most misunderstood parts of this media vehicle is digital video media buys.  These media buys can be geographically, contextually and demographically targeted with great precision and are very affordable, even on community bank-size marketing budgets.

Three Types of Digital Video Ads Available:

• Pre-roll video ads are shown to the user before video content;
• Mid-roll ads are inserted in the middle of video content;
• Post-roll ads are aired at the end of video content

The most common placement for video ads used for these types of media buys are executed on websites:

• Network broadcast and cable TV,
• Local TV and radio stations,
• Local newspaper websites and;
• A host of special interest and content websites

Digital Video Commercials Provide Effectiveness Analytics

Unlike broadcast or cable spot TV or OTT TV commercials, these programmatic digital video ads allow for a high degree of analytic analysis and evaluation of their effectiveness. These locally targeted commercials allow:

• Media buys that are impression-based with highly targeted placements,
• Tracking of click-throughs to a bank’s website or landing page,
• Measurement of engagement and interactions with the video,
• Each view of that commercial is measured on the amount of that commercial that was completed

Digital Video Commercials Don’t Have To Be Expensive To Be Effective

Changes in technology have made the production of these types of digital video commercials inexpensive.  There are a number of different production formats that can be used and creating these short videos has never been easier.

However, if the client has already produced videos, they can be easily edited to accommodate the type of digital video media buy being placed.

The most popular digital video format being employed in these digital media buys is Pre-Roll video.  The typical length of these commercials is 10, 15, and 30 seconds.

According to e-Marketer; “Making shorter ads should be part of the advertiser’s arsenal, and front-loading the brand messages in those ads will improve the chances of grabbing the user’s attention in those critical few seconds.”

Leap’s experience with online video confirms e-Marketer’s observation.  In fact, we have seen 100% viewed completion rates for 10 and 15-second digital videos running in the 70% to 85% range for our community bank clients. You can learn more about Leap’s Digital Video capabilities…click here.

Example of Community Bank Digital Video

Leap has been serving community banks for many years and has specialized in helping institutions with $100 million to $3 billion dollars in assets tackle virtually every facet of the business.

We are navigating and helping our clients thrive in the ever-changing media environment and would love to put our expertise to work for you.

You can learn more about Digital Video and Leap Strategic Marketing’s community bank marketing expertise by sending us an email or giving us a call at 262-436-4080.

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Refresh. Revitalize. Rebrand.

Get Sales and Profits Growing.

Older community banks have built substantial brand equity over the lifetime of their bank. Many of these organizations are constantly wrestling with ways to get their financial institution growing at a level that will satisfy their board of directors.

While there are many possible solutions to jump-starting their growth, this blog will examine a couple ways community banks have taken to get their bank on a sustainable growth path.

Most community banks have been adding technology to their consumer and business products, while also updating to new technologically advanced services to serve their customers better. These investments are being added to help their bank compete with other local community banks, credit unions, regional and national banks that operate in their footprint market.

In fact, many community banks have updated their websites, enhanced their presence on social media, made significant changes in sales culture and even launched new marketing programs only to see very little change in their sales and profits.

So why haven’t these changes worked?

Leap Strategic Marketing believes that their current brand and positioning is not helping most community banks get credit for those investments and sales culture changes with their current customers and future prospects.

Here are a couple approaches that have helped solve this situation.

Like many community banks, Bank of Galesville worked extremely hard at differentiating their brand by identifying themselves with the local communities they served.  In fact, this bank’s approach was to name their branches after the local towns where they were located.

While this community branding approach worked for many years, it also created execution and cost efficiency problems with marketing, difficulty building the overall brand awareness of the larger corporation and development of growth plans for this 136 year old financial institution beyond their current footprint.

The management of Bank of Galesville made a decision to rebrand themselves as Bluff View Bank and to reposition themselves in the larger geographical area where their current and future facilities would be located.

They created a new brand positioning and relaunched their bank’s brand to get their bank on a new growth path. This approach has worked and combined with a new communications and marketing plan is producing some outstanding results in a short period of time.

Other financial institutions we work with have made decisions to update their logo, tagline and develop a new marketing approach launched with new advertising campaigns to leverage all the changes they have invested in over the last few years.

If you are considering this updating approach, please take a few moments to look at Leap Strategic Marketing’s blog on how the marketing communications rules have changed for community banks because that environment has been undergoing radical changes over the last few years.

The Brand Equity Lifecycle

A primary principle of marketing is that every brand travels through a brand equity and performance lifecycle. So, while you don’t necessarily need to change the name of the company, you do need to find a way to refresh the look and positioning of the brand to regain sales and profit momentum.

The impact of brand equity has been evaluated by universities and companies across the globe for years. The sales and profits lifecycle of companies that have undertaken a revitalization of their brand are represented by the refresh line, while others who haven’t are represented by the sales and profits line that is in decline.

Bluff View Bank’s decision to relaunch their brand puts them at the very beginning of the brand equity lifecycle and the bank will enjoy years of sales and profit growth before they will need to consider updating their brand again.

A brand relaunch, like Bluff View Bank, does require a revolution of sorts. Everything at the bank needs to be updated. Creating a logo, updating all their forms of communication with customers and employees, updating all their vendor agreements and even registering their new name with financial regulators and the U.S. patent office.

However, there are ways to update one’s logo and tagline that will revitalize their brand.  A revitalization effort of this nature doesn’t require a revolutionary effort, but can be staged as an evolution that takes place over a period of time.

What impacts the slope of the increased sales and profits is directly related to pace and depth of the brand revitalization effort, whether it be a new brand relaunch or updating an older brand without changing the name of the brand.

The scope and pace of the revitalization effort is directly related to the impact experienced. The greater the change and pace of that change is known to produce better results more quickly. In fact, if a revitalization effort is executed properly, it can literally generate sales and profit results similar to the original introduction of the brand itself.

However, if the pace of change is too slow, the impact will be more muted, and runs the risk of not grabbing the attention of the customers and prospects. Sometimes this approach will under-perform sales and profit expectations.

The pace of change can help control expenses, while generating a controlled, operationally sensitive change that will inspire the team members of the bank to help you grow the newly updated brand.

That is where Leap Marketing comes in.  The agency has helped many community banks, like Bluff View Bank, revitalize their brands. We can help you develop a plan for revitalizing your brand equity and generate a recommendation to help you differentiate your financial institution in your market or footprint.

If you would like to learn more about brand revitalization, just drop us an email or give us a call at 262-436-4080.

The post Revitalizing Community Bank Brand Equity appeared first on Leap Strategic Marketing.

Your Brand’s Voice Defines Your Business

Your brand is much more than a logo, tagline or unique creative design element. Brand voice is essential for marketers to create and manage the unique personality of their brand.

Brands, just like people, have a voice – the tone, manner and style of communication is what helps distinguish one person from another.

Brand voice is the purposeful, consistent expression of a brand through words that engage and motivate your brand’s various audiences. The personality of your brand is determined, in large measure, by the words you use, the sentences you write and how you deliver those messages.

With the incredible communications clutter of the marketplace, there are three essential hurdles all brands, large or small, must overcome with their audiences to gain that competitive advantage.

Your brand must be heard.

Your brand must be recognized.

Your brand must be remembered.

Leap Strategic Marketing is providing you with a quick and simple test to help you understand your brand voice. After you take this test, you may begin to see how that voice can help you differentiate your brand from the competition.

Consider the two artists below. Both Andrea Bocelli and Katy Perry are outstanding, successful, accomplished, appeal to different audiences and definitely have managed to create very unique brands.  As you read these comparisons, consider how you would describe the differences between these two and write them down. Just like your consumers, perception is reality. There are no wrong or right answers.

Now the second part of the test is to compare your brand and each of your competitors. What do they say? How do they say it? What do you believe that consumer think of your brand?

If you believe that you are significantly different in most categories, then you have a basis for differentiation and your brand voice is strong.  If you are very close to a competitor in a number of comparisons, then you might have some work to do to find some positioning and a tone and manner that will help differentiate your brand. What was working a few years ago, may not be relevant today.

Developing a brand voice is a fluid, dynamic process that helps to keep it healthy, relevant and vibrant. It needs to be assessed and evaluated as your business changes, as consumers change and with technological advances in your industry. Here are the six critical factors your company should consider as part of the process when developing your Brand Voice:

• Define | Choose three words that capture the personality of the voice desired
• Differentiate | Review the communications of your competitors
• Listen | Before you write, make sure you listen. Make sure you are speaking in language your customers
• Inspire | Your Brand Voice should be inspiring and aspirational to your target audiences
• Engage | Every brand needs to engage an audience. Allow the Brand Voice to relax and just be real
• Evolve | Your Brand Voice should be fluid — changes over time communicating in fresh new ways

Leap Strategic Marketing uses some sophisticated techniques to not only evaluate your brand voice but uses these methods to determine how you change or evolve yours to be truly different, connect with your customers and engage prospects.

If you would like some help evaluating your Brand Voice, contact us at 262-436-4080.  We would be happy to walk you and your team through the entire evaluation process and put a plan together to make your brand voice strong.

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Marketing During an FI Merger or Acquisition.

If you are planning a bank or credit union merger, or if you have one taking place in your footprint market, you have some major marketing opportunities happening over the next year.

As a marketer, the choices become pretty clear if you understand the impact of what is going to take place during a merger. At this point, you have to decide if you are a marketing shepherd or a marketing wolf.

Industry research into the M&A activity of financial institutions is pretty solid and predictable.  Depending on your marketing role, you should be strategically planning to manage the best possible outcomes during this merger.

The Reality

Research conducted by J.D. Powers examined the impact of how the merging banks’ customers react to an acquisition or merger event. The results of the research are extremely clear and predictable within certain parameters.  The one fact that we know with certainty is that the two merging entities are going to lose customers.  While the chart below might suggest that it is all communications-based, our merger experience shows that communications is only one of the factors that influence the level of attriting customers.

Marketing Shepherd or Marketing Wolf?

As the marketing shepherd, your role is to bring the two flocks together into one new bigger flock, while minimizing the potential loss of customers from either of the two original financial institutions. You are trying to leverage the economies of scale promised to the shareholders that should be created by the merger. But to accomplish this, you must retain as many customers as possible.

Acting as the marketing wolf, you know that on average about 20% of the customers of this merged financial institution will flee the newly formed organization during the first 12 months. Your job is to catch as many of the fleeing customers as you can during that first year. The opportunity to substantially improve your deposit market share is enormous for a very limited time.

Communication of all merger activity is extremely important to being a good marketing shepherd. However, the changes that customers must go through to merge the two FIs into one platform can be a significant factor that influences the rate and speed of customer attrition.

Some of the major factors that cause attrition are driven by customer inconvenience. For example: Changing customer account numbers, changing the online banking platform, the length of time needed to merge the entities to one data platform, the change in products and services, and let’s not forget the change in the fee structure.  All these factors and many more play a significant role in the merger attrition rates. Every M&A program is different and must be analyzed to determine the potential loss of customers.

Leap Strategic Marketing has more than 25 years of experience in financial services marketing. Our staff has been through both sides of merger marketing planning, strategy, and tactics.  We have managed both the shepherd and wolf marketing strategy roles for our clients.

If you would like to learn more about managing your marketing during a merger, drop us an email or give us a call at 262-436-4080.

The post M&A Community Bank Marketing appeared first on Leap Strategic Marketing.

Campaign Connects to Culturally Changing Community.

First Federal Bank merged with a Bay View Federal and the merger that connects the two banks was great news for both organizations.

Bay View Federal had no checking accounts and was primarily a CD based deposit institution.

First Federal was excited about the Bay View market because this market was becoming the new “Wrigleyville” of Milwaukee.

The old Bay View community was undergoing a tremendous cultural transformation for the better and was growing again. There were no other community banks located in the territory.

The original marketing challenge was to find a way to keep as many of the current depositors as possible, while building deposits with the new professional, millennial consumers who were moving into Bay View.

However, after using the current First Federal brand messaging and checking acquisition tactics in Bay View, it just didn’t seem to be paying off. The current brand messaging was working well in their other four branches, but not producing the same results in Bay View.

What was missing here? Could the strategy and tactics be wrong? Was it the messaging? Did we have the right offer? Or was the media mix missing the target? Leap had to come up with some new creative solutions that connects with the Bay View residents.

We took a step back and decided it was a little of everything that needed to be fine tuned. We needed messaging that connected to the new target audience and needed a media buy that would reach that target in the key areas of Bay View where everything was happening.

The agency recommended a new creative campaign, a new media approach and customer acquisition tactics.

Ready. Tech. Go! Bay View Campaign

The agency and client looked at new account openings during the campaign the branch has had great success with this new campaign. The creative and media plan did a great job of connecting with the new customer base in Bay View. The client is more committed to this program than ever and has increased their local sponsorships of community oriented events.

If you would like to learn more about how you can connect with this tough and elusive target, give us a call.  We’ll be glad to present a case history of this successful campaign and discuss the challenges you may be facing. Drop us an email  or give Laura Bonesteel a call @ 262-436-4080.

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