BankMarketingCenter

This would be laughable if it weren’t so, well… pathetic. Here we are talking about the USPS getting into banking services (still!?) when they continue to struggle to do what they were created to do. If you recall, some months back we talked about the plan to test the USPS’s ability to offer a limited number of banking services. It was in our blog, “The USPS can barely deliver a check, let alone process one”. 

Well, sadly, nothing has changed since then. Just last week, in fact, I paid for priority delivery in order to get a small package delivered just a few states away. Has it shown up yet? Nope. Thank goodness I wasn’t shipping much-needed, life-saving medication! (Not that I would since, I believe, that’s pretty illegal, anyway). But, so much for two-day delivery. It’s no doubt sitting in some warehouse somewhere.

Speaking of delivery, how has the USPS done with this banking services program? Well, the USPS launched its limited “toe dip” into banking last September with a pilot program at four post offices. For a flat fee of $5.95, customers could purchase a single-use VISA® gift card of up to $500 using business or payroll checks as payment. USPS won’t accept checks larger than $500 and won’t disburse cash for any checks. The four post office locations that are currently participating in the pilot are in Washington; Baltimore; Falls Church, Virginia and the Bronx, New York.

Since the launch of the program, the USPS has provided financial services to… can you take a guess here?  5,000 individuals? 15,000? Try 6. That’s right. Not 600, or 6,000. Six. I had to laugh when I read on govexec.com that the result is “bringing into question whether one of the government’s largest agencies will expand the effort that many progressive lawmakers and advocates have pushed for years. The six sales using checks between September 13 and January 12 have brought in just $35.70 in fees for a total value of $548.46 in gift cards.” Why the laugh? “Bringing into question”?  What’s the question this result is bringing? Is it a success? Should we keep trying? To me, the only and most obvious question is: Why aren’t we putting a stop to this right now?? According to Government Executive, “postal management declined to say what its plans are with the pilot moving forward, explaining any decisions are pending further evaluation of the results of the initial program.” Call me crazy, but how much evaluation is needed to determine whether or not this is working? I think that $37.50 in fees over nearly six months pretty much speaks for itself. 

As always, there’s significant political controversy around this. The top Republicans on two key committees—Reps. James Comer, Ky., and Patrick McHenry, N.C., the ranking members of the Oversight and Reform and Financial Services committees, respectively—said in a recent letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy that the pilot program was hidden from them and rolled out “in secret.” They noted that they “strongly object to the concept of postal banking” and questioned whether DeJoy had the authority to launch the program unilaterally. The pilot's “quiet launch” they said, has now led the lawmakers to question whether the postmaster general worked with them in good faith.” 

Personally, I don’t think that Comer and McHenry have much to worry about. In fact, instead of getting angry with DeJoy — if they truly want the USPS to stay out of the banking services game — they should be thanking him! What better proof that this is a bad idea than less than $36 in sales over nearly six months. I did better than that with my lemonade stand as a kid!?

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts.

About Bank Marketing Center

Here at BankMarketingCenter.com, our goal is to help you with that vital, topical, and compelling communication with customers; the messaging that — developed by banking industry marketing professionals, well trained in the thinking behind effective marketing communication — will help you build trust, relationships, and revenue. And with them, your brand. To view our marketing creative, both print and digital – ranging from product and brand ads to social media and in branch signage – visit bankmarketingcenter.com.  Or you can contact me directly by phone at 678-528-6688 or email at nreynolds@bankmarketingcenter.com. 

Type the phrase “blog writing best practices” into your Google search field and what do you get? A whole host of sites that talk about why you should build a number into your blog title. Here are just a few examples:

Marketinginsidergroup.com: “9 SEO Best Practices for Blog Traffic and Engagement”

Socialmedia.com: “5 Reasons Readers like Numbers in a Headline” 

Venngage.com: “Why 10 is actually the best number to use in a blog title.”

The list, as you can imagine, is endless. As for the title of this blog, I followed the advice of the so-called experts and incorporated a number… and not just one number, but two! Hopefully, that will skyrocket this blog to the top of everyone’s organic search and garner twice the number of visits.

It is true, though. Blog titles with numbers are far more likely to get to the top of the SERPs (search engine ranking pages). I’ve also learned, as you can see from my title, that for some reason the number 10 is the best number to use, so that’s what I did.

I find this whole number thing fascinating… and not just a little puzzling. So, I thought I’d dive in and see what it was all about. I must admit that what I did learn was fairly interesting, and I’m happy to sum it up for you. After all, it’s the least I can do after luring you to my blog with a “10” in my blog title and the promise of a ten-point list of some kind. Accuse me of click-baiting if you must, but I just don’t have 10 reasons… I only have 3. Sorry.

Simplicity is king

The pundits say that numbers appeal to us, smaller numbers in particular. And, that makes sense to me… which is why I think that the folks who claim that 10 is better than 3 are wrong! Simplicity makes things easy because we know what to expect right out of the gate. With a blog that has a number in the title, we know exactly what we’re getting.

According to SocialMedia.com: “All else being equal, a headline with numbers in it will yield more traffic than a headline without. That’s been proven enough times that it should be indisputable by now. If you’re going to write a blog on how to be a better sous chef, you might as well headline it with “7 Ways to be a Better Sous Chef”; because you’ll get anywhere from 10-20% more traffic than using “How to be a Better Sous Chef”. So, I guess it’s important that the reader know that they’re not simply getting one or two tips, which might be too few. Or, 12 tips, which might be too many.  It’s important that they know that they’re getting 7… a perfect number of tips.  As Goldilocks once said, “this number of tips is just right…”

An authoritative source?

Blog titles with numbers convey authority, and people tend (not always) to turn to authoritative sources when seeking information. Numbers lend credibility. When we say, “sure, more people read blogs with numbers in the title,” that claim certainly doesn’t carry the same weight as saying, “studies have shown that blogs with numbers in the title generate anywhere from 10-20% more traffic.” As bettermarketing.pub points out: “The headline, The Key to Writing Good Headlines doesn’t compare to 7 Keys to Writing Good Headlines. It not only encourages readers to click, but sounds like it has genuine, reliable information.” Would 12 Keys to Writing Good Headlines be even more attention grabbing? Why not 15, then?  Just think of the possibilities!

Time is of the essence

SocialMedia.com says that “a headline with a small number conveys the message to the reader that it's a quick and easily read, while a large number indicates more of a reading investment. Either way, you are letting your reader know in advance what to expect.”  And that’s what people with a limited amount of time want to know; that they don’t need to spend a whole lot of time reading your blog.  Although why, then, if the supposition is that people are pressed for time, would the number 10 be more effective in a blog title than the number 3? Go figure. As it is, most people only read, according to salesforce.com, about 28% of the words in a blog post anyway. Which almost makes you wonder why bother at all?

Lastly, there’s more to writing a great blog than putting numbers in your blog title. Don’t forget to break up your text with short, bold subheads; ironically, like the ones I used here. Yet another consideration when writing a blog that you hope will score well with search engine algorithms? Length. How long should your blog post be? Ask Google with the search phrase “ideal blog length” and see what you get. Is it 300 words?  1,000? 40,000?  I think I will leave that topic to another, much lengthier blog… with, of course, the number 10 in the title!

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts. 

About Bank Marketing Center

Here at BankMarketingCenter.com, our goal is to help you with that vital, topical, and compelling communication with customers; the messaging that — developed by banking industry marketing professionals, well trained in the thinking behind effective marketing communication — will help you build trust, relationships, and revenue. And with them, your brand. To view our marketing creative, both print and digital – ranging from product and brand ads to social media and in branch signage – visit bankmarketingcenter.com.  Or you can contact me directly by phone at 678-528-6688 or email at nreynolds@bankmarketingcenter.com. 

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the process of enhancing content so that it is “optimized” for both users and search engines. It is important because top search engines, like Google and Bing, “score” your content to determine your bank’s ranking in an organic search. Optimizing your content, by putting just a few simple SEO practices in place, will improve the performance and experience of your website, helping your bank gain better visibility in a consumer’s search for financial industry products and services. Done properly, SEO can bring you closer to the “top of the page”, generate more traffic to your website, convert your site visitors to customers, and then convert those customers into revenue for your bank.

Why is SEO important? 

When a user types a search phrase into their browser’s search field, search engines — using what are called “bots” or “spiders — use complex algorithms to identify and “score” the content they “crawl.” The crawled content can include web pages full of text, news articles, images, videos, linked websites, and business listings, to name a few. The search engine then places the resulting sites on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page), ranking them based on the score given by the algorithm.

Search engine optimization is critical because with it, you can ensure that your website delivers on what potential customers will find valuable and useful. Specifically, information that they find fresh and relevant to their search. After all, customers searching the web using certain search terms are looking for answers. The better you do at providing those answers, the better your site’s chances of getting placed higher in the SERP 

So now you know a little bit about how SEO can increase the number of visits to your website. And yes, while “quantity of visits” is certainly an objective — and an important one — you don’t want to focus solely on increasing your site visits. You want to make sure that those visits are quality visits; that the individuals coming to your site are coming there for the right reasons. It does your bank no good if your optimization efforts bring visitors to your site in search of furniture or computer equipment, right? High-quality traffic includes only visitors who are genuinely interested in the products, information, or other resources your site offers.

Now, for the short course in SEO.

Your time is valuable. Therefore, this isn’t intended to be a comprehensive course on SEO. Instead, this overview is designed to, hopefully, inspire you to investigate the possibilities of SEO further and use it to grow your customer base. To that end, we’ll briefly discuss the basics of SEO best practices. 

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO is the practice of optimizing elements on a website page in order to improve search engine ranking and visibility. While there are several, common on-page SEO practices, including optimizing title tags, content, internal links, and URLs, for purposes of this blog, let’s talk about content and the use of keywords as this is a fairly simple, straightforward practice that can be implemented quickly and easily.

Keywords are key

What are keywords? These are the high-volume, high-competition search terms for which you want to rank at the top of the SERPs. Here's a good way to easily figure out what your site's primary keywords are. Start by writing down the words that you think a customer might enter into a search in order to find your bank. The word “loans” for instance is a good start but you can’t stop there. Keywords can also be “phrases” or what’s called “long tail keywords.” If your bank is in Harrisburg, PA, for instance, and you offer more than one type of loan, you should consider long-tail keywords such as “auto loans Harrisburg.” If you can be even more specific with phrases such as “pre-approved auto loans Harrisburg,” that’s even better. Then, build these phrases into your site’s content.  Don’t “keyword stuff,” i.e., fill the page with keywords, as search engine algorithms will detect this and will lower your score as a result.

Link Building

Another central pillar of SEO is building your industry “authority, which is accomplished through what are called “backlinks.” What are they? A backlink is created when another website puts a link on their site that “backlinks” to yours.  Search engines like Google and Bing view this as a “vote of confidence,” if you will, in the content of your site. As long as the site linking back to yours is a good, trusted authority, your site could earn traffic and gain trust. The more backlinks on your site pages, the higher your site can rank on SERPs.

According to Backlink.com, “backlinks are one of the most important components of SEO because earning authoritative backlinks is one of the most critical factors considered by search engine algorithms,” which determine page rankings. What makes a high-quality backlink? Trust is a huge factor. If a quality website with an excellent reputation links to your site, that's an important vote of confidence. Conversely, if you only have sites that Google considers of low quality and “spammy,” a backlink to your bank’s site is not likely to do you much good. Another search engine algorithm consideration is popularity. Because Google views external links as “endorsements” of a site’s content, there is a strong correlation between sites with lots of quality backlinks and higher SERP rankings. Think of it this way. Who would you rather trust with a recommendation?  Someone you know and trust, or someone you don’t know at all? Search engines view links the same way. A few examples of good backlinks for a financial services site may include but are not limited to association memberships, local business groups, regulatory agencies, and major news sources; all which could further boost your site's reputation, so to speak, within search engines.

Like I said, there’s a lot to SEO, much more than we can cover here in a single blog. As a community bank, you need every tactic available to you to compete more effectively in the digital space.  And SEO is certainly one of them.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts.

About Bank Marketing Center

Here at BankMarketingCenter.com, our goal is to help you with that vital, topical, and compelling communication with customers; the messaging that — developed by banking industry marketing professionals, well trained in the thinking behind effective marketing communication — will help you build trust, relationships, and revenue. And with them, your brand. To view our marketing creative, both print and digital – ranging from product and brand ads to social media and in branch signage – visit bankmarketingcenter.com.  Or, you can contact me directly by phone at 678-528-6688 or email at nreynolds@bankmarketingcenter.com.

Just recently, I was fortunate enough to speak with one of the 22 state bankers associations with whom we partner as an endorsed vendor.

In case you’re not familiar with the endorsed vendor selection process, a vendor doesn’t simply enjoy permanent endorsed vendor status once selected. As new suppliers and technologies appear, the associations continually review their vendors to ensure that they are, in fact, the best organizations in their field.

As one of the state bankers associations we work with was conducting their vendor review, we talked a bit about what’s available to community banks in the field of marketing.

Interviewer: Neal, we’ve looked at the providers in your space and learned quite a bit.  We’d really love to share that learning with our members. Can we talk?

Reynolds: Absolutely and thanks for giving me the opportunity to address your members. We are committed to bringing community banks the best in marketing messaging, which is so critical, especially in the face of so many challenges. The competition for customers has become incredibly tough and we all recognize the important role that strategic, compelling, and relevant marketing messaging can play in the fight for market share.

Interviewer:  Neal, you mentioned that an organization – Canva – has found its way into some community banks and that this web-based template-building platform is being looked at as a low-cost alternative to BankMarketingCenter.com.

Reynolds: Yes, that’s true. But the real truth is that our services are very different. For starters, yes, a template-driven software application can make the creation of marketing products quick and easy. But as in everything in life, you get what you pay for, right? Can a template-driven design program like Canva apply the highly sophisticated principles of marketing that today’s marcomm messaging demands? Absolutely not. Sure, anyone can create a print ad or digital banner using a pre-built template, but what does Canva actually bring to the table? In the end, it is simply a tool, and as such, is only as effective as the marketing person whose hands it is in.

Interviewer:  So how is what you offer different? Aren’t the ads on your portal templates, too?

Reynolds:  No, they’re much more than that, and, in fact, this is the critical difference between what we offer and Canva templates. The difference, in a word, is thinking. We have a team of financial industry marketing professionals, with collective experience of about 6 decades, who are constantly researching financial industry trends, products, and services. Then, using their experience in the financial services space — community banking, in particular — they develop and add new, customizable creative to our library of content almost every day. And our layouts cover the full range of marketing materials, including direct mail, social media messaging, radio and print advertising, in-branch signage, statement stuffers, flyers, posters, and more. As far as our web-based platform is concerned, it doesn’t simply offer pretty templates for design. We put our clients in complete control of their marketing message development process, from concept to production via an easy-to-use interface. After a user logs into the BankMarketingCenter.com website, they can select an ad that most closely meets their needs and then customize it with their desired images, brand colors, logo, and copy. Like Canva, no design software or experience is needed; it’s a simple drag-and-drop process. But that is where the similarity ends. 

Interviewer:  How so?

Reynolds: Our portal can automatically insert their institution’s logo, address, and phone numbers in their ad, including the compliant logos for FDIC and Equal Housing. The portal then facilitates proofing of the ad, automatically routing it along a pre-determined compliance approval path. Another critical advantage of our portal over template apps is that each user has easy access to their order history, enabling them to track all the marketing materials that are produced. This is a huge benefit to financial institutions if and when, in a compliance review, they’re asked by regulators for access to their marketing materials.

Interviewer:  You also mentioned images and usage. 

Reynolds: Yes, that’s an important one and something else that your banks should know about. Here’s an example of what I’ve actually been seeing: banks are promoting their mobile banking with an image of an iPhone. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, does it? Well, Apple doesn’t see it that way. Apple states this pretty clearly in their Trademark Guidelines: “Only Apple and its authorized resellers and licensees may use the Apple Logo in advertising, promotional, and sales materials.” The problem is, service providers like Canva don’t protect you from this sort of thing and that’s because Canva doesn’t provide its own images. They utilize a third-party image resource. Here’s what that company’s website says about image usage. “While we have made reasonable efforts to correctly categorize, keyword, caption, and title the Stock Media, Canva does not warrant the accuracy of such information and Canva also does not warrant the accuracy of any metadata that may be provided with the Stock Media.” Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, does it?  BankMarketingCenter.com, on the other hand, offers millions of Getty Images and videos and we guarantee their use.  The last thing any bank needs is to find themselves in hot water over the illegal use of an image.

Interviewer:  Thanks very much for your time, Neal. We appreciate it. 

Reynolds:  Thank you for giving me the opportunity. I hope this helps your banks better understand what we can do for them.

About BankMarketingCenter.com

BankMarketingCenter.com is the leading provider of marketing materials to over 300 financial institutions and has received the endorsement of 22 state bankers associations. While the portal provides partner banks with professionally designed and written materials and offers the ease of a platform such as Canva, the company’s content is developed by experts with years of experience in both marketing and the financial industry.

The team at BankMarketingCenter.com is led by founder, Neal Reynolds, whose career began as an art director at world-renowned advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson in Chicago. After working on the advertising for world-class brands such as Oscar Mayer, Kraft and Ford, Neal opened the doors to his own shop in 1982 and 15 years ago, began developing the web-based marketing portal we now know as BankMarketingCenter.com.

I just recently read somewhere that if you’re a community bank and it takes a customer more than 3 minutes to open a retail deposit account or apply for a loan, then you’re losing that customer to challenger banks and money-center banks.

Of course, this way of thinking has been with us for years now. The “digital transformation” and how critical it is to the community bank’s survival is in the news daily, with bankers being constantly reminded that it they fail to offer a totally automated, lightning-fast online banking experience that they’ll surely find themselves on some substandard-digital-banking-experience scrap heap. Is this really where community banks should go? I mean, doesn’t this very notion of fully automated services, such as an under-three-minute account open or loan application process, fly in the very face of what community banking is all about?

Now, that’s not to say that community banks should ignore the data and rely totally on in-branch services. Of course, that doesn’t make any sense. But can a community bank remain a true community bank by encouraging people to rely more on automation and less on personal interaction?

American Banker’s February article, “5 trends sweeping digital banking now,’ provided us with some helpful charts and graphs so that we might better understand where banking is going in the digital age.

According to a Forrester report, adults surveyed said that they would much rather do their banking on their laptop or phone than visit with a person at a branch. Okay, I can accept that; we’ve been heading this way for a while.

Now, according to the above graph courtesy of Javelin, while adults would rather bank on their laptop or phone instead of in a branch, online banking is becoming a bit less popular — and mobile banking more popular — “as Gen Z consumers enter adulthood and reach for their smartphones for financial matters.” The American Banker article then goes onto say that while banking on phones is becoming more popular, the majority of people leave bank websites after looking at one page on their phone. “For bank customers, such a quick bounce would suggest a failed login, perhaps due to forgetting a password. To Mark Schwanhausser, Director of Digital Banking at Javelin, this data shows that banks need to put more effort into their mobile websites. Banks have done a good job making their websites and mobile apps useful for common banking chores, like monitoring balances and reviewing transactions. The next big challenge is to figure out how to make apps the go-to channel for financial matters that require more thought.”

Now, is that really a good idea for community banks? Don’t they already have a “go-to channel for financial matters that require more thought?” I believe it’s called a branch. Instead of trying to do a better job of distancing themselves from potential and existing customers by offering a “get-approved-in-less-than-3-minutes loan application, I think a better strategy might be to focus on the fact that they DON’T offer that kind of service. What happens to the community bank that does, in fact, leave those thoughtful banking decisions to a phone app? How does this make them more competitive with the challenger banks and money-center banks? Call me crazy, but to me, they’re losing a key differentiator. One, in fact, that defines who they are as a community bank. At that point, they’re not competing with the challenger banks… they’ve become one. Then good luck competing.

 About Bank Marketing Center

Here at BankMarketingCenter.com, our goal is to help you with that topical, compelling communication with customers; the messaging — developed by banking industry marketing professionals, well trained in the thinking behind effective marketing communication — that will help you build trust, relationships, and revenue. In short, build your brand.

To view our marketing creative, both print and digital – ranging from product and brand ads to in-branch brochures and signage, visit bankmarketingcenter.com.  Or, you can contact me directly by phone at 678-528-6688 or email at nreynolds@bankmarketingcenter.com.  As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again:  I’m not an economist. While I certainly look to the experts for information, more often than not I base my opinions on my own “empirical” experiences, i.e., what I observe. For purposes of this article, what I’ve been reading about and experiencing for myself, is the trend in home improvement spending. Now, we all know that home improvement spending has hit record highs over the last eighteen months; up in 2021 by 28% from 2020. The question is, will the gains in household spending continue, especially given the inflationary rise in household furnishings prices we’ve seen lately.

According to CNBC in their February 10 article, “Here is how Inflation is Hitting Everything You Buy for Your Home”:

• Floor coverings: 0.8% month over month, 7.2% year over year
• Window coverings: 1.8% month over month, 16.2% year over year
• Furniture/bedding: 2.4% month over month, 17% year over year
• Bedroom furniture: 1.8% month over month, 13.7% year over year
• Clocks, lamps and decorator items: 2.7% month over month, 6.3% year over year
• Living room/kitchen/dining room furniture: 2.2% month over month, 19.9% year over year
• Appliances: 1.5% month over month, 8.5% year over year

Sure, prices on home furnishings have gone up. But does that mean that folks are done spending on their homes?  I don’t think so. The article goes onto say that “People tend to upgrade home furnishings after they remodel” and we’re just now on the tail end of the greatest home remodeling era in history. To me, and this is proven out I believe by the foot traffic in home furnishings stores, we are now in a “post remodeling” home furnishings boom.

In late November of last year, Furniture Today made this prediction in an article entitled Spruce-up Splurge: “A new coat of paint, the addition of a piece of accent furniture, some updated wall art — it all adds up to become part of a larger redecorating budget for consumers, many of whom plan to spend between $2,000 and $4,999 on their home décor in a year’s time. Our study found that 26% of all respondents — with little variation by age group — plan to spend that amount over a 12-month period beginning in mid-2021. Another nearly 40% expected to commit between $500 and $1,999, again, fairly evenly distributed by generation. Meanwhile, at 11%, Baby Boomers are the most likely to ante $10,000 or more when sprucing up their homes.”

Building material retailers, furniture and home décor retailers, security system dealers… there’s a tremendous amount of money changing hands here. And while the hands accepting the cash represent a wide variety of service and product providers, they all have one thing in common:  It's really not “cash” that’s exchanging hands here. It’s credit.

The home furnishings store aisles are crowded not just with shoppers, but messaging around buy now, pay later programs. Go into any home décor store and you’ll see signs down every aisle, encouraging shoppers to make a purchase now (regardless of whether they can truly afford to or not) and not worry about paying for it until later. The Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) industry is booming, having generated nearly $100 billion in 2020, and projected to reach $3.98 trillion by 2030.

What does this mean for community banks?  Here at BankMarketingCenter.com, we believe that this is an opportunity for banks to build their business by offering their customers alternative financing… financing that would, for instance, help improve their credit score. That’s because, unbeknownst to many BNPL borrowers, these point-of-sale loans do not routinely appear on most credit reports. That means a good payment record on your buy now, pay later account won't help you build credit. Another “favor” you’re doing your customers?  The Financial Brand points out that “16% of users admit to having had regrets over BNPL purchases. Among the reasons: the purchase was ultimately too expensive; late fees were high; easy credit led to buying something not needed; and finding that some lenders’ policy of not putting BNPL deals through credit bureaus meant the debt did not build credit.”

Why not take this opportunity to let your customers know that you offer the kind of financing that truly makes sense and meets their needs?  Personal loans, for instance or better still, a HELOC, where they only pay interest on what they actually spend? If you’re a community bank and this appeals to you, the good news is that we’ve already created the messaging! All you need to do is visit our site to learn how you can easily customize it with your brand colors and logo, change the copy if you wish, and choose from the thousands of fee-free images we offer. You can do all of the above without any special software of any design skill whatsoever. Our financial industry marketing professionals have already done all of the work for you!

About Bank Marketing Center

Here at BankMarketingCenter.com, our goal is to help you with that topical, compelling communication with customers; the messaging — developed by banking industry marketing professionals, well trained in the thinking behind effective marketing communication — that will help you build trust, relationships, and revenue. In short, build your brand. To view our campaigns, both print and digital, visit BankMarketingCenter.com. Or, you can contact me directly by phone at 678-528-6688 or email at nreynolds@bankmarketingcenter.com.

Let me take you back, briefly, to my early days in “the business,” that being the advertising/marketing industry. As I’m sure you know by now, I started my career as an art director at J. Walter Thompson in Chicago.  Not to date myself or anything, but “back then,” as it were, we didn’t use computers.  For some of you younger folk, this may conjure up images of me commuting to work on horseback, but it wasn’t quite that long ago. In fact, computers didn’t come onto the ad agency scene until sometime, if memory serves, in the mid 1990s. So, in actuality it wasn’t that long ago.

Before working on computers, we did everything by hand.  We would literally “cut” type and paste it onto what was called a “mechanical.” We resized images using a stat camera in a darkroom and when the mechanicals were completed, they were sent out to an engraver, who then photographed them and sent the film to the publication for printing.

My point is this: While computers made our jobs easier, and we could be five times more productive, they didn’t make us better art directors.  Computers couldn’t teach us color science, the proper use of fonts, the art of composition, and they certainly couldn’t teach us how to think conceptually when developing a campaign for a client. The computer was just another tool… not unlike the relationship between a painter and their brush.

Ok so much for the “brief” history. I mention this because I see new technologies and “tools” coming online every day. Marketing automation is the big deal now. The goal seems to be to do more with less by using AI and machine learning… in place of human beings.

There’s only one problem.  Software doesn’t think (although we seem to be getting closer and closer to this all the time.). I look out at the template-based design software out there and I think of my early days. A computer is nothing more than a tool. Software companies that are selling “marketing messaging made easy” through off-the-shelf templates are no different. Can a template-driven design program apply Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to a print ad or digital banner, resulting in a message that truly resonates with an audience?  Not that I know of; at least not yet anyway.

If you don’t recall our blog from around last November, when we talked about Maslow, we mentioned him because in order to create truly effective, compelling marketing messaging, one must think like a marketer.  And you can’t do that if you’re not totally in tune with Maslow’s thinking.

Again, I’ll be brief!? Maslow was a 20th Century psychologist who figured out that each person has five levels of needs. He called this his “hierarchy of needs.” To illustrate this, he built a triangle. At the bottom of the triangle was the need for basics such as food and clothing. In the middle were safety and friendship. At the top was self-actualization. Why is this important to marketers? When we are developing the marketing messaging around our products, we want to talk to that audience at the very highest level of the triangle, and that’s because the higher up you go in the triangle the more important, and emotional, that level of need becomes. Food and shelter needs, for instance, can be easily met while understanding who you are and why you're on this planet is not so easy.

Marketers use Maslow's triangle because it helps us keep in mind that when we're talking to our customers about products and services, such as IRAs, CDs, and various types of accounts, we can’t simply talk to them in terms of how these products meet a basic need. Instead, we need to put those products and services in the context of those much more compelling, “top of the triangle” needs such as peace of mind, security, an enhanced quality of life…. Establishing a Living Trust isn’t just a way to protect your money… It's a means to provide for loved ones.  A loan isn’t simply a means to make a purchase. It can mean freedom, comfort, enjoyment.  That’s what our marketing messaging must be designed to do.

Yes, a template-driven software application can make the creation of marketing products quick and easy. And they’re usually priced accordingly; fairly inexpensive. But, they have nothing to offer in terms of the marketing “thinking.” Which means that whatever money one might save by using them was not a savings at all but instead a waste.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.

About Bank Marketing Center

Here at BankMarketingCenter.com, our goal is to help you with that topical, compelling communication with customers; the messaging — developed by banking industry marketing professionals, well trained in the thinking behind effective marketing communication — that will help you build trust, relationships, and revenue. In short, build your brand. To view our campaigns, both print and digital, visit BankMarketingCenter.com. Or, you can contact me directly by phone at 678-528-6688 or email at nreynolds@bankmarketingcenter.com.

What do bananas and baking soda have to do with bank marketing? I thought you would never ask. Let’s start with the bananas…

If I were to hold up a bunch of bananas and asked an audience what they were, most would probably agree they were bananas. But if I held up a green banana and asked the same audience how many would buy this particular banana, less than half would raise their hands. And if I held up a banana that had already turned dark, even fewer would probably want to buy this banana.

As you can see, we are not really selling bananas! We are selling banana skins. People buy bananas based on what the banana skin looks like. In light of this fact, a smart produce manager would market bananas in different ways, understanding that some people prefer ripe bananas, while others prefer green or darker bananas. Perhaps he could market the dark bananas alongside recipes for banana pudding and even place them next to the vanilla wafers. Maybe he could even add a headline like, “Ready for Grandma’s Banana Pudding?” He might market the green bananas to folks heading out on a vacation, with a headline like, “Traveling Bananas – they’ll be ripe when you get there!”

A good marketer can take a product that many people think of as one thing and sell it in different ways.

Now let’s talk about baking soda. This is a product that has been around for over a hundred years and there are thousands of ways to use it. A good marketer might list some of these many uses on the side of the package.

You can brush your teeth with it, put it in cat litter to eliminate odors, clean pots and pans with it, eliminate odors in the refrigerator, use it as an antacid, polish silver with it, or even clean batteries. That’s how baking soda was marketed for years. Then, one day a very smart marketer decided that he would put this same baking soda in a box with “Fridge-N-Freezer” on the front alongside a tagline that read, “30 days of freshness in every box.” He also decided to charge $.10 more per box. And guess what? People started paying $.10 more per box just to have a picture of a refrigerator on the front of the packaging! 

Then this very smart marketer decided that if people would pay more to have a picture of a refrigerator on the front of the box, they might pay even more to have a picture of a cat on the front. After all, people spend millions of dollars each year on their pets. They put a picture of a cat on the front of the box advertising it as “Cat Litter Deodorizer” with “Activated Baking Soda” and starting charging over one dollar more per box! (I love the tagline “Activated Baking Soda.” I wonder who would buy non-activated baking soda? I guess people are willing to pay more for their baking soda to be activated!) This proved to be so successful that before you knew it, baking soda was in every aisle of the grocery store with many different product names and profit margins ten times that of the old-fashioned baking soda in the plain old box.

This brings us to banking. I’m sure you are wondering; what do green bananas and baking soda have to do with banking? Well, it has everything to do with banking! For hundreds of years, banks have marketed and advertised themselves as plain old generic banks. A few got creative and started calling themselves community banks.

Throughout history, we have given our kids piggy banks for them to put their money in and taught them how to take it out only in a real emergency (when it was time to buy some candy!) Most of us have grown up believing that you put your money in a bank and the bank keeps it for you until you need it. Historically, banks advertised CDs and money market accounts to get us to put the money in the bank, and promoted car loans, mortgages, and home equity loans to lend it out – all while making a small margin in the middle.

But the last few years have changed all of this. Now is the time for a really smart marketer to apply the “green banana” concept to the banking industry. We need to realize that every individual and business has different banking needs. For example, a large apartment community collects dozens of checks every day throughout the month. And each day, the apartment manager leaves at noon to take the checks to the bank and go to lunch. But before they go to the bank, they make copies of the checks and fax them back to headquarters to let them know which residents have paid their rent. Some apartment managers might decide to collect the checks and make a daily run to the bank. 

Both solutions are inefficient. A smart bank marketing manager would target those apartment communities with personalized and customized marketing materials that explain how their bank can eliminate the pain of copying checks, faxing checks, and going to the bank every day to deposit them. These marketing messages would talk about the many benefits of remote deposit capture, ACH, and Lock Box services, for example, and even include the apartment community’s name or logo. A smart marketer could even create an additional piece targeting the apartment community’s corporate headquarters, making them aware of the potential liabilities of having their managers driving around town with thousands of dollars at any given time. This marketing piece would also discuss the many benefits of remote deposit capture and how managers, if they utilized this service, they would be able to see images of the actual checks instead of faxed copies. And even more importantly, deposits could be made in minutes without requiring anyone to leave the property.

And, of course, customers utilizing remote deposit capture are a prime candidate for online bill pay and e-statements. In fact, that same smart marketer could develop an “Apartment Banking” product line that promotes all the bank’s services that an apartment community could use. They could even buy the web domain name ApartmentBanking.com for $9.99 to promote their apartment banking products. (This name is still available, but you’d better hurry!)

The bottom line is this: There is no reason you can’t have an Apartment Banking product – just like you can have “Cat Litter Baking Soda.” And this doesn’t just apply to apartment communities. You can target different industries with this same concept. Find out what each industry needs that is unique and position your products around them. Sure, your bank can work with any industry, but you’ll get more business – and possibly better margins – by positioning and marketing yourself in different “aisles.”

About Bank Marketing Center

Here at BankMarketingCenter.com, our goal is to help you with that vital, topical, and compelling communication with customers; messaging that will help you build trust, relationships, and revenue. In short, build your brand. To view our campaigns, both print and digital, visit BankMarketingCenter.com. Or, you can contact me directly by phone at 678-528-6688 or email at nreynolds@bankmarketingcenter.com.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.

Good news for some of us old-school marketers… direct mail is back!  Unless you’re a recent college grad, you probably grew up with direct mail, as did I.  I don’t know exactly why, but DM holds a special place in my heart; and not just from creating it in my agency days, but from receiving it, too. There’s something about finding “stuff” in my mailbox, even if and when it’s not a personal letter, but an oversized postcard good for 20% off at my favorite retailer.

I think, and I could be wrong I suppose, that most people feel the same way that I do when it comes to getting mail. You know why? It shows commitment. Whether, as I said, a personal letter, a postcard, flyer, or a FSI (Free Standing Insert), the message with mail is that someone (or in many cases, some company), took the time, made the effort, and spent the money to reach out.

So, is DM back? Well, the facts seem to say so. At least according to Vox, and the Small Business Administration it is. “Direct Mail is Hot Again,” tells us why and how. “Print magazines are fading, more and more bills are paid online, and many brands have scaled back on printed catalogs, preferring to funnel resources into website upkeep and social media instead. Yet over the last few years, brands — including hot, digitally savvy, direct-to-consumer ones like Casper, Harry’s, Wayfair, Rover, Quip, Away, Handy, and Modcloth — have taken to targeting customers in the mail.”

Why do these disruptive, online-first companies want to be our old school pen pals? The rise of young, digital brands spending money to mail us stuff speaks to the cyclical progress of shopping trends. A decade ago, companies looking to reach customers would often buy email addresses from third parties. They’d do giveaways and, if existing customers handed over their family and friends’ email addresses, they’d offer discounts too.

In “8 Reasons why Direct Mail is More Effective than Email, Xerox makes this case for direct mail: “The latest data makes a strong case for printed direct mail. Sure, social media and mobile marketing are on the rise. But that doesn’t mean that customers aren’t responding to direct mail or that this channel is losing its effectiveness.” Unlike email, direct mail doesn’t require an opt-in, which means you’re not hamstrung by a third-party email list, or the challenge or getting recipients to opt into your marketing messaging. Direct mail never goes to “spam.” Direct mail tends to stick around in places where it can be seen. Although you may think that people stand over the trash bin when going through their mail, that’s not the case in workplaces. Xerox says that a direct mail piece can hang around someone’s desk for weeks and, more often than not, is read more than once. Direct mail doesn’t need to compete with an inbox filled with hundreds of messages. Most importantly, direct mail appears to lend itself well to B2B messaging, such as financing. “Mailers," says Xerox, “can also include a wide variety of trust-building content not possible (or reasonable) to include in email. Plus, there are only so many things you can do to make email look more important; beyond writing a compelling subject line, for instance, there is not a whole lot. Direct mail offers options like kits, dimensional mail, and unique packaging options that, by their nature, get attention.”

Does DM work?  It certainly does, according to this success story recently recounted in an ABA Bank Marketing article on direct mail best practices. “Consider this example from Liberty Bank attracting new movers to open deposits. Prospects were located in neighborhood settings outside of Chicago, two miles from each branch. A big challenge was conveying to millennials that a smaller bank like theirs could do just as much (and more) as the larger, bigger name banks. On the back of the postcard are printed ATM locations close to the resident’s home. Within four months, Liberty established dozens of new accounts and within five years, revenue from the new mover campaign is estimated at $90,000.” 

Back to what I said earlier. It’s not just the information you convey. Recipients like me, whether conscious of it or not, appreciate the commitment that the sender made to put a DM package together. Give it a try. I bet that your recipients will feel the same way. 

About Bank Marketing Center

Here at BankMarketingCenter.com, our goal is to help you with that vital, topical, and compelling communication with customers; messaging that will help you build trust, relationships, and revenue. In short, build your brand. To view our campaigns, both print and digital, visit BankMarketingCenter.com. Or, you can contact me directly by phone at 678-528-6688 or email at nreynolds@bankmarketingcenter.com.

 As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.

April is Financial Literacy Month, a time when we recognize the importance of financial literacy. If you recall, we talked about this last year, and the disturbing fact that for too many Americans, a solid understanding of how to manage their money is simply beyond their grasp. Since then, even more economic pressures have been applied to American families as we move first from an economy devastated by a pandemic to an economy devastated not only by inflation, but by a war in Eastern Europe, as well. At no other time, in recent history at least, has a thorough understanding of money management been more essential. As you can imagine, there is no better time than the coming months, when the focus will be on financial literacy, to talk about the importance of sound money management. 

It starts with our children

According to the Council for Economic Education, fewer than a third of the high schools in the U.S. require high school students to take a personal finance class in order to graduate. And one in five 15-year-olds in the U.S. lacks basic financial literacy, according to the Program for International Student Assessment, as outlined in a US News and World Report article, “8 Scary Financial Statistics and How to Avoid Becoming One,” Concepts such as student loans, interest rates, qualifying for a mortgage, credit, and balancing a checkbook are proving to be foreign concepts to many Americans. Studies conducted by the FINRA Education Foundation have revealed disturbing facts such as this one:  “Americans demonstrate relatively low levels of financial literacy and have difficulty applying financial decision-making skills to real life situations. Study participants were asked five questions covering aspects of economics and finance encountered in everyday life. 66% of those surveyed are unable to answer more than three of the five questions correctly.”  To add to the bad news, another study by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling® (NFCC®) reveals that only two in five U.S. adults have a budget and follow it. 

What happens when young people do not achieve a good foundational understanding of money management?  They become the elderly Americans who are not prepared for retirement, of which there is an absolutely staggering number. According to a pre-COVID 19 survey done by the Federal Reserve Board, around 40% of U.S. adults do not have enough money in their savings account to cover a $400 emergency or household expense. That financial situation has, unfortunately, worsened for many Americans.

Given the uncertain economic times we now face, and we could face tough times for quite some time, it’s critical that young people know how to earn, save, invest, and spend their money.  And as a financial institution, the lessons you help their parents teach will benefit them (your customers), their children (your future customers) and, therefore, your bottom line. By providing your customers with just a few of the basic tools that they can use to educate their children in financial literacy, you can enhance your brand image while helping your future customers better understand, and value, the products and services you offer.

Since bankers are experts in the principles of money management, being involved in consumer education programs is a natural fit for them. Bankers are stepping up, and must continue to do so, in communities nationwide to participate with financial literacy programs that are directed towards younger children, high school students, adults, as well as senior citizens and those with limited access to financial services. This is especially critical in community bank areas where many individuals are either unbanked or under-banked.

One example of stepping up is the Oregon Bankers Association, or the OBA, is pleased to have provided a Financial Education Resource Guide for teachers, bankers, and the general public. Here they provide the tools for managing all aspects of financial life - from creating a budget to managing your credit and protecting your identity. By setting up a time to go into schools you can give students and faculty information about financial literacy. And, help promote your bank.

Want to Get Involved? Please do!

You don’t have to be a legislator, educator or finance guru to get involved in Financial Literacy Month. Any bank can help educate the public about financial literacy at any time. This movement can help bring awareness to the problem lacking financial literacy among our children and young adults.

About Bank Marketing Center

If you're looking for ways to promote financial literacy in your bank, please let us know; we have just what you need! Here at BankMarketingCenter.com, our goal is to help you with that vital, topical, and compelling communication with customers; messaging that will help you build trust, relationships, and revenue. In short, build your brand. To view our campaigns, both print and digital, visit BankMarketingCenter.com. Or, you can contact me directly by phone at 678-528-6688 or email at nreynolds@bankmarketingcenter.com.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.