BankMarketingCenter

Newly released Federal Trade Commission data shows that consumers reported losing nearly $8.8 billion to fraud in 2022, an increase of more than 30% over the previous year. Who are some of the most inventive fraudsters? P2P payment scammers. 

Peer-to-peer (P2P) payment services and money transfer apps like Cash App, Venmo, PayPal, and Zelle, are becoming more popular because of their convenience and, for the most part, their reliability. Users can add funds to their account by linking it to an existing checking account or debit card. This allows funds to be transferred directly to the user’s bank account. It also allows funds from the user’s bank account to be transferred to their payment app. Today, according to LendingTree®, more than 8 in 10 consumers have used a P2P payment service to make a financial transaction.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Well, not always. With more than 2 billion people worldwide using P2P payment services, cyber criminals have developed plenty of ingenious ways to profit through scams. Here are a few of the more popular ones making their way around P2P services:

• Posing as customer support: Scammers take advantage of users by posing as employees and reaching out via direct message or phone.
• Offering expensive goods: Scammers offer expensive — but fictitious — goods or services in return for payment. It’s a scam.
• Random deposits: You wake up to find an unexpected deposit in your account and the sender, who sent it by accident, would simply like it returned. This, too, is a scam.
• Claim your prize: Users may be contacted with claims of fabulous cash prizes. But in order to receive the prize, they must first send money. Guess what? Scam.
• SSN request: Anyone asking for a user’s Social Security number is almost certainly a scammer. Never give anyone your SSN.
• Government relief payments:  Scammers pose as government agents, offering the promise of cash in the form of a government grant or relief program. This type of scam can look quite legitimate. A dead giveaway?  You’ll be asked for personal banking information.
• Cash flippers: Scammer claims to be able to “flip” your funds. Cash flipping scammers will usually ask for a small sum, something to the tune of $5 or $10, which they will claim they can flip into multiple times the amount. Of course, they never do.
• Bad romance: Scammer reaches out with romantic promises of expensive dates and lavish gifts, but there’s a catch. You have to send money first. Maybe for plane fare to meet in person. In any event, it never happens.
• Phishing emails: A classic scam, phishing scammers will send a legitimate-looking email to trick you into verifying your login credentials or to click a malicious link that steals your information.
• Fake security alerts: Similar to phishing emails, some scammers may send a fraudulent email claiming that your account was compromised, and your personal information has been leaked. Scammers often include links to fake websites in emails that prompt you to change your login credentials. Never share your login credentials.

Unfortunately, P2P scams are on the rise and they’re hard to stop. And there’s a very good chance that many of your customers aren’t fully aware of the dangers; which is why we’ve created these Scam Alert campaigns. Use your social media platforms to get the message out to your customers that scams are very real, very dangerous and, if they become a victim of one, very expensive.

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 social media and in branch signage – visit bankmarketingcenter.com.  You can also contact me directly by phone at 678-528-6688 or via email at nreynolds@bankmarketingcenter.com.  As always, I would love your thoughts on the subject.

Whether you’re a fast-food restaurant, an online retailer, a local financial institution, or any kind of business in between, this is something you should give serious thought: always under promise and over deliver. By that, I mean that if you’re out in the marketplace promising to deliver on a product or service, it’s really, really important that you make good on that promise. Do I sound, perhaps, a bit frustrated by an experience I may have had recently? If you guessed “yes,” you’d be correct. And it was with my local bank.

As you know, I’m a marketing guy, so for me, everything harkens back to marketing. So, when I had a rather disappointing experience with my community bank, the first thing that came to mind was marketing. Here’s what happened…

It began with the excitement I felt when I saw — through the bank’s marketing, mind you — that this particular institution was offering CDs at pretty good rates. (P.S.: Another “kicker” here is that the CD rates at other banks were even more attractive, but two things compelled me to choose my community bank. 1) I already have an account at this bank and 2) I am a firm believer in supporting local businesses, including my local bank.

So, for the above-stated reason number one, I figured that opening a CD account would be quick and easy… as advertised, by the way.  As you probably imagine, it wasn’t.

Now, in addition to being a marketing guy and business owner, I consider myself a patient man… for the most part. Well, if there were ever a test of patience, this was it. Since I’d like to keep this blog to less than 2,000 words, I won’t go into much detail on what these forms required, although I’m happy to provide here a short list of those I was required to fill out. Mind you, some of these forms are multiple forms:

• Privacy Notice
• E-statement
• All About Your Deposit Account
• New Account Application
• Corporate Resolution
• Beneficial Ownership
• Certificate of Deposit

To complicate things even more and frustrate me even further, some of these forms required a “wet signature, which I had no knowledge of until I googled it: “A wet signature requires some type of pen, usually filled with black ink, or a stamp with your initials, signature, or other approved seal. To create a wet ink signature simply sign a printed or photocopied document in cursive, initial, or stamp the document in the designated spaces.”

Okay, so now… not only was I not getting this accomplished via the ease of an online application (with, granted, way too many forms), but now I was expected to, I gather, go into a retail branch and sign these forms with “some type of pen, usually filled with black ink.” And I certainly don’t have any “stamp with my initials” laying around the house; after all, I’m not a member of the Royal Family.

Now, am I casting aside my local bank forever over this? No, I’m not just a patient man, but I’m a loyal one, too. Am I going to go elsewhere and open a CD?  No. The process might be much quicker and easier at another bank. I don’t know for sure and I’m not really interested in finding out. I do know this: if banks want to market and sell products, they really need to find a way to make it easy for individuals to purchase and use them. At the very least, in a digital age where we can order a car from the comfort of our couch, and have it delivered to our home in just a matter of days, we should be able to open a CD account without driving to a bank branch and “wet signing” a pile of documents. At the very least, make it easy for people like me who — and I can hardly believe I’m saying this, but — want to give you my money!

Back to the marketing piece of this. Until that day comes, when opening a CD account is quick and painless, for instance, I think that banks need to make sure that they can deliver on their marketing. I.e., under promise and over deliver. In my long career in marketing, I’ve seen this happen too many times. There are few things more damaging to a brand, from a marketing perspective, than promising a service that you can’t deliver. 

I would like to end this on a happy note. If you want a good laugh reading about companies that over promised and under delivered, check this out cheapism.com. I’m sure you’ll see some familiar names… not because of their success, obviously!

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 social media and in branch signage – visit bankmarketingcenter.com.  You can also contact me directly by phone at 678-528-6688 or via email at nreynolds@bankmarketingcenter.com. As always, I welcome your thoughts on the subject. 

Earth Day is almost here, a good time to be thinking about what we can all do to help protect our planet. And if you’re a community bank, a good time to be thinking about how you can talk about Earth Day in your marketing messaging. After all, Earth Day and all that comes with it — in the way of environmental and social responsibility — has become a pretty big deal of late. Of course, you don’t have to take just my word for it…

According to fintechtimes.com, over two thirds (67 per cent) of consumers want their bank or financial institution to become more sustainable in the future. Nearly half (48 per cent) stated that access to green financial services has become more important to them in the last five years. Just two in five (42 per cent) think that their current bank or financial institution clearly communicates its sustainability commitments. And more than two thirds (67 per cent) believe that their current financial institution is guilty of greenwashing.

These are pretty disconcerting numbers. Granted, people have always been concerned about whether or not the companies they spend money with do business in a way that aligns with their values. We also know that the American consumer’s focus on environmental concerns has increased exponentially over just the last few years. The question now becomes, what are community banks willing (and able) to do about it?

I read this out on NerdWallet:

What impact does my bank have on the environment? You may be thinking, “I don’t invest in deforestation or fossil fuels, so my money aligns with my environmental values already.” But did you know that if you keep money in a bank account, your bank can lend it out to or invest in industries whose practices negatively impact the environment? Quite a few major banks put a lot of money toward these industries — some banks spent close to $100 billion each from 2016 to 2020 — and you might not know that your cash is part of the process.

-   NerdWallet, “How to go greener with sustainable banking,” April 22, 2022 

Visit bankrate.com, and you’ll find tips on how to bank in a way that protects our environment. Or, go to Bank.Green, where you’ll find this headline on their site’s homepage: “Is your money being used to fund climate chaos?” The site also gives banks a “funding the climate crisis” rating. I typed in the name of a West Coast bank just for fun and this is what the site told me: “Your money is being used to fund the climate crisis at an alarming rate. Your bank is one of the 60 biggest funders of fossil fuels in the world.”  Wow.

Needless to say, it has become increasingly important for companies to trumpet their environmental and social responsibility practices and accomplishments. But they must do so carefully. Those that do must be able to, well, “walk the walk and talk the talk.” With the increasing number of regulatory crackdowns on greenwashing, banks are finding themselves vulnerable to probes and penalties over exaggerated or misrepresented sustainability statements; and those penalties can be quite burdensome, financially. As recently as this past May, for instance, the SEC charged BNY Mellon Investment Adviser, Inc. for misstatements and omissions about Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) considerations. To settle the charges, the company agreed to pay a $1.5 million penalty.

So, are you ready for Earth Day? What are you currently doing in the way of sustainable practices? Are you supporting organizations and businesses that are environmentally friendly? Moving away from paper to digital? When you do use paper, or plastic, is it recycled? Do you employ green practices at your branch locations, i.e., using energy saving equipment and lighting? Using cleaning products and methods that are eco-friendly? There are hundreds of ways that local banks can adopt sustainable business practices, and now is the time to do it, if you haven’t already. Sustainability is not just a fad that will simply go away at some point. No, it’s here to stay. 

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. Like these campaigns, for example, that banks can use to promote the steps they’re taking to help protect Mother Earth.

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.  You can also contact me directly by phone at 678-528-6688 or via email at nreynolds@bankmarketingcenter.com. As always, I welcome your thoughts on the subject.

If you’re anything like me and try to stay abreast of the latest bank marketing “happenings,” innovations, trends, etcetera, you’re probably just as tired as I am of reading about “digital transformation” and all that comes with it. You know, I get it.

I get that we in the banking community need to worry about cyberattacks; that the compliance landscape is changing every day; that we need to improve our “omnichannel customer experience;” that we’ll surely go out of business if we don’t figure of out how to compete with our digitally-savvy, loosely regulated nonbank competitors. And that is just the tip of the “innovate now or die” iceberg of threats that face financial institutions, especially smaller, local community banks.

Sure, tech innovations are hard. They’re also costly, time consuming, and disruptive. But, they’re also necessary. Finding the right tech partner and a solution that will solve at least some of the challenges banks now face is not easy. It’s certainly challenging to address a more demanding online customer, the growing threat of ransomware cyberattacks, costly data breaches, and building a “digital CX” that can compete with not just nonbanks and neobanks, but retailers, as well.  And how do you get everyone to agree on what your tech stack needs, especially when technologies, the marketplace, the regulatory requirements, and the threats to personal customer data are not only growing every day, but evolving, as well?

My point is this: Given all of the hullabaloo about digital transformation and all of above, it’s easy to lose sight of what I think is the big picture. I’m sure you’re familiar with the saying, “you cannot see the forest for the trees.” It means that a person or organization cannot see the big picture because the focus is too much on the details. I’m starting to think that, perhaps, we’re losing sight of the forest because we’re too focused on the trees. What is “the forest” here? For community banks, it is their brand, their reputation, their USP (Unique Selling Proposition, in marketing terms). The “trees” are the tech-driven “enhancements” we are told banks need to invest in in order to survive. The result? Community banks are forgetting that, at the end of the day, they are about community.

When it comes to leveraging that USP, in my mind no bank does it better than Citizens Bank of Edmond. Is this surprising to many (or frankly, any) of you? Probably not. Citizens Bank of Edmond has been on stage for quite a while now, due in no small part, as you know, to the leadership of Jill Castilla. This from the bank’s website and it’s absolutely true: “Under Jill's leadership, the one-branch community bank in an Oklahoma City suburb became a major player on the national stage and now sits alongside banking industry heavyweights.”

Now, I have no intention of diving deeply into what makes Citizens the community bank to emulate. There are probably a number of reasons and I’m not going to go into them here. What I do want to focus on is the bank’s “community-ness.”  Go to their website (click here), but please come back after your visit!  What do you see, first thing?  “Citizens Bank of Edmond Celebrates 120 Years of Serving the Edmond Community.”  Scroll down the home page and you’ll learn about the events that the bank supports, the community organizations, as well as the local businesses it supports. Ironically, and quite sensibly in my opinion, you actually need to do a bit of surfing around to learn about their products and services.

Now, I’m not suggesting that banks ignore their need to “transform” digitally. It needs to happen. But, with tech decisions being hard to make, and often — subsequently — taking a fair amount of time, banks should not lose sight of the transformation (if needed) that they can make right now.  And that is to take full advantage of what makes them unique… and valuable; their community-ness. Of course, we’re always here to help, with campaigns like this one that will remind your customers, and potential customers, that banking locally is what it’s all about.

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 social media and in branch signage – visit bankmarketingcenter.com.  You can also contact me directly by phone at 678-528-6688 or via email at nreynolds@bankmarketingcenter.com.  As always, I welcome your thoughts on the subject.

Why is digital asset management important?  First, how does one define a digital asset?

Digital assets can be defined as any content that can be stored digitally. In today’s rapidly evolving digital climate — for banks, in particular, as they navigate the age of the enhanced digital experience — there’s no limit to what a digital asset can be.

Consider the types of files and assets that are routinely created and shared across your organization. The marketing team, for example, creates and collaborates on print ads, social media content, videos, infographics, white papers, and much, much more. And if they’re working with third-party vendors or providers, you want the content they’re creating to be easily accessible. But only to those who should have access.

So why a DAM solution? Canto.com says: “51% of marketers waste time and money recreating unused or missing assets. Effective digital asset management requires companies to organize and govern every digital file in their media ecosystem.  Everyone can relate to spending too much time looking for a single file. This is the case for most companies operating without a DAM solution.” A digital asset management solution gives your team the ability to create, manage, publish, and share content with anyone inside or outside your organization. 

1. Compliance, security, and consistency

Brandfolder.com reminds us that “customers are more likely to purchase from a brand they recognize and because of this, Fortune 500 companies make a proactive effort to maintain brand consistency in their marketing and advertising campaigns.” Maintaining and communicating a brand identity is easier when you have a DAM platform. You can restrict access to legacy files — ensuring that only the most up-to-date assets are accessible — with the result that only those assets that meet brand and compliance standards can be accessed and shared. For example, once your creative team has finished creating an asset that meets brand and compliance standards, they can streamline production (while safeguarding compliance) by saving the layout as a template in the DAM system. As time goes on, approved users can make changes, share the changes for review, and add comments to the file, to name just a few

In order to streamline a bank’s marketing messaging around mortgage loans, for instance, the DAM platform facilitates the sharing of mortgage lending materials with only those members of the lending team who are designated to collaborate. When the lending officer logs in, the platform can be configured to present only mortgage marketing materials and will enter the individual’s personal information automatically. Brand and industry regulation compliance are never issues. Speaking of compliance, when it comes to regulators, a DAM solution is exactly what you need when they decide to pay you a visit.

2. Time and dollars wasted

Without a DAM solution, digital assets are rarely managed properly. In many cases, the wrong people are using the wrong assets at the wrong time. A DAM system establishes workflows, manages access, and streamlines the approval process so the right files get into the right hands.

If your team is spending precious time searching for mislabeled or disappearing assets, that’s time lost focusing on growing and scaling your business. In addition, your team may also be missing out on the opportunities presented by the repurposing of content. As important as freshness of content is to Google algorithms when it comes to ranking your content on SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages), you can still (and absolutely should) be repurposing your content instead of “starting from scratch” with every new marketing asset.

Plus, the importance of quick and easy access to approved assets cannot be overemphasized.  Today’s highly competitive and evolving marketplace demands a marketing department’s ability to “shoot at the ducks while they’re there,” that is, to respond quickly and turn on a dime when necessary.

3. Free your team for other critical functions

Lastly and probably most importantly, a digital asset management system frees the members of your marketing team to perform other critical functions.  A DAM solution does much more than enable sharing, uphold brand and compliance standards, and enhance your ability to respond to marketplace shifts. It allows your team to focus less on managing your marketing messaging assets and more time taking a hard look at messaging performance and learning from it. Sure, developing and placing strategic, relevant content is important, but knowing how and why it’s working (or not) is even more important. A DAM solution gives your team time to monitor KPIs, better understand your current and potential customers, and apply that learning to future campaigns.

To sum up, we here at bankmarketingcenter.com know exactly how critical a DAM platform is to a bank’s marketing department. That’s why we created one!

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 vital, topical, and compelling communication with customers; messaging developed by banking industry marketing professionals, well trained in the development of effective marketing communication, that will help you build trust, relationships, and revenue. And with them, your brand. Like the below “Internal Awards” ads, for instance, recently added to our library of content. 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.  You can also contact me directly by phone at 678-528-6688 or via email at nreynolds@bankmarketingcenter.com. 

#bankmarketing #communitybankmarketing #CRM #assetmanagement #digitalassetmanagement

If you’re one of those individuals who’s a firm believer in the old saying, “you get what you pay for,” well, here’s a heaping helping of humble pie. It’s called Google Analytics.

We all know that if you want to run any sort of business, you need a website. Your website is one of those top-of-the-funnel marketing tactics that, by providing a visitor with content that clarifies their questions, expounds on their problem, and introduces them to a potential solution, will hopefully set them on their “buyer journey” or “path to purchase.” That’s great. Thanks to your website, you have a potential customer who has learned something about your business and is now, ideally, ready to take the next step; that is, to learn more by stepping further down the funnel and engaging in a podcast or webinar, for instance, or downloading a white paper.

The not-so-great piece of the story is that not every visitor will do that. Some will. Some may, instead, simply surf a few pages and leave. Some may not even do that; they may leave right after they land on your home page. Building and maintaining a website is, dare I say it… useless, if you can’t understand what your site visitors do once they arrive and why.

For this, you need analytics. You see, your website is far more than a marketing tactic, a mere messaging machine. Sure, it informs visitors and, if built properly — taking UX, the User Experience, in mind — can do what we talked about earlier… put people on the path to purchase. But, a site can do much more, though.  It can tell you things.

Google, to no surprise, is at the forefront of implementing and expanding upon the uses of technology while making it more accessible to, and manageable for, its users. And web analytics is no exception. While your visitors are learning about your business via your website, you’re learning about them via Google Analytics.

Google describes their web analytics platform as “a service that tracks and reports website traffic and gives you the free tools you need to analyze data for your business in one place, so you can make smarter decisions.”  Yes, it does all that… and more.

Using Google Analytics, you can understand your site users, enabling you to better grasp the effectiveness of your marketing content. Google's unique insights and machine learning capabilities help you to make the most of your data, and connect your insights to deliver better business results. Not to mention, all of this “stuff” is FREE. Yes, FREE. There are many other web analytic tools out there that extend a trial period followed by a subscription, or a one-time charge. Others offer services with conditions, such as free for a specific number of tracked users or free for self-hosted users. With Google Analytics, you get the quality service without the hefty price tag... and without conditions or limitations. 

Now, if we were talking about anybody but Google, you might be tempted to wonder just how good their analytics product is, given that it’s free. But you’re not, are you? We all know Google. They don’t make any Edsels. Their analytics product offers the same features as competing web analytic services which we really shouldn’t name, such as A—- Analytics, Mix—--, or Mat—.

What can analytics teach you?

To further assist in making your website a more effective marketing tool, Google Analytics can measure internal site searches and tell  you what potential customers are looking for within your website. This can help you improve the ease with which visitors access information across all of your site pages.  For example, analytics can tell you how many visitors leave your website after viewing only one page. This information is incredibly valuable in that it can demonstrate a need for refining your navigation or homepage design, which can then increase your site's ease of use and performance.

The Audience section of Google Analytics provides insights into visitor traits and behaviors. It can tell you the age, gender, interests, devices, and location of those who accessed your website. Understanding your audience is critical for a host of reasons, not the least of which is knowing which social media platforms to target. Knowing which platforms are driving visitors to your site can assist you in optimizing the dollars you spend on social media marketing, as well as the type of content you create for your customers. Creating the right kind of content can be just the catalyst you need to increase traffic to your website and raise your rankings in SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages). An understanding of what content on your website is gaining the most views and shares is critical to the development of future content in order to ensure that it is topical, relevant, and motivating to your customers.

Google Analytics automatically collects data for you, saving you valuable time; no more inputting data into spreadsheets or documents and moving them back and forth. You can then download your data into one of the many report templates they offer, or your very own customized report template with the dimensions and metrics you’d like to see. Like other Google services, Google Analytics can also be streamlined to be accessible via multiple devices, including your laptop, desktop computer, tablet, or phone. It can also communicate with other Google apps seamlessly, like Google AdWords, to provide you with actionable insights and increase the success of your AdWords Campaigns. 

Lastly, Google Analytics can help you see how your business is growing and expanding based on how customers visiting your website are meeting predetermined goals such as making a purchase, requesting a quote, or subscribing to a newsletter. You can also assign a number of goals that will help you to track the customer’s journey through your website based on their actions. For example, if your goal is for customers to make a purchase and sign up for your monthly newsletter, you may include this in your analytics report to see where you can address any deficits that may exist.  

In short, you can't beat the value of Google Analytics as a tool that can help you maintain a more effective web presence AND build your business.  And you certainly can't beat the price.

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 vital, topical, and compelling communication with customers; messaging developed by banking industry marketing professionals, well trained in the development of effective marketing communication, that will help you build trust, relationships, and revenue. And with them, your brand. Like the below “Fraudulent Activity” ads, for instance, recently added to our library of content.

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.  You can also contact me directly by phone at 678-528-6688 or via email at nreynolds@bankmarketingcenter.com.  #bankmarketing #communitybankmarketing #websiteanalytics #googleanalytics

Author Flannery O’Connor once said, “a good man is hard to find.”  Well, you can certainly add “a good woman” to that. I’m, of course, talking about male and female employees. These days they’re terribly difficult to find and, believe it or not, even more difficult to keep. Check this out from Shrm.org’s “Job openings, quits hold near record high”: While employers are offering higher wages to attract talent, many on the sidelines are unmoved: the gap between job openings and available workers remained at 5.5 million in April, or about two jobs for every unemployed worker. The last 13 consecutive months—since June 2021—have seen more than 4 million workers quit. April marks the 11th consecutive month that more than 4 million workers left their jobs. Shrm.org goes on to tell us that “the wave of quitting signals that workers feel comfortable enough, amid record-high openings, to switch jobs in pursuit of better pay or working conditions.”

Of course, just like the old adage about customers — that it's 6-7 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to keep one —replacing employees is expensive. Indeed.com tells us in “Estimating the high cost of Employee Turnover,” that “employee turnover costs employers about 33% of an employee’s annual salary.” This cost comes from factors such as advertising, screening, interviewing, onboarding, lost productivity, and more. 

Besides upping the salary stakes in order to attract and retain top talent, what can employers like small community banks do? Experts say that successful cultures — ones that are conducive to attracting and retaining top talent — have certain “personality traits” and that to develop these traits, leaders need to:

• Strengthen the relationships between coworkers
• Give team members maximum exposure to leadership
• Enhance their skills and abilities so they feel like they are true experts in their field
• Communicate objectives and paths to their achievement clearly and often so that they see success as attainable
• Engage with team members on their future goals and help them chart a path forward

Here’s something even easier. Use your social media platforms.  

I know well from personal experience (don't we all??) that effective communication, opportunities for development, and an environment of mutual respect and collaboration are all essential to retaining the “best of the best.” But never forget the power of praise; a few kind words can go a very long way.  And, social marketing platforms are the ideal media for those kind words.  

Many of our banks are extremely active in this regard and I suspect that, as a result, their associates feel pretty good about where they’re working. As Sir Richard Branson has said: “Clients do not come first. Employees come first.” And, well, as far as I can tell he seems to have had some pretty good success with that.

Here are just a few examples of the more popular topics that our client banks are using social for:

• Recruiting
• Birthdays
• Anniversaries (and nothing says “this is a great place to work" better than a multi-decade anniversary post)
• Recognitions for advanced certifications received
• Awards and achievements (both professional and personal)
• Congratulating employees for their commitment to community organizations and volunteer groups

I’ve also seen posts that don’t take themselves quite so seriously, such as acknowledging the employee with the biggest smile, or “Today’s Best Dressed Employee.” As you can imagine, social media posts that focus on your associates also go a long way with potential employees… and customers. They reinforce that brand perception that is so important to small banks; that unlike the big national, you’re a neighborhood institution that is trusted and knowledgeable, and that you take a personal interest in the people who bank with you.  And to think you can accomplish all of this… with just a few social posts! 

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 vital, topical, and compelling communication with customers; messaging developed by banking industry marketing professionals, well trained in the development of effective marketing communication, that will help you build trust, relationships, and revenue. And with them, your brand. Like the below “Internal Award” ads, for instance, recently added to our library of content. 

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.  You can also contact me directly by phone at 678-528-6688 or via email at nreynolds@bankmarketingcenter.com.

It all started with American Banker’s July 22 article, Alleviating the Student Loan Crisis through Digital Banking. It really got me thinking. About student debt, yes, but lots of other things, too; our system of higher education and its value, financial literacy, borrowing, parenting, and my own personal experience with financial matters.

For starters, I’m guessing that many of you reading this also have some personal experience with student loans. Perhaps you took one (or more) in your college days. Perhaps you have a child or children who are borrowing for college. I think it’s reasonable to make this assumption because, as the article points out, there are approximately 45 million borrowers in the U.S. — with an average debt of about $38,000 — bringing our total student debt as a nation to $1.7 trillion. Want just a tiny bit of perspective on this dollar figure? According to Statista, in 2020 the US manufacturing industry added $2.2 trillion to the US GDP.

The article goes on to state some of the “primary causes of the student loan crisis," citing a lack of state funding for higher education, tax cuts, higher tuition, and among others, loans that are awarded without adequately screening the borrower. Another reason? Borrowers are often unprepared to take on the debt because they do not have an adequate understanding of financial matters. And, believe me, borrowing for college demands more than just an understanding of money management basics, like sound investing strategies and managing one’s credit. If you’ve any doubt that borrowing for college isn’t a complex process that really requires advanced degrees in both accounting and law, try to make sense of the “guidance” provided here on studentaid.gov. Imagine trying to navigate this process as an 18-year-old high school senior.

“As future business owners, leaders, and members of society, banks and credit unions need to support these individuals with the right tools to alleviate their financial burden. Without guidance and true financial education, people with student debt will not be able to secure a successful financial future for themselves and their families,” says the article. And I couldn’t agree more. I’ll add a few thoughts to this: 1) With “support,” these young, indebted individuals are more likely to become more valuable banking customers earlier in their lives and, 2) that “support” needs to start way before they owe, on average, $38,000.  It needs to start before they even think about borrowing for college.

Now, I am a huge proponent of higher education. I am also a huge proponent of financial education. We all know that far too many Americans are, to put it bluntly, truly unable to properly manage their personal finances. “Most individuals lack a foundation for financial success,” says the article. “In fact, less than 17% of high school students are required to take at least one semester of personal finance in high school and only 34% of Americans can answer four of five basic financial literacy questions."

Clearly, more financial education is needed and individuals with student debt are certainly hamstrung when it comes to securing a financial future for themselves and their families. But where will they get that guidance and financial education?

Can young people learn financial literacy from their parents? Perhaps, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. It didn’t happen in my home. While my father certainly taught me the importance of working hard and paying my own way, with a little bit of “save your money” on occasion, that was the extent of the financial guidance I got from dad. I’m guessing that many young men share that same experience. And for young women and their parents, I doubt that there’s much conversation at all about financial matters.

When this is so important, why isn’t this learning taking place at home? I learned a little bit about why from reading cnbc’s “Who should teach kids about money? Americans say parents, but many don’t talk to their own children about it.” You can pretty much guess “why” from the title of the article. “While most Americans believe it is the job of parents to teach their kids about money,” it says, “many don’t actually talk to their children about finances.” Certified financial planner Tom Henske, managing partner at the Affluent Insurance Advisor, tells us that parents don’t talk to their children about money because “it seems like a herculean task, an endeavor to take on to teach your kids about money when you don’t really feel comfortable about the topic of money yourself.”   

I guess I never really thought of a discussion about money with my son or daughter as herculean or uncomfortable… at least compared to some of the other discussions we’ve had to have with our children about topics that I’m, well, too uncomfortable to mention here. So, as in many cases where children aren’t learning what they should from their parents, we turn to the schools. And there’s good news on that front, according to cnbc:

“The trend towards in-school personal finance classes is slowly building. Recently, Florida became the largest state to mandate a personal finance course for high school graduation. Twenty-five states now require high-school students to take personal finance coursework, either in a standalone class or integrated into another course. ‘Research shows that students who are able to participate in financial economic education class in high school make better decisions about their college financing,’ said Nan Morrison, president and CEO of the Council for Economic Education. 'They have better credit scores and lower loan default rates.’”

Back to American Banker, which quotes “student loan expert, Mark Kantrowitz” as advising us that the best way for students to overcome student debt is to avoid overborrowing in the first place. To accomplish this, “students should limit their total debt to less than their starting salary in the first year of their job out of college, allowing them to pay off their loans in less than ten years.” Now, that seems like sound advice. However, I’m not sure it’s all that practical. I don’t know when and where Mr. Knatowitz went to college, or if he borrowed to do so, but I do know that in today’s world, it is pretty impossible for a student to limit their total debt to less than their first job’s starting salary. That’s tough to do when the average cost of college – tuition and fees — runs around $20,000 per year. According to the May 5 USA Today article “College students expect to make $103,880 after graduation – almost twice the reality,” while college students expect to make about $103,880 in their first post-graduation job, the average starting salary is actually about half that at $55,260. I was able to borrow less than my first year’s salary, but my cost of attendance at the time was less than $9,000/year. The COA at this same university today is $52,000/year.

So, if you’re reading this as a parent, hopefully you’ll have these “herculean” and “uncomfortable” dinner table conversations about money management with your children. And, if you’re reading this as a community banking professional, hopefully you’ll encourage everyone within shouting distance to take a financial management course and to share what they learn with their children. Perhaps then, both students and parents will make more informed decisions when it comes to borrowing and truly reap the benefits — and the value — of a college education.

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 vital, topical, and compelling communication with customers; messaging developed by banking industry marketing professionals, well trained in the development of effective marketing communication, that will help you build trust, relationships, and revenue. And with them, your brand. Like the below financial education ads, for instance, recently added to our library of content.

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.  You can also contact me directly by phone at 678-528-6688 or via email at nreynolds@bankmarketingcenter.com.  

I recently saw some news, pretty good news I believe, concerning financial industry marketing budgets. Now, I can't help but reminisce a bit at the mention of the word “budget.”

Back in my ad agency days, never a day passed without some conversation about budgets. Your survival, of course, depended on it; the client’s budget, that is.  Every one of us in the creative department was either working or worrying; working to grow the brand and the business, or worrying that the client might find a reason to cut their budget. A cut could come for any number of reasons, but more often than not it was a downturn in the economy.

Maybe I’m imagining it, but it seemed easier back then to know when those cuts would come. And maybe that’s because when the economy was good, you knew it was good. Conversely when it was bad you knew it was bad. Not today. There seem to be some very different opinions about the state of things these days… 

I’ll start with the bringers of bad news. According to the World Bank’s Global Economic Prospects Report: “Amid the war in Ukraine, surging inflation, and rising interest rates, global economic growth is expected to slump and several years of above-average inflation and below-average growth are now likely. It’s a phenomenon—stagflation—that the world has not seen since the 1970s.”  Doesn’t exactly make your day, does it? 

But then I read this; a July 1 American Banker article entitled “PNC Financial CEO ‘confused’ about market’s recession worries, impact on banks” where PNC Chairman, President and CEO William Demchak stated: “I am personally confused about all the concern that sits out there on banking reserves and the coming recession and the impacts on profitability of banks.” According to the article, many in the financial industry agree with Mr. Demchak. "Little of the data I see tells me the U.S. is on the cusp of a recession," said Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser. "Consumer spending remains well above pre-COVID levels with household savings providing a cushion for future stress and, as any employer will tell you, the job market remains very tight." Robert Bolton, president of the bank investor Iron Bay Capital, shared Fraser’s optimism: “A lot of the bankers I’ve met with are still pretty confident, and that’s based on what they’re seeing with credit quality and hearing from their commercial clients in terms of positive sentiment. Businesses are growing, hiring.” Peter Sefzik, Comerica’s Executive Director of Commercial Banking, agrees: “Overall, we feel like the sentiment of our customers is still pretty good at this time. Our pipeline is strong. Our activity levels are good, so it's hard to see any sort of immediate concerns.”  

Since I would much rather believe good news than bad, I’m going to go with the optimists on this one!

I also read, just recently, that banks are going back to spending on marketing; moving those dollars that were being spent on Mar-Tech over the last year or so back to spending on building  their brand and selling products. comcouncil.org says that “average marketing spending across industries has increased to 9.5% of overall company revenue this year. Financial services firms lead the way with the highest marketing budget at 10.4% of company revenue, up from 7.4% in 2021.”

While this is good news in terms of a bank’s ability to market itself, it can create challenges for community banks with limited resources. With more marketing dollars to spend, but no new hires planned for the immediate future, a community bank’s in-house marketing team can quickly find itself overwhelmed. When the objective is to grow the customer base and share of wallet through digital channels and better digital engagement — in other words, to do more with less — where can bank marketers turn for the marketing communication content they need?

About Bank Marketing Center

This is where bankmarketingcenter.com and our library of professionally designed digital assets can be just what a bank’s in-house marketing team needs. Take, for example, these digital ads we’ve created around fee-free checking.  These layouts can be quickly and easily customized;  select the logo, colors, fonts, and images you need, then simply drag and drop. No design software or skill needed.

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.

No social media marketing strategy is complete without a blogging component. Having a blog not only provides a strong foundation for your marketing, it’s also fun and inspiring—and a great way to personalize your brand, share ideas, generate new ones, and build a community of like-minded and engaged individuals.  Here are just a few of the reasons why blogging is well worth your time and investment.

1. Be both a SME and a friend

Think of your blog as a conversation. It’s an opportunity to speak in detail about your products and services, share content that is relevant at that particular time, and if you’re so inclined, to comment on relevant industry news and trends.  But remember, no matter what tack you decide to take, that a blog is a conversation. While it should educate — you do want to be viewed as that SME (Subject Matter Expert) — it should never read like a product brief or a white paper.  There are lots of opportunities for your target audience to access those types of marketing materials (and if there isn’t, there certainly should be) so use your blog as a means to engage in a way that can personally connect with your reader.

2. Build some traffic while you’re at it

Blogs provide the perfect platform to strengthen your SEO strategy. Start by thinking about the size of your website. How many pages are there? Probably not that many, right? And think about how often you refresh/update the content on those pages. Probably not that often. This is where your blog comes in. Every time you create and publish a blog post, search engines consider that yet another indexed page on your website.  This means that with each blog, you’re creating one more opportunity for your site, through that blog post, to show up on the search engine results page (SERP) and drive traffic to your website in a prospect’s organic search. Simple math:  The more often you blog, the more opportunities you have to elevate your site’s placement on an SERP.

3. Put a likable face on your digital presence

The digital experience is inherently impersonal. While machine learning and AI have certainly contributed to our ability to identify customers and their needs and in so doing, helped us personalize our interactions, the digital experience is still far from an in-branch one. For instance, a website isn’t exactly the most personalized consumer touch point, is it? And we all know how important a personalized experience is to our customers. We hear about it all the time. “Personalize your customer experience!,” the experts are constantly shouting.  Your  blog helps. It  puts a human face on your bank which — while it can’t take the place of a face-to-face in-branch encounter — helps make your bank feel more personal, friendly, trustworthy, and accessible.

 4. Get your readers to comment and share

A solid bank site can be relied upon to answer questions that customers, or potential customers, might have about products and services. This is a different type of interaction than that which a blog provides.  If you end your blog with “I’d love to know your thoughts on the subject,” believe me, you will get thoughts.  This is, of course, just what you’re after.  This is why a blog is so powerful. It can create a two-way conversation with customers, leads, and industry peers. With a more relatable tone and an interactive platform, you can encourage feedback and discussion.

 5. Add to your email database

Email marketing is an important tactic and should certainly be a component of your overall marketing mix. The challenge, of course, with email marketing is building your database. It’s not easy to get people to “opt in,” so you need to take every opportunity (preferably in the least intrusive ways possible) to encourage sign-up.  The way to do this, of course, is to provide value in exchange for the individual’s contact info. Again, not easy. But, this is where a blog can help. Blogs help contribute to your bank staying top of mind and help reinforce your audience’s need to keep updated. If people find your blog content informative, relevant, and engaging, chances are they’ll trust that your email newsletters are as well. Inserting links in your blog that will encourage readers to sign up for additional touchpoints, like emails, is a great way to build that email database.

 6. Re-purpose your blog 

 Obviously, your social media marketing consists of, well, social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Every time you create and post a blog, you’re creating content that 1) you can share across your social platforms and 2) people who see it can share with each other. The content you create can also live, in various part and pieces, across your social media channels, giving you more social bang for you blogging buck. With blogging, you’re not only strengthening your social reach with the blog itself.  You’re also creating a web of engagement points that connect with each other and ultimately lead everyone you’ve engaged right to your website.

7. Drive long-term social marketing results

Hubspot says: “Imagine you sit down for an hour on Sunday to write and publish a blog post. Let’s say that blog post gets 100 views and ten leads on Monday. You get another 50 views and five leads on Tuesday as a few more people find it through social media. But after a couple of days, most of the fanfare from that post dies down, and you've netted 150 views and 15 leads. It's not over.” Since that post is now ranking, it means that for days, weeks, months, and years to come, you can continue to get traffic from that blog post. That’s because a blog post can bring traffic to your site long after it's first posted. In fact, according to Hubspot, “about 90% of the leads we generate every month come from blog posts published in previous months. Sometimes years ago.”

There’s much more to it.

Is this a comprehensive treatise on blog posting? No. There are a number of additional benefits to blogging that we haven’t discussed here. And, there are a number of companies out there that can advise you on how to get the most of your blogging, from software and templates to guidance on creating a blogging editorial calendar. My hope here is that you’ve learned just enough about blogging to be inspired enough to give it a try. It’s a terrific tool for engaging customers and generating leads. 

 About Bank Marketing Center

Here at BankMarketingCenter.com, our goal is to help you with that vital, topical, and compelling communication with customers; messaging developed by banking industry marketing professionals, well trained in the development of effective marketing communication, that will help you build trust, relationships, and revenue. And with them, your brand. Like the below recruitment ads, for instance, recently added to our library of content.

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.  You can also contact me directly by phone at 678-528-6688 or via email at nreynolds@bankmarketingcenter.com.  

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