Finance

Marketing – it\’s a TEAM effort!

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As the saying goes – there is no “I” in TEAM. I wish the word Marketing didn’t have an “I” in it so I could carry the saying over – but I think you know where I’m going here.  You can spell team using the letters in Marketing though! Marketing is a TEAM effort – that is, if you want to have the biggest ROI (Return on Investment).

About the TEAM in MARKETING.  I get some pushback on this, especially if I have a client paying me to handle marketing for them, or if they have an in-house marketing person or group.  Why do the rest of the employees need to be involved – what gives?

In fact – a lot gives. Here’s why.

  1. When you build a culture of inclusion making everyone part of the process and therefore the story, magical things happen.  It creates a powerful place of employment, more importantly, the team not only drinks the proverbial Kook-Ade – but they also share it.  WORD of MOUTH Marketing is powerful.  When employees brag about your brand – what does that say about you?  Ps – A Lot.
  2. You get the REAL STORY. Back to #1.  When you have team members posting work selfies on Instagram, Facebook & Twitter – or FB or Insta Live videos they tend to get far more engagement and will tend to become viral over a standard – hey here’s what we do post.  More importantly, you are getting a behind the scenes look at what makes the company tick aka “The Real Scoop”.
  3. Your buyers don’t want to be sold to. When you get that real behind the scenes story, buyers can see what’s real and then make a decision based on that reality.  Far more powerful than an advertisement telling someone why they should buy from you.
  4. The team includes your customers! We all strive to have brand evangelists, so why not encourage your employees to find those evangelists and engage with them on social.  Salespeople are your ideal target for this since they are often client facing – or perhaps even a service team.  Having an employee and a happy customer in an Instagram Story or in a picture on Twitter is PRICELESS!  You can’t beat that kind of advertising.
  5. Consistency, Authenticity, and Transparency. The holy grail of marketing.  When you have your team involved this becomes far easier.  You will have more engagement, you will see the real behind the scenes story from real people – not actors, not stock photos and not a stagnant social feed or website.

So….that’s why I encourage CEO’s to have a flexible yet monitored social media policy.  Yes, you have to have training and controls especially in compliance driven fields such as healthcare, financial services, and insurance – but trust me, it can be done and done well.

That’s my story, I’m sticking to it.  Go Team is the answer to this one. 100% hands down a winner!

Marketing – it\’s a TEAM effort! Read More »

Marketing – it\’s a TEAM effort!

Leave a Comment / Featured, Finance, Fun Stuff, Healthcare, Insurance, Marketing, Must Read Blogs, Sales, Small Business, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

As the saying goes – there is no “I” in TEAM. I wish the word Marketing didn’t have an “I” in it so I could carry the saying over – but I think you know where I’m going here.  You can spell team using the letters in Marketing though! Marketing is a TEAM effort – that is, if you want to have the biggest ROI (Return on Investment).

About the TEAM in MARKETING.  I get some pushback on this, especially if I have a client paying me to handle marketing for them, or if they have an in-house marketing person or group.  Why do the rest of the employees need to be involved – what gives?

In fact – a lot gives. Here’s why.

  1. When you build a culture of inclusion making everyone part of the process and therefore the story, magical things happen.  It creates a powerful place of employment, more importantly, the team not only drinks the proverbial Kook-Ade – but they also share it.  WORD of MOUTH Marketing is powerful.  When employees brag about your brand – what does that say about you?  Ps – A Lot.
  2. You get the REAL STORY. Back to #1.  When you have team members posting work selfies on Instagram, Facebook & Twitter – or FB or Insta Live videos they tend to get far more engagement and will tend to become viral over a standard – hey here’s what we do post.  More importantly, you are getting a behind the scenes look at what makes the company tick aka “The Real Scoop”.
  3. Your buyers don’t want to be sold to. When you get that real behind the scenes story, buyers can see what’s real and then make a decision based on that reality.  Far more powerful than an advertisement telling someone why they should buy from you.
  4. The team includes your customers! We all strive to have brand evangelists, so why not encourage your employees to find those evangelists and engage with them on social.  Salespeople are your ideal target for this since they are often client facing – or perhaps even a service team.  Having an employee and a happy customer in an Instagram Story or in a picture on Twitter is PRICELESS!  You can’t beat that kind of advertising.
  5. Consistency, Authenticity, and Transparency. The holy grail of marketing.  When you have your team involved this becomes far easier.  You will have more engagement, you will see the real behind the scenes story from real people – not actors, not stock photos and not a stagnant social feed or website.

So….that’s why I encourage CEO’s to have a flexible yet monitored social media policy.  Yes, you have to have training and controls especially in compliance driven fields such as healthcare, financial services, and insurance – but trust me, it can be done and done well.

That’s my story, I’m sticking to it.  Go Team is the answer to this one. 100% hands down a winner!

Marketing – it\’s a TEAM effort! Read More »

Why You Should Care About the Equifax Breach

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By now, you’ve most likely heard the news: Equifax — one of the three major credit bureaus — announced on Sept. 7 that 143 million consumers’ information was leaked in a security breach. Information leaked includes social security numbers, dates of birth, names, credit card numbers, addresses and more. Scary, right?!

We all assume because it’s a credit bureau – you know, those people responsible for setting your FICO score – that they have hacker-free systems and stealing information is harder than breaking into Fort Knox. Well, weren’t we all proven wrong! And if you’re one of the 143 million – like me – you’re just praying that your hard-earned FICO score won’t plummet due to fraudulent accounts being opened.
Identity theft and security breaches happen all the time so why should you care so much about this one – well, because it affects EVERYONE! You’re probably saying, but wait, you said only 143 million people – yes, ok, that’s true, but if you’re an adult with a credit card, student loan, mortgage, personal loan, car loan, or any other type of credit account, you are a victim of the breach – even if you’ve never signed up for any Equifax product or credit report. If you have credit history – you are affected!

But how can that be? That’s because Equifax is one of the three major credit bureaus, meaning any bank or financial institution that manages your credit accounts reports your social security number, name, address and credit account information to the credit bureau to build your credit report. I told you it was Scary! And Equifax has said that the investigation is not 100% complete, so expect that 143 million number to climb.
Equifax discovered the breach on July 29, but didn’t announce it to the public until September 7 – over a month after they knew about it. And the leak occurred mid-May, so your information was available for use for over 3 months before you were notified. Yikes! If you haven’t checked your credit report lately, finish reading this article and do it ASAP!

Equifax is offering free identity theft protection from TrustedID for one year – but you should be aware that TrustedID is an Equifax-owned service. Currently, the terms and conditions state that if you sign up for the free protection, you’ll be waiving your right to join any future class-action lawsuits unless you send notification in writing within 30 days of signing the agreement.

While this is the third largest security breach, the information leaked in this breach is much more valuable than the two Yahoo breaches that hold the No. 1 and 2 spots. The revealed information is all someone would need to open a credit card in your name, which is something you should be concerned about.
While Equifax is providing one year of identity theft its likely not enough. The information leaked from this breach will never get outdated and never changes, allowing someone to steal your identity now or 10 years down the line — something one year of identity theft protection can’t fix. Victims will likely have to worry about identity theft for the rest of their lives.

There are some things you can do now and continue to do in the years to come:

Monitor your credit. Check your credit often. Consider using a credit report monitoring service. These services actively monitor your credit reports and alert you if something is added or changed, or if a new account appears on your reports.

Consider a credit freeze. This is a proactive approach to protecting your credit. When you place a credit freeze on your credit reports, you’re essentially locking them, meaning no new accounts can be opened in your name (by you or anyone else) and your credit reports cannot be viewed by any potential creditor. Keep in mind, you’ll need to unfreeze your credit when you need to get a new credit card, apply for a loan, or get a mortgage, but you can refreeze it afterwards.

Report identity theft immediately. Identity theft is a crime, which means it should be reported as soon as its spotted, like any other crime. Report it credit bureaus, the police, and the company that extended any credit.

It’s possible that this breach may affect the future of credit. Due to the number of people affected, and how dramatically identity theft increases, creditors may look to an alternative method than using social security numbers as a main source of identification.

Why You Should Care About the Equifax Breach Read More »

5 Tips for Using LinkedIn to Help Grow Your Business

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The beauty of social media is that it allows us to extend our network far beyond our physical location. We’re no longer limited to the people nearby.

As a business-to-business tool, LinkedIn is unmatched. 450 million of the world’s professionals and business leaders use it to connect, share ideas, and develop business opportunities. According to Content Marketing Institute, LinkedIn is the most effective social network for sales (63% of marketers report positive results).

Fill out your profile, adopt a professional demeanor, and then use these smart LinkedIn strategies to grow your business.

Speak with decision makers. If you have ever cold called a business, you know how frustrating that process can be. You get transferred around a bit, dropped into voicemail, and you’re never sure if you’ve reached someone who can make actual decisions.

Use LinkedIn to find the decision makers of a business. Many people publically display their contact information. If they don’t, ask for them by name when you call the business. This has a much higher chance of putting you in touch with someone who matters to you. If this still doesn’t work, you can always connect with them on LinkedIn itself.

LinkedIn’s search capabilities are more sophisticated than any other social network. You can add filters to your searches such as job role, industry, and company size. This allows you to put together a list of targeted potential business opportunities.

For instance, let’s say you sell payroll software designed for small businesses with less than ten employees, but only in your own state. You only want to speak to the owners of those companies, because there usually isn’t much middle-management at that size. With proper filters, you can search for those people exactly.

Become active on the network. Having a quality profile isn’t enough- although it’s EXTREMELY important! You have to be present on the social network if you expect to derive any value from it. If other users see that you haven’t posted, commented, or shared in a while, they won’t bother making a connection. This could cost you valuable opportunities.

The solution is take your social media presence seriously. Facebook and Pinterest are fun, but make LinkedIn part of your job. Set aside a little bit of time every day (not much, just five or ten minutes) to look for connections, share articles, images and videos you like, and comment on other people’s submissions.

Use groups to meet new people. A group is a collection of people around a common theme. You’ll find groups for just about everything, and multiple groups for each topic. Some are broad; others are specific. Some are public; others require permission. You don’t have be connected with anyone in the group.

Find three to five quality groups with lots of members. It should be a subject that relates to your business and something you know well. Contribute to this group often. Provide as much value as you can without selling. This will establish you as a thought-leader and expert in your field. Eventually people will clamor to connect with you.

Jump on those new leads. People connect on LinkedIn because they know one another professionally or they want to. If you are extended a connection from someone you don’t know, consider it a lead. This new person is seeking to create a relationship, so don’t waste the opportunity.

After accepting the connection, immediately send a private message – or InMail introducing yourself. If you receive a lot of connections, you can use a copy/paste response, but tailor it a bit so you don’t seem aloof. Ask some questions about the connection to find ways they could help grow your business.
Once you put these strategies in place, always remember to provide as much value as you can. Be a helpful person who’s generous with information. Eventually the connections and opportunities will come to you.

Interested in some one-on-one LinkedIn training – Give us a call!

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Community outreach — How your bank can make a big impact (and get more customers)

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With so much emphasis on online marketing and digital advertising, it’s easy to forget that one of the most powerful ways a bank or credit union can reach people is in the real world. We’re not talking about TV, radio, or print ads (although they can help) — We’re thinking of something a bit more grass roots — Outreach and giving something back, through networking, education, and other activities to help teach people about their financial options.

As a local bank, you thrive when you get out there. It’s a great way to raise awareness, educate customers, help your community, motivate your employees, and let people know you care about them. These events matter because they’re a great way to build trust. By investing your time, effort, and money into community and financial education events, you’re creating powerful change. People get something out of these events, and when they do, they’ll remember it was your bank that helped to make things happen.

Relationships between a bank and its customers can last a lifetime, so creating trust with people is a vital first step to bring them onboard. That starts by sharing something that genuinely useful — Here are some ideas on how you can do that.

Holding free classes, seminars, and forums on money and finance. Generally, people don’t know enough about finance and money to make the best informed decisions. One of the ways to change that is to share easy to understand information and free courses that educate people on how to get the most out of their money, for example:

Encouraging children to save — Aimed at getting young people interested in saving for their future. Showing how powerful compound interest can be over time, and why starting to save now can give you big rewards in the future.

Planning for retirement — Educating people on how important good retirement planning is. Letting them know about their options when it comes to the different retirement plans and funds that are available. Encouraging them to start saving for retirement right now.

Good financial management and budgeting — Teaching people how to use their money wisely, including working out how much you need to live each month, income, expenses, and disposable cash. This can be tied in with saving for the future for life events like getting married, planning for a vacation, having children, buying a house, and making big purchases.

Buying a house — Talking through the process of getting on the housing ladder. Covering deposits, mortgages, moving, and other financial protections you’ll want to have in place.

Protecting yourself and your loved ones — The need for insurance and life assurance. How to manage financial risk and make sure that all the people and things you care about are protected financially.Partner with your local schools, colleges, further education classes and community organizers to create opportunities to teach others.

Professional networking – Get involved with your local Chamber of Commerce and Better Business Bureau. Look for other opportunities to network with business owners and executives.

Ask entrepreneurs about any new plans for expansion or other opportunities. Find out about their financing and provide alternative solutions. Provide advice and support, answer questions and let people know about your products and services. These events are a great way to build up your authority and visibility with other local businesses.

Sponsorship is another great way to increase awareness of your bank and brand, while giving back to your community. There are bound to be lots of local opportunities for sponsorship, whether that’s the Little League, the Humane Society, charity drives, or anything else that gives back. Think about how you can enhance your visibility:

  • Have your employees attend the event as advocates.
  • Do branded giveaways of items people want.
  • Setup a booth providing free financial advice.
  • Be a speaker at the event.

In addition to donating money, you can also encourage your employees to donate their time and effort by giving them paid time off for community projects.

These might all seem like simple approaches, but sometimes going ultra-local really is best. Putting some time, effort, and money into community outreach and helping people gets your name out there, which can be great for winning more customers.

Have you attended an event that you thought was really amazing – let us know what it was and what made it stand out to you.

Community outreach — How your bank can make a big impact (and get more customers) Read More »

The Department of Justice is looking at your website – are you ADA compliant?

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Compliance. It’s a word that finance managers are all too familiar with. We know it might cause a slight sinking feeling, but compliance guidelines exist to protect everyone — You and your customers.

That’s why it’s vital to understand the impact and implications of the new Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) guidelines issued by the Department of Justice. In short, it’s about making sure your banking website and online presence is easy to access and use for visual and hearing impaired customers (and that’s good for everyone).

It matters for two pretty big reasons:

  1. It shows your commitment to all your customers and making their banking experience as easy as possible.
  2. It protects you from legal action — Businesses with websites that fail to meet ADA / DOJ requirements have been fined or sued (ouch).

The problems visual or hearing impaired people have with using websites.

For most people, using a bank website is easy (especially if they don’t forget their password!) They visit the site, enter their login details, get into the online banking app and pay their bills, check their statement, and manage their finances. If you’re blind or visually impaired, that gets a lot more difficult.

They may need specialist tools like braille or tactile interfaces, screen readers, voice activated navigation, and specialist software. When they arrive at a banking website they may run into more frustrations because the site isn’t coded properly to work with their hardware and software.

If your customers are hearing impaired, they will run into problems with audio content, or if they needed to call a service center to get issues sorted out.

It’s these problems the DOJ\’s guidelines are trying to solve, and they’re serious about it.

How do you know if your website is ADA compliant?

The simple truth is, if you need to ask whether your website is ADA compliant, it probably isn’t. For example, does your website:

  • Allow navigation completely by keyboard (not using a mouse)?
  • Have rich alternative descriptions for any pictures or visual elements on your website?
  • Explain what’s happening in customer service videos, purely through audio?
  • Provide sign language interpretation for audio content?

These are just four examples from the over 70 requirements the DOJ has. Ultimately, it comes down to the question: Is your banking website completely usable by all of your customers, regardless of their ability or disability?

Why your bank website needs to get compliant

Your bank website needs to be compliant by 2018. If it’s not, you’ll run into several big problems:

  • You could get sued or fined by the DOJ for non-compliance.
  • You could fall foul of equal rights laws.
  • You could get negative publicity and a bad brand reputation.

In short, getting compliant isn’t an option if you want to stay in the clear.

Relax, we’ve got this

We understand just what it takes to get your banking website ADA compliant. We also understand you just don’t have the time. That’s why we’re here to help — We’ve already helped banks like Litchfield Bancorp and Collinsville Savings Society, and we’re here to help you.

Get in touch today and we’ll explain exactly how we’ll make your bank website ADA compliant. Get yourself some peace-of-mind.

The Department of Justice is looking at your website – are you ADA compliant? Read More »

Getting Your Banking Website ADA Compliant – What Does It Take?

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As we covered in our last article, getting your website ADA compliant by 2018 is critical if you want to avoid problems (read; big, big problems) from the Department of Justice. Here’s a quick refresher.

Essentially, the DOJ wants all banking websites to be fully accessible for visual and hearing impaired people by 2018. If your website isn’t ready, you could run into issues with fines, getting sued, equal rights laws, and bad public perception. You don’t want that to happen, and neither do we (really, we like you).

So, what does the DOJ mean when it says you have to get your website ready? Glad you asked.

Making your website accessible — What the DOJ wants

The DOJ has several requirements under the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. That’s a bit of a mouthful so we’ll break it down. This comes in two delicious compliance favors — The changes the DOJ requires, and what that means in terms of getting compliant.

Changes required by the DOJ under the ADA

There are over 70 (really!) specific requirements so we’re just looking at the high-level areas. Here are the direct quotes on what each one involves.

  • Perceivable – Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive.
  • Operable – User interface components and navigation must be operable.
  • Understandable – Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable.
  • Robust – Content must be robust enough so it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.

Now, that list doesn’t look very easy to understand (we know!) so here are some examples of what they mean in practice.

Perceivable — ADA Compliance

  • Provide text alternatives for any non-text content — Having text descriptions of any images or interface components, making sure there’s a good text alternative that can be read by screen-reading software.
  • Captions / sign language for prerecorded content — Videos and other media will need to have captions and / or sign language so hearing impaired people can get the information they need.

Operable — ADA Compliance

  • Keyboard navigation — Your website should be completely usable and navigable using just a keyboard (i.e. There’s no requirement to use a mouse to access any specific part of your banking website.)
  • Accessing media — Users should be able to easily pause, rewind, and interact with all the media (video, audio, and other) on your banking website.

Understandable – ADA Compliance

  • Language of the webpage — The language on a specific webpage can be easily updated according to a user’s needs.
  • Ease of use — A website must have consistent navigation and be easy to read and use.[/cs_text]

Robust – ADA Compliance

  • Make sure all of your website enhancements for ADA work with all client browsers or other ways people access your website.
  • Make sure your enhancements work with the various specialized hardware and software that visual and hearing impaired people use. (e.g. screen readers, braille interfaces, speech recognition etc.)

You probably don’t have the time to do all this (I mean, there are 70 requirements, and they’re not exactly… simple). That’s why we’re here.

Relax, we’ve got this

We understand just what it takes to get your banking website ADA compliant. We also understand you just don’t have the time. That’s why we’re here to help — We’ve already helped banks like Litchfield Bancorp and Collinsville Savings Society, and we’re here to help you.

Get in touch today and we’ll explain exactly how we’ll make your bank website ADA compliant. Get yourself some peace-of-mind.

Getting Your Banking Website ADA Compliant – What Does It Take? Read More »

Banks and the social media compliance debate

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We work with several financial institutions, and we know that one of their main concerns is compliance – How do you make sure that what you’re saying in your Facebook or Twitter feeds meets all of the rules, regulations, and guidelines of the financial industry? Compliance can be a headache, but that shouldn’t stop you having a good social media presence.

We’ve got a solution we think you’ll love. Here’s why you should consider adding social media and social selling to your marketing.

The way to make sure your posts are compliant is to be proactive – You need to create and manage a proper editorial calendar and have a solid review process for your content. Run your content calendar, posts, blogs, and social media strategy by your compliance department.

They’ll likely provide some advice on how to phrase your posts, what to add, and what to remove. Make sure the person responsible for your social media profiles has regular conversations and check-ins with your compliance team. That way you can ensure everything your publishing has a seal of approval.

As a local bank or credit union, you’ve built up a great reputation in your area. Targeted marketing is a good way to get noticed and to encourage personal and business customers to come to you, but that’s only half the story. If you want more chances to sell your financial products and services, you need to seek out and act on opportunities — We’ll explore exactly how you can do that.

If you’re a commercial lender, your main purpose is lending money to expanding businesses. In addition to income from loans, you can upsell other products like financial protection, insurance, retirement planning, and more. The question is, how do you find those expanding businesses in the first place?

Fortunately, there’s some good technology, which, combined with some tips and tricks, can help you create some powerful leads for your banking services. In this article we’ll cover three main areas – LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Twitter, and other social media.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

As the largest social network for professionals, LinkedIn is already a strong resource for businesses. Hopefully you’re already making the most of your bank’s LinkedIn presence, but today we’re going to focus on one specific part of the platform, LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator lets you collect together prospects from across all of LinkedIn, whether you’re connected to them yet or not. It has built in algorithms to help you identify potential clients and businesses who might be in need of your bank’s financial products. It helps you understand where people are changing roles, when organizations are launching new initiatives, and how a business posts about any changes.

You can bring all of this information together in one place so you can start having informed, relevant conversations with the people that matter — The decision makers in your target businesses. It helps you put context around these conversations too, building trust with your potential clients. Combine this with insights into your professional network, other’s profiles, and lead recommendations, and it becomes a very powerful tool for finding commercial banking prospects.

Twitter

You might not think of Twitter as a way to find business banking opportunities, but used correctly it can be a great way to connect with potential customers. Here’s a quick step-by-step guide:

  1. Follow the Twitter profiles of any businesses and professionals in your target geographical area.
  2. Review your Twitter feed to see what people are sharing — Are they discussing new opportunities, products, services or research?
  3. If they are, engage with them — But here’s the trick — Don’t try to sell them anything. Provide useful financial advice, professional banking support, and insight. The idea is to build up trust.
  4. Once you’ve built up that trust, you can suggest products and services to help them achieve their business goals.

It’s vital that you don’t just promote your banking products and services — That can turn people off very quickly. Instead, you want to spend time building up a good reputation and strengthening your expertise and authority.

Other social media

Finding leads isn’t just limited to Twitter either. Facebook, Instagram, even Pinterest can be good places to find new banking customers, if you know how to look. As with Twitter, start by identifying the people and businesses in your local area and connect with them.

Then, spend some time cultivating relationships — Share genuinely useful financial information and links to your Facebook page or Pinterest board. You’re looking to build a brand focused on financial trust. As you add to that content, you’ll get more visibility and potential customers will start to see you as the “go to people” for advice on their money.

As you can see, these tools can help you rapidly expand your banking market. When you start out actively seeking leads, and engaging with them in the right way, you’ll be able to build trust which will lead to more sales of your financial products and services.

Still feeling a little hesitant on tackling social media? Give us a call – we can set up a training session with you and your banking team.

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How to Get New Bank Customers with Beautiful Content like Blogging

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We all know that switching to a new bank can be…well, painful. The more accounts you have, and the more you automate the banking experience, the higher your retention rate. That’s great for your existing customers, but it doesn’t help when it comes to attracting new people to your business.

Most banks offer similar products and services, so creating a unique value proposition isn’t easy. What’s the secret sauce? How do some banks increase their retail numbers without putting lots of pressure on their service teams?

It’s all about telling a story and making it personal. Your customers and prospects want to feel like you’re speaking to them, that you “get them.” It all comes from your content – Understanding what you write and where you publish it are important, knowing WHO you are writing for is critical.

Let’s dive a little deeper…

Know your Target Client Profile (TCP) – What’s the demographic of your current customer base? Who are the potential customers you want to add? Where do they live? What is their socioeconomic background? Are they business customers? Retail? It’s critical to have a deep understanding of exactly who you want to reach – Their interests, aspirations, lifestyle choices, financial understanding and more.

Think like your TCP – Your content needs to be relevant to your TCP. What is most important to them? What’s going to grab their attention? How will it help? Will it answer their questions? Does it provide genuinely useful information? What will they read? How will they read it? When will they read it? A 20-year-old and an 80-year-old are going to have very different needs and ways of accessing content.

Create great thought leadership and product content – Thought leadership content is where your customers will get the most value. It’s about giving them insight, valuable information, and resources to help them understand and manage money better. When you combine that with information on your products and their benefits, you create a solid content strategy.

Share short, sweet, accessible, and relevant product information on your website – Your website is the place for your product information – make is easy to find and mobile friendly. Your bank’s website should also highlight your staff with pictures and bios. It helps your customers to relate to you, and people buy from others they know, like, and trust.

Blogging is the Grand Poohbah of content – Every bank should have a blog – It’s where your thought leadership and awesome content lives It’s where your staff can shine, and it’s what you will share on social media.

Keys to Blogging Success

  1. PLAN – Have an editorial calendar based on your TCP and your value proposition – Who are you going to write for, and what are your going to write about? Create five or six content areas where that you’ll develop. They might be: Your culture and team – Stories about your employees, what makes them tick, and what they bring to your business. Retail customer information – Speaking to your retail customers directly about the things that matter to them. Retirement planning, mortgages, insurance, loans, real estate, the economy, tips for protecting your home in winter, safety, etc. Financial education and guides – Creating guides, checklists, tools, and resources to help you customers get the most out of their money. Business customer information – Talking to business owners about what matters to them including business bank accounts, small business financing, insurance, etc. Community – The work you’re doing in the local community including sponsorship and other activities. Financial news – Talking about the economy, the stock market, and other interesting areas.
  2. SHARE – Build your brand and expand it through stories. The more people who see your name and your team, the quicker they will connect.
  3. CONNECT – People leave banks because they don’t feel the love. Intriguing content that speaks to them helps them feel connected, which makes them more likely to switch.
  4. REPEAT – For content to really hook your prospects, they need to see it over and over again. Be constant and consistent. Post regularly, share on social media, and get your name and brand out there.

Good examples of banking blog content

Here are some ideas on the type of content your retail audience would find useful:

  • Financial planning and budgeting — Financial planning in everyday life and making sure you’re saving enough. Budgeting for big life events.

• Dealing with loans and overdrafts — Responsibly managing credit and debt, including understanding interest, minimum payments, and credit limits.

• Investing — Ways to invest money including bonds, the stock exchange, index trackers, mutual funds, and other investment products.

• Retirement planning — How to plan for a good retirement including IRAs, 401Ks, and other pension plans.

When you can bring together great content with a good understanding of your audience and share your content in the right way, you’ll start to create momentum. You can capitalize on that, use it to win you new customers, and keep them happy.

If you need help writing your content or want to bounce some more ideas off us – give us a shout – that\’s what we\’re here for![/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][/cs_content]

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Creating New Banking Customers – The Art of the Email Drip

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If you oversee the marketing or sales for a bank or credit union, you’ve probably placed your fair share of ads in local newspapers, had some promotions on the local radio show, and launched a fabulous Facebook page. Hopefully, you’ve gotten some feedback, adjusted your strategy, and carried on. One marketing avenue you might have overlooked is the quiet, simple, inexpensive, humble email.

It’s true that email marketing sometimes gets a bad rap – Many are afraid of clogging their client’s inbox, being lost in a sea of spam, or getting an “opt out” notification. Fortunately, there’s a solution – Send emails that aren’t all about selling. Instead, focus on building trust, showing expertise, enhancing reputation, sharing great information, and being useful to your customers. Sneak in a subtle call to action here and there by all means, and you’ll find it effective. That’s why “Email Drip Campaigns” work really well for banks, credit unions, and financial institutions.

Why email drip campaigns work

Email drip campaigns are more successful than standard email campaigns because they’re not directly selling something. People are put off by overly “salesy” messages, so drip campaigns avoid them. An email drip campaign will:

  • Share genuinely useful information with your customers and potential customers.
  • Reinforce the name and brand of your bank or credit union with your customers.
  • Show that you understand the needs of people who may require your services.
  • Alert people to news, information and other content that could be useful to them.
  1. A customer or potential customer provides you with their email address, and agrees to get emails from you.
  2. You create a strategy for sharing useful banking and financial information with email recipients and create a series of emails.
  3. You send out emails on a periodic basis according to your strategy and timetable.
  4. Customers and potential customers read these emails and choose to act on them.

We call these “drip campaigns” because they’re designed to work over time — A slow reinforcement of your bank’s brand, expertise, and authority showing how you can help out your personal and business customers.

The type of information your bank could share

Here are some examples of the type of content that does well in email drip campaigns:

  • Simple advice on household budgeting and how to make money go further.
  • Financial planning for vacations and special events, especially at seasonal times of the year.
  • Clear information on investments and how customers can start making their money work for them.
  • Information on the housing market in your local area and whether it’s a good time to buy or sell.
  • Explanations of good money management, including credit and debt.
  • Business centric articles on succession planning, the economy, company culture, and more.
  • Advising people on savings, insurance, and other key areas.

Of course, you can mention your products and services in these emails, but that’s not the point of sending them out. Instead, you’re providing genuinely useful, actionable information to help your customers make better decisions. As a result, they’ll trust you more, and people simply prefer doing business with organizations they trust.

The information you provide doesn’t need to be limited to your emails either. You could have a blog on your website that the email links through too, and where you expand on key information. That also has the benefit of “search engine optimization,” meaning the content could show when people search online.

If you want to learn how to create an affordable lead generating magnet for your bank or credit union – why not give us a call? It’s what we do – We’re lead generating machines here at the Red Barn.

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