By 2015, community banks had returned to pre-crisis levels in terms of noncurrent loans, net charge-offs, and percentage of unprofitable institutions. Core deposits became stagnant over a three-year period for community banks with less than $10 billion in assets. Since then, the COVID-19 pandemic has created several new challenges for financial institutions. Local banks and credit unions increasingly need to execute effective marketing strategies to reach their target audiences. This guide provides strategies for reaching prospective customers/members to increase core deposits. At least for transactional banking purposes, many customers cannot remember the last time they walked into a physical bank. And while national banks enjoy widespread brand awareness thanks to enormous marketing budgets, awareness of community banks and credit unions in their local market is typically about half that of megabanks. To attract and retain depositors, local banks must adjust how they engage customers and differentiate their brand.
1. Local search engine optimization ensures prospects will find you online
You may be the closest financial institution, and you may have the best rates for your deposit accounts, but if your competitors are dominating the top organic positions in Google and Bing search results, then you are missing out on new customers. Utilizing these local SEO strategies will also make it more likely for potential customers to find you through Google searches and business review sites. These strategies are generally useful for increasing your online visibility to a local audience and will yield long-term results.

2. Use multiple marketing channels to reach your desired audience
Part of your bank marketing plan should be to identify the consumer and business personas who can significantly help you grow your deposits, then develop a multi-channel strategy to reach them. Once you have mapped out this information, then you can design your bank deposit marketing and outreach plan accordingly. An important consideration as you create your desired customer profiles is to research what you think may be attractive to your audience. Once you know who you want to reach, integrated marketing strategies that include multiple touch points from direct mail, video, website content, email, print, and digital ads can help you grow deposits from existing customers and convert new customers to boost your bank’s deposits.

3. Use paid search marketing to your advantage
In 2019, it has become the norm for potential customers to turn to a search engine to research a product or service before they decide. This much is obvious, but many financial institutions are not leveraging the full potential of their online presence with an effective search marketing campaign. By utilizing strategies like pay-per-click advertising using tools like Google Ads, community banks can push past their competitors and gain prominence at the top of the search engine results pages. If you plan to enhance your online presence with paid ads, your best bet is to partner with a digital marketing agency that is experienced in helping banks grow.

4. Leverage social advertising to target prospects and existing customers
Many financial products are designed to assist people throughout the various stages of their lives – higher education, relocation, purchasing a home, starting a family. Social media platforms offer powerful targeting tools that allow you to deliver highly focused ads to a specific audience based on their interests and lifestyles. Couple this with a comprehensive understanding of your audience, and you can create social media ads that drive highly qualified traffic to your site. This targeting also allows you to create ads that are tailored to the needs of your specific audiences. You can further narrow your targeting to a specific list of customer email addresses.

5. Deliver customer service that is both friendly and educational
Now your community bank is competing against larger banks as well as online-only financial institutions for highly sought-after customers. Identify the customers your bank would like to attract and try to understand their banking lives. For example, busy people may not want to go through the hassle of switching their checking account, so you do not want to lead with checking account marketing strategies. On that note, make teller outreach a core part of your internal marketing strategy. In the era of direct deposit and mobile banking, customers do not have to visit a physical branch. This is often what distinguishes a community bank from larger, more impersonal institutions. When it comes to high net worth customers, pick up the phone and get personal. Remember you are not the only bank trying to woo potential customers or sell additional products to existing customers.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath