Thousands of lenders across the country have loaned more than $230 billion to small businesses through the Paycheck Protection Program. While many banks focused on serving existing customers, perhaps equally as many attracted new customers. If your bank has acquired new customers through PPP, now is the time to solidify these relationships. [Continue]
In response to travel bans, school closures and recommendations to limit group gatherings, many community banks are relying on digital tools, including document management systems, to ensure regular communications and to keep some semblance of normality. [Continue]
Consumers gravitate toward community banks in part because they enjoy supporting locally owned businesses. That relationship should be reciprocal — as customers support your bank, give back to them by supporting their community. [Continue]
While younger generations happen to be primarily big-bank customers, it’s not necessarily because they like to. Big banks capture their attention by focusing their marketing efforts on their “superior” technology, which overshadows smaller community banks. The truth is consumers across all generations prefer the localized, personal service they receive from community institutions. [Continue]
Breaking Banks, the No. 1 fintech podcast in the world, relies on word of mouth for marketing. Instead of creating sound bites highlighting products and services, banks seeking to reach customers through audio content should embed financial products into an examination of a customer’s bigger journey. [Continue]
Though podcasts on everything from sports to true crime are popular, and some of the larger banks do have them, they’re not yet standard among community banks. Here are 10 to try. [Continue]
At any given time, one-fifth of banking customers are researching where to buy their next product or service, and 42 percent of those who left one institution did so because they received an offer or took notice of an advertisement from a different financial institution. [Continue]
People pick their bank in part because they can reach their banker when needed. Why not convert that into a brand that tells both a personal story and the story of the bank? [Continue]
Technology has changed banking — retail bank visits are forecasted to drop by 36 percent by 2022 while mobile transactions are expected to increase 121 percent — and it’s changed how customers interact with their banks. [Continue]
As more and more banks take advantage of convergent technologies and cross marketing, including retail banking, investing, insurance, mortgage and college financing, they’re pushing the hell out of “tell and sell” — and pushing consumers right to the edge. [Continue]