Community Bank Marketing Case Study

Highlands State Bank was a four branch community bank in Northern New Jersey. As the lead of the external marketing team working closely with their Vice President of Marketing, and the Compliance, and Operations teams, I strategized, coordinated, and designed several marketing campaigns, delivered through printed and digital advertising, email marketing, social media channels, direct mail postcards, and in-branch signage. This case study focuses on one campaign that ran from 2014 to their acquisition in 2019.

After working with Highlands State Bank for four years from 2014–2018, Highlands State Bank was acquired by Lakeland Bank in January 2019 at which point my engagement with them ended and assets were handed over to the internal team at Lakeland Bank.

Certificates Of Deposit (CD) Marketing Campaign

In 2014, Highlands State Bank premiered promotional rates on Certificates of Deposit that were up to two base percentage points above what their competitors were offering for similar products and terms. As part of fatrabbit CREATIVE, I was tasked with developing the initial marketing strategy and campaign to distribute the information about the promotional rates. Due to the resounding success of the initial campaign, Highlands State Bank continued to increase promotional rates and I revised and updated the messaging throughout the run of the greater campaign, which lasted from 2014 until Highlands State Bank was acquired in 2019.

The Details

  • Goal: Increase Certificate of Deposit (CD) assets by $10 million within three years to provide capital to fuel the Lending department.

  • Messaging Strategy: Focus on the stability and guaranteed return of a CD, opposed to the uncertainty of stocks and bonds.

  • Distribution Strategy: Supported by demographic and customer information, focus on printed advertising in local and regional newspapers with digital support to current email list and social media following.

  • Budget: $4,000 per month, including ad spend for printed advertising.

  • Lifetime Spend: $192,000.

  • Results: $25+ million in CD assets.

Through our initial discovery conversations, we determined that the goal of increasing CD assets by $10 million within three years, was reasonable, given their assets at the time, brand equity within the community, and budget for the campaign. Through research and conversations with the branch managers, we determined that the audience most likely to take advantage of the promotional rate would be people age 50+ who were looking for the stability and guaranteed return that a CD offers, without the risk of stocks or bonds. With our audience in mind, we determined that printed advertising in local and regional newspapers and publications, supported by digital messaging and in-branch collateral would be the most effective distribution approach. With our message focus and distribution methods determined, I began to develop the creative and content for the campaign.

Through ideation and revision focusing our attention on how to present the messaging of stability to the audience, we developed two campaign ideas. Over the lifetime of the campaign, the messaging and imagery adapted to suit the financial environment and shifting focuses in the audience.

The first campaign option, Back to the Basics paired imagery of a piggy bank with messaging focused on the idea that in the tumultuous financial landscape, a guaranteed return and stability of a core account was a smart financial decision. We also presented a second campaign option with similar messaging: Safe. Smart. Simple. After discussion with the Highlands State Bank team, we combined the two campaign ideas into one, utilizing Back to the Basics as the primary headline, with Safe. Smart. Simple. as the secondary.

This first campaign ran alone for a year, after which we began to intersperse additional concepts to appropriate audiences and mediums, including campaigns focused toward people planning for retirement with a campaign to Secure Your Future with an IRA CD.

<image of BTTB/SSS ads>

The initial success of the campaign was excellent, as they received a large influx of new accounts, including significant numbers of customers from the competition who came for the promotional rate, but were converted into multiple account holders. The ratio of renewals at maturity was above 3:1 renewal, with as many as 50% investing more with each renewal.

All told, we reached their $10 million goal within two years, and continued the campaign until their acquisition, at which point they had generated more than $25 million in assets from the CD campaigns alone, on a total lifetime budget of less than $200,000.

 

This work was completed while employed at fatrabbit CREATIVE and is the property of Lakeland Bank who acquired Highlands State Bank in 2019.