It’s Time To Put Some Community Into Your Community Bank’s Website
If you look at your bank’s website what do you see?
Information about checking account and savings products? A place to log in to your online banking account? In other words, stuff that’s all about the bank.
That’s all important content. But it’s content that can be found on any community bank’s website.
Community banking is competitive. And to win, you have to do something better than the competition. So why not start with a website that’s as much about the community as it is about the bank?
Imagine if your bank’s website became the main go-to source for keeping up with your community.
Successful websites feature “sticky” content-content that keeps people coming back again and again. Other than your online banking, what would keep bringing your community back to your bank’s website? What would get them talking to their friends about your website?
The answer? Great content about your community.
A great marketing strategy is aimed at filling consumers’ needs. And the need is for community.
Consumers have a deep need to feel connected to a community. The problem these days, very few people do feel connected to the actual communities where they live. Your bank’s website could be a great place for people to start to get that feeling.
All across the Internet, there are all kinds of communities where people can connect. And today people are connecting in those communities at larger numbers than ever. Twitter grew by 600% in 2008. Facebook grew from 150 million users in January of this year to 175 million in February. That’s 25 million new users in one month.
But of all the organizations in your community, other than perhaps the local newspaper, none are in as good of a position as community banks to offer online community. And the beauty of this radical new way of looking at your bank’s website is that it’s right on strategy with what community banking is all about: Building relationships within your own community.
Think about the possibilities of being that one place in your community where people can go to find out what’s going on locally. And where they could get to know one another better.
It’s possible. And it doesn’t have to be an expensive major website overhaul. It can be taken in tiny steps.
The thing is, it’s time to do it.
If you do it now, it will separate you from the big banks. And even better, it will separate you from the other local banks.
But if you don’t do it now, who’s to say that your competitors won’t?
- Kevin McIntosh
Kevin McIntosh develops creative branding ideas and social media strategies to help community banks differentiate from their competition.
Tags: bank marketing strategy
March 4th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Umpqua Bank in Oregon has what they termed, “Local Space Networking” under their Small Business website. http://www.umpquabank.com/1.0/pages/bLocalSpace.aspx?prodCAT=bLocalSpace They have about 250 people pitching their wares on it. Plus, there is a forum section, although the last posts seem to be from mid 2008. Like a lot of banks, they may include news/events/whatever on their website and never promote it. . . thus no recent activity. I see that happen often. Not sure what Umpqua does to promote this part of their website. The key to making your concept work is definitely promotion and some financial insitutions don’t like to do the legwork needed. Kind of sad.
March 6th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Thanks for sharing that, Julie. I would be curious to see how much promotion they put into building awareness for that effort. I’ll do some exploring around their site just to see what al they’ve done.
March 9th, 2009 at 4:12 am
[...] — many have tried…and failed — Barry’s points about differentiation and “putting some ‘community’ in your community bank” are well-taken. Read [...]