[1] What are the special challenges facing a small bank ($378 million of assets in suburban Chicago) embarking on a major branding campaign that relies on delivery of digital content?
We wear a lot of hats here. We don't have an in-house IT staff [Compushare is the IT outsourcer] … We also outsource Web tech management [to BancVue] and have a partner to help produce and distribute our email newsletter [IMN]. We provide one or two main articles per month, and IMN provides the rest of the content.
We don't have the time to produce more than that. And on the Web, it's not like we're writing code. We work with BancVue to manage Web IT, while we post new content or changes to the website. We're bankers, and we want to focus on that.
[2] What's the goal of the community campaign?
We've never really gone out and [pushed the brand aggressively]. We're also trying to steer customers toward accepting electronic [delivery], such as advertising, statements and going to our site to get information. We're trying to change behavior and that's a challenge, particularly for the older demographics.
[3] Without an IT department and just 60 employees, how does the bank help you (the only person with marketing responsibilities) deliver content that's on par with that of larger institutions?
Outsourcing is a cost-effective way to provide these services and to increase touches. IMN charges a monthly fee that's based partly on the volume of the email newsletters.
[4] How will you measure the campaign's success?
More of the focus of the community bank team will be on signing new accounts and tracking new loans brought in. We'd also like to see readership numbers increase for our [digital content], so we're using a tool that tracks that.
[5] Are your external providers also playing a role in gauging the success of the program?
[The outsourcer] does things that we would need a full staff to do. We're able to get reports that track what articles and content are being read, and how often, and what content isn't getting viewed, and make decisions on what to post in the future. We would never be able to do all of that analysis internally.
