Salin Bank’s Multichannel Efforts Have A Local Focus

Salin Bank is “Your Indiana Family Bank”, according to one campaign’s tag line. And the institution is using a mix of mail, email, radio, video, Web advertising and live events to bring that message home.

The bank’s locations range from Fort Wayne on the state’s northern section, through centrally located capital city Indianapolis, down to southern Indiana’s Columbus. Regional audiences range from small farm and rural communities to university towns.

Salin starts with an advantage: Its Web site already features two community-specific pages, and the bank is in the process of building more. This allows banner ads it places on municipal chambers of commerce sites or local newspaper sites to link back to geographically relevant pages.

Landing pages aren’t limited to geographic-themes: Other links bring Web surfers to pages appropriate for business banking clients, or the institution’s community outreach efforts.

Salin Bank does more than wait for Web surfers to passively come to its local-focused pages, however. Between six and eight times a year, it conducts prospecting mail campaigns of between 60,000 and 90,000 efforts apiece. These efforts, which primarily seek to stimulate demand for its demand deposit accounts, are often run in conjunction with radio branding efforts.

Mailers are sent out in advance of what the bank calls its Big Days—live events held at multiple locations geared toward pulling in new customers. An April 2011 Big Day event, featuring a barbecue utensil giveaway and supported by a 90,000-piece mail effort, generated more than 400 new accounts from across 23 locations.

Similarly, an upcoming Big Day in July will be touted in 60,000 self-mailers. Why the diminished mail volume? The “cats and dogs” theme, which will include veterinarian services as well as shelter animals, won’t run in Fort Wayne, as a competing fair on the same day made the logistics of pet traffic tricky.

There’s another way the July mailing will reflect the bank’s local character. Harris Bank, a Midwest competitor, will be dropping its free checking offering. Additionally, Harris, which is owned by Bank of Montreal, will be stepping up its use of the Bank of Montreal name in its collateral.

“We are inviting [prospects] to stay local,” says Jim Badger, Salin Bank’s senior vice president of marketing. “Some people might not want to bank with the Bank of Montreal.”

Big Day efforts are supported by radio ads. While the 30- and 60-second spots are primarily branding efforts geared toward reinforcing the bank’s identity around its direct mail efforts, they don’t necessarily reflect the Big Day themes. But they are usually timed to air around the dates invitations to Big Day events hit targets’ mailboxes. Station formats where the commercials air include country, easy listening and conservative talk radio, where listeners are more likely to support local businesses.

By and large, Salin Bank saves its mail efforts for prospects: For its existing customers, the bank relies on a branded monthly e-newsletter, which since January 2010 has served as a contact and cross-sell vehicle aimed at 10,000 customers. Badger augments the educational, finance-focused copy provided by the Bank Adviser offering from IMN, with one or two small pieces generated by Salin employees.

When recipients click on the links that appear under article teasers, they are taken to microsites which are branded with Salin’s name and logo. While different banks may draw from IMN’s articles stash, each are given individual microsites, so readers are brought to content and promotions formatted for whichever IMN client is using the system.

Badger admits there are judgment calls regarding what goes into the newsletter. “The Indianapolis location received a green award,” he says. “But Fort Wayne could care less about what Indianapolis is doing, and vice versa.” Salin Bank doesn’t segment its list or send out multiple editions, so the in-house pieces often focus on universal content, such as promotions or customer appreciation days—and in the case of the latter, Badger included reports of what every location had done.

“The opportunity with this newsletter is to start a dialog and stay in touch with customers,” Dan Terry, a manager within IMN’s banking services group says. “We give them access to our articles and recommend they choose three or four financial articles as well as a lifestyle article. We think a real variety of content will be what gets people to welcome it into their inbox.” Recipes, he adds, are often among the most popular pieces in a given newsletter.

“When it comes down to it, money is money,” says Badger. “People want to learn how to save it, spend it appropriately and protect themselves from identity theft and fraud.”

For Salin, detailed analytics regarding the e-newsletters specific impact on customer behavior are a project for down the road, although IMN offers the opportunity to include surveys in its newsletters. The surveys can lead into a bank’s site, depending on how respondents answer specific questions. IMN can also provide detailed drill-down information and provide lists of who is reading articles on specific topics, such as retirement savings. This information can be used to generate cross-sales lists for a financial institution’s marketing staff. IMN can also generate reports on social media sharing, as well as which promotions were clicked on.

Badger has noted a spike in customer service contacts generated through the newsletter, indicating that people are engaging with the bank as a result of receiving it. And Badger is sanguine that even those customers who are deleting the e-mail without opening it are generating value.

“They see we are trying to reach out to them,” he says. [The lack of response] shows they are comfortable with their banking relationships, and that there are no issues.”

What’s next for Salin Bank? “We’ve just stuck our toe into social media,” says Badger. The company has reserved its name on Facebook, and is creating a team to look at the pros and cons of maintaining a presence within the network. While Facebook has much to offer as a marketing tool, and Salin Bank would like to tout its blood drives, work with Habitat for Humanity and other community activities on it, Badger is cautious about employees identifying themselves as working at Salin Bank and having potentially inappropriate content on their own pages.