You’ve heard it here repeatedly–change your name to something unique. The message always looks from a marketing perspective, but today we look at the lesson from the risk perspective. Enter Signature Bank New York, NY. John and Josh look at actionable items from this real-world example. Listen in for valuable insight from the dynamic duo.
Everywhere you look, vendors are offering insights on audience personas. Using personas offers the promise of finding that target client or approaching customers to meet their individual challenges. On this podcast, Josh and John discuss Matt Lerner’s post on persona research at Paypal. Listen in as they discuss the uses or lack thereof for persona marketing in your marketing mix.
Measuring the impact of marketing can be a challenging task. Is your marketing strategy working, or are your efforts inefficient? John and Josh discuss the challenges conquered and how they’ve built effective methods to track marketing returns.
Do you understand Digital? Do you know how to write or critique great ads? Are you reaching all of your communities as a community bank? Listen in as John and Josh tackle these topics and more while steering you toward effective ways to reach your audience.
ChatGPT is a language processing tool that uses natural language processing (NLP) techniques to understand and respond to user inquiries in real time. It is a type of chatbot, which is a computer program designed to simulate conversation with human users, typically over the internet. ChatGPT is trained on a large dataset of text and can understand and generate human-like responses to a wide range of questions and statements. It can learn and adapt over time, becoming more accurate and efficient as it processes more data. ChatGPT and other similar tools can be used in a variety of applications, such as customer service, data analysis, and automation.
On this episode of the Marketing Money Podcast, John and Josh look at the opportunities ChatGPT may offer to enhance bank marketing. They’ll break down their thoughts on best use cases and current limitations of the tool, as well as find comedic responses using ChatGPT.
Are your bank’s vendors a partner or more similar to good employees? Do they provide the services you need? Or are you buying what vendors are selling, regardless of customer needs? John and Josh tackle these questions and more while taking a dive into the banker/vendor relationship. Listen in as the Marketing Money duo talk anecdotally about successes and failures, giving you an insight into successful strategies.
Are you excited about digital? Have you been researching the latest and greatest Fintech? While these can be integral to your bank’s marketing, are you missing the core foundation? In this episode, John and Josh dive into the blocking and tackling of marketing–skills agnostic to medium and transferable across all aspects of your marketing plan. Listen in as they address chasing the rainbow of tomorrow without shoring up the skills of today.
This is part 2 of the Marketing Money Podcast’s breakdown of the 2022 ABA Bank Marketing Conference. Pack your bags, board your flights, and listen in to what’s in store in Denver.
This year’s ABA Bank Marketing Conference is September 11-13 in Denver. John and Josh are excited to attend and absorb the wealth of knowledge being shared. In this episode, they break down the different learning opportunities as well as share some travel tips for Denver. Listen in to learn more.
Tipping has long been a mainstay in American dining culture. Recently, it has expanded into counter service, fast food and retail. In this week’s episode, John and Josh discuss this “tipping creep” and what it could mean for banks in the future. Listen in to hear their thoughts.
Do your campaigns fall victim to any of bank marketing’s most-common woes? Weak content that fails to connect and convert is common, and it comes from concerns that touch us all. Hear how bland branding happens and how to avoid it. Marketing Money Podcast covers the eight problems we all face.
A campaign is the vehicle that delivers content, connection and conversion. It lends context to every action you take. Are you clear on what problems you’re solving for your customers? Marketing Money Podcast discusses this and the four other things every campaign must do.
Don’t lose sight of your marketing’s true goal. If the people who receive your bank’s message can’t become customers as a direct result, you’re missing out. Are you actually asking for their business and providing a clear way to convert? Is the conversion experience itself difficult or unpleasant? Listen as we cover the eight most common conversion missteps that cost banks every day.
Do you have the infrastructure in place to let your advertising do its job? Making business happen isn’t about the ads alone. Make sure your customers can follow through on the inspiration you create. Hear what Marketing Money Podcast has to say about the eight key elements of conversion.
Is your message too broad or too targeted? Does your content fail to get customers to engage? Does your brand look just like every other bank in your area? Hear what Marketing Money Podcast has to say about avoiding these and the other most common connection marketing mistakes.
How does your content connect with your audience? It’s easy to create a message all your fellow bankers will applaud, but will your customers understand? Will they even get the message at all? Knowing who your audience is and how to connect with them will make your work more successful. Hear the Marketing Money Podcast duo’s eight absolutes on the matter.
Does your bank marketing fall victim to one or more of the eight great pitfalls in the content world? Lack of originality leads to most of them, and every bank marketer can benefit from constant attention applied to avoiding them all. Hear what the Marketing Money Podcast duo has to say.
Your content’s message must be valuable, sensible, personal and brief. Making sure your content is good begins with making sure it’s well made. Dive into Marketing Money Podcast’s eight-part series, The Great 8 of Content Marketing, with a look at what professional production value really means. You’ll hear why good audio and steady, in-focus video will never go out of style.
The bot-gun approach of contacting potential customers through any social media platform may be the most solid way of making sure you never get the business. If you’re looking to be effective, you have to do your research and make contact appropriately. At least a minimum of effort is required. Hear what the Marketing Money Podcast has to say about how to engage.
Cutting marketing budgets because profits are down is like saving money on travel expenses by not buying gas. It answers the need painlessly in the moment while ensuring great disappointment down the road. If your bank marketing budget must be trimmed, there are smart ways to go about it. Hear what the Marketing Money Podcast duo has to say.
Mark Gibson | What’s On the Way for Bank Marketers in 2022
Do digital banking’s projections outrun reality? The customer journey belongs to the customer, after all, and inconvenience is in the eye of the account holder. Many prefer cash in hand, direct relationships eye to eye. They like to do things the way they’ve always done, and that audience crosses every demographic line. Hear what the Marketing Money Podcast has to say about what’s been learned.
How much “new” innovation is simply a less-bad version of what we already have? There’s no need to reinvent the wheel, but improvements that let it roll more smoothly are always welcome. Interjecting options for customers to choose is one thing, but expecting to force their choice is another. Have you asked the customer what they want? Hear what the Marketing Money Podcast duo has to say.
Is your bank making it difficult to find the key information your customers want and need? Think about how you’re treated by the big corporations you love and hate the most. Many big companies use dark patterns to herd disgruntled customers into the channels they want them to find. It’s impersonal and, for community banks, it’s counterproductive. Hear why the Marketing Money Podcast says you’re better off dealing with even minor problems head on.
Preparing crisis communication in advance can go only so far. Unpredictability is the very nature of crisis after all. Beyond confirming the basic structure for connecting your team, what steps should you take before the dreaded day arrives, and how do we proceed when it does? There are lessons to take from a recent airline’s debacle we can easily apply for ourselves. Hear what Marketing Money Podcast has to say.
Talking people out of giving their personal information to fraudsters consumes a surprising amount of bank markers’ energy. To combat such bad intentions, many modes of technology have been made much harder to set up than they are to use. It causes frustration for financial institutions and customers alike. Listen to what Marketing Money Podcast has to say about the future of technical convenience.
Mobile convenience for banking has never been better, but transaction volume in bank branches remains outrageously high. There’s still a strong appetite for doing business in person across many different retail categories, and banking is certainly one of those. There’s no single way of doing things that everyone wants. If someone is telling you in-branch banking is dead, check the motive of the person saying so. The Marketing Money team weighs in.
Fall is in the air, football on tv, and yearly budget planning is right around the corner. Start 2022 out well by planning your budget for success. Listen in as John and Josh talk strategic budgeting, capitalizing on opportunities of high risk/reward, and of course how to bring the boom.
If your vendors are telling you their solution is the only one with the hope of keeping your business alive, it’s time to hit the delete button in more ways than one. The hyperbole landing every day in bank marketers’ inboxes has gotten tedious and old. Don’t fall for their cash grab. The Marketing Money Podcast takes such exaggerated tactics to task.
Mabus Agency | State of Data, Part I
Artificial Intelligence in Marketing with Cassandra Giovanni
Better-branded banks have an easier time recruiting the best talent, simply because it’s obvious to the talent that the bank is working to make easier the job they’re being recruited to do. The same holds true for recruiting new business, as well. It’s our role to make sure our audience understands what we offer and how we can help through what our banks already do. Hear what Marketing Money Podcast has to say.
Mabus Agency Blog | Organize Your Content with These Inverse Triangles
Banking job searches asking for a cornucopia of skills get the poor results they deserve. No applicant, and no full-time professional, can be proficient in every possible task. As a result, the only returns the searches generate are applicants without the ability to do what the employer actually needs doing. Hear what Marketing Money Podcast has to say about searches that don’t know what they’re looking for.
What lessons can the competition for retail shelf space teach us in the bank marketing world? How about merchants’ constant pursuit of personal information for facilitating future sales? When every product is always on sale, what does that say about what its core value should actually be? Every market brings elements unique to its own niche, but understanding the customer is not hard.
How vulnerable to ransomware is our nation’s banking system and the free flow of our economy? We’ve seen both oil and beef compromised in recent weeks, but banking seems the most likely target to the Marketing Money Podcast because, as they say, that’s where the money is. How secure is your bank’s system, and how does that affect the marketing position of your products? The Marketing Money Podcast duo weighs in.
Partnering with the service StrategyCorps helps banks analyze their customer base and choose those to whom marketing premium products would be most profitable. What those premium products should be named, and how they should be priced, is one of the most critical conversations of all. Customers judge what a product is worth by the way we present it, after all. Hear what Marketing Money Podcast has to say on the subject.
In an era of consolidation, when the count of banks in the United States has dropped below 5,000 for the first time in more than a century, the value of a unique bank name has never been greater. Hear what the Marketing Money Podcast has to say.
Disclaimer: We do not guarantee the accuracy of this list due to the quick nature of its creation.
A bank’s disposition toward enforcing its customer rewards structure, and its leeway to adjust for any given situation, hamper relationships more often than we’d like. The opportunity to find a different solution and reframe the issue to make customers whole is not one to be ignored. Hear what our Marketing Money Podcast duo has to say.
Mabus Agency Blog | Reason Versus Rationale
If your bank marketing tools aren’t built to advance the plot of your business plan, why aren’t they? A MacGuffin is an item in a story that exists only to move the plot forward. The MacGuffins of our daily lives need to exist for a calculated purpose, not just because it’s what we’ve always done. Hear what the Marketing Money Podcast has to say.
Everyone wants a groundbreaking bank marketing campaign until it comes time to put it in the field without a track record of prior results to lean on. If you’re going to be unique, then by very definition you’ll be spending some time alone. Be the show, don’t be the commercial. Listen to what Josh and John say is the best way to do it.
Marketers have all but ruined email as a mode of commercial communication through an excessive addiction to the Send button. Re-earning our customers’ willingness to listen is a project well worth undertaking. Hear how the Marketing Money Podcast team suggests it be done.
On the eve of the Superb Owl, our dynamic duo considers the value of name recognition and the different methods through which it is achieved. How do people learn of products organically, and how can banks capitalize on that for bank marketing programs of their own? Our team weighs in on the options.
Capitalizing on FinTech is the latest trend and set of buzzwords in the bank marketing world, but how do we make sure there’s actually a quality experience there to be had by our customers? It’s easy to get caught up in the packaging, but our Marketing Money Duo breaks down what it means to make it meaningful.
Shuttering Simple. A Digital Allegory for Personal Banking.
This year has been a time of re-evaluation for many things. From our personal lives at home to our habits as consumers in the wider world, the places where we’ve paid attention are not necessarily those we might have expected. Nationwide, ratings for sports are down while those for news are up. On the banking side, mortgage departments are having a banner year. With so much at risk, neither of those trends is what we might have expected. Hear what the Marketing Money duo has to say about the value of, not going with the flow, but going where the flow is headed.
Opportunities to expand mobile banking services can’t be considered optional anymore. Customers are voting with their wallets every day to support businesses that cater to convenience, and banking can’t afford to lag very far behind. There are regulatory restrictions to consider, but often there’s nothing more than mere inertia in the way. Listen to what our Marketing Money Podcasters have to say in this special two-part episode.
People make real decisions with their wallets but answer polling questions the way they want to be perceived, and those two don’t always match. Opinions on retail products don’t shift as wildly as political opinions do, but finding the factors that make answers to polls lead to profits is a very fine art. Listen to what our Marketing Money Podcasters have to say in this special two-part episode.
If you’ve spent a lifetime putting off something you wanted to do until you have time, don’t miss capitalizing on these pandemic days to bear down and make your multitasking dreams come true. Don’t fail to win a trophy for lack of committing to the training. The knowledge and the know-how are all available, and all it takes is taking the first step, then one more step at a time after that.
Following viral leaders down an unexpectedly-discovered path may be sincere flattery, but it’s anything but an effective marketing strategy. What are the unique things your brand can do? Good marketing results are repeatable, and viral discoveries made through social media certainly are not. Don’t be tempted into embarrassment by envy. Bank marketing can be cool, but not if it’s a cringe-inducing parody that’s nothing but a parody of itself. Hear what our Marketing Money Podcasters have to say about setting your own trends in the bank marketing world.
The advent of COVID-19 and virus-inspired social distancing has sparked colossal growth in online banking. The infrastructure has been in place for a long time, but there are a number of sticking points within online banking products holding these options back from becoming what they might and, someday, certainly will be. Hear what our Marketing Money Podcasters have to say about how to get better.
Every business has its signature products, even within the same categories of product. Especially there, in fact. Everyone, that is, except for banks. What can we figure out that lets us stand alone in a crowd? Our MMP duo works over the best ideas in the business on this week’s episode.
There’s never been a better time to start improving your bank, whether through the name on the front of the building or with the people working inside. Our brands will differentiate us only if they’re different from all the rest, and finding that difference requires focused thought. In the same vein, finding the best people to add to the team requires us to focus on a star instead of shooting for the moon. You may need a wide swath of services, but it’s important to focus on the service needed most and hire to suit that need. The combined branding and hiring experience of the Marketing Money Podcast team is on full display in this week’s episode.
Are your products missing the boat because your message is missing its market? When products aren’t made available to the customers most likely to use them, nothing positive is likely to follow. No one would intentionally separate services from sales on a one-to-one basis, but sometimes our overarching strategy does that for us, to everyone’s chagrin. Hear what our team has to say about how to avoid the issue.
With events suspended and sports mostly shut down, many of our standard marketing opportunities are now painfully absent. One thing that can’t take the season off, though, is marketing your brand. With all developments to date considered, what are the best places to push your plan now? The Marketing Money Podcast considers all the best options around.
Inspiration for improvement isn’t likely to come from someone who’s doing the same things you and everyone else is already doing. If you draw your ideas from how other banks are marketed, you’re likely to look like every other marketed bank. Immerse yourself in the experience of the world, feed your creative engine, step outside the rut of every day and you’ll be amazed at what you will find.
How do you balance the desire to stand out with the fear of making mistakes? In a market where everyone’s products are similar and every approach nearly the same, the appetite for stepping outside of the box is one that must be acquired. A good partnership with an agency requires a level of mutual trust. Josh and John discuss the best ways to explore the places a bank and its agency may go, and the trust that is built along the way.
Everyone who uses your brand likely assumes they know how to use the elements, especially if there’s not a Standards Guide. But you can’t leave it up to chance. By creating an agreed-upon set of brand standard guidelines, everyone who uses or applies your brand — no matter what medium — can do so consistently.
Renasant Bank Brand Standards Guide
We all want to help our world improve, but what can we do as marketers to bring about permanent, positive change? Decisions that affect lives can’t come across as an afterthought. Our team visits with Chukwukere Ekeh, Renasant Bank’s VP of Retail Marketing, who brings to the conversation a lifetime’s experience in the challenges of business and cultural biases.
The old paradigms for connecting with new and current customers are gone. What will replace them? The needs for banking products are certainly still there, but your message has to do more for you now than ever to bring in the business. Our team dissects the dialogue on offer and offers a few key points of their own on how to connect when traditional contact is still meeting a closed door.
When the current pandemic pressed “Fast Forward” on banking customers’ digital adoption controls, the whole world of bank marketing took a giant step into the future as well. At the same time, business banking reached back into the glory days of client relationships. Hear what Josh Mabus and John Oxford have to say about the juxtaposition this set of circumstances has created.
The dynamic duo is back at it, talking Michael Jordan, Joe Exotic, Aerosmith, and more. John delves into stats about U.S. media consumption from eMarketer while Josh relives the “glory days.” Oh, and they talk about showing value in your advertising. Just push play.
What if I told you two guys from Mississippi got a microphone, took a deep breath, and changed the bank marketing world? Welcome to a celebration of an accomplishment that came about one step at a time, just as any project does. If you’ve spent time dreaming about something you’d like to do but have never made any progress beyond that, you’ve missed opportunities without ever hearing them whiz by. Stop waiting, start doing, and hear what our intrepid podcasters have to say about the future of bank marketing.
Opportunities to capitalize on the newest content distribution platform depend first on figuring out what it is and whether it’s a place your message belongs. Quibi, a video-content-streaming app designed for mobile phones, debuted this week and opened another door for potential communication with our clients. Before we step through it, though, it’s first critical we understand how the communication will, or won’t, work. Hear what the Marketing Money Podcast has to say.
Channeling the wit and wisdom of Winston Churchill, the Marketing Money Podcast crew dives headfirst into the fray of the COVID climate. What steps should you take to protect your business? Where and how can you help your community? What does this mean for your marketing plan and where should you look for answers? Tune in for all this and more as our intrepid team enters its finest hour.
No More Next Time: Marketing in the Age of Distraction
On the latest episode of Marketing Money, our dynamic duo discusses Morning Report’s “Consumer Views on Retail Banking and Personal Finance.” Is it possible to target clients looking to move banks? If so, how can you, as a bank marketer, reach these potential clients? How does automotive marketing relate to bank marketing? Tune in to hear John and Josh tackle these questions—all while being visited by the spirits of Mark Twain and George Whipple.
It’s Conference Season again. On this episode of Marketing Money, John discusses ways to improve your presentation skills while Josh shares Guy Kawasaki’s rules to maximize the attention of your audience. The better you listen, the better you’ll speak.
In this episode of the Marketing Money Podcast, John and Josh break down what makes a business card stand out in a sea of sameness. Hear Josh expound on the different styles and printing techniques available while stressing the importance of showing value, while John dives into the necessities of a card and how analog and digital business cards can share equal value. Listen in for all things paper, printing, and presentation.
In this episode, our dynamic duo delves into the depths of building your messaging using a three-tiered approach. Josh, aka Sir-Markets-A-Lot, discusses which media format matches each messaging type. John shares how to break down your budget to allow flexibility in messaging opportunities while navigating the slippery slopes of the yearly budget season. Don’t miss this one—you may even hear a secret confession or two while learning how to optimize your messaging.
Happy New Year from the Marketing Money crew! Kicking off 2020, John and Josh discuss the recent Business Insider article, “Goldman Sachs reportedly spent $300 million developing the Apple Card — then Apple boasted that it was ‘created by Apple, not a bank.’” Our podcasting pundits ponder what makes this collaboration unique and what community banks can take away from it.
It’s the last podcast of 2019, and we’re talking about wonderful, sappy, low-cost Christmas ads and why community banks have to be a little more intentional with their marketing campaigns. John and Josh discuss Hafod Hardware’s viral Christmas commercial, which, while produced for under $200, would cost any community bank much closer to $1 million to recreate.
ABA Banking Journal | Holidays, Hardware Stores and Bank Marketing
This week, Josh and John break down the three-column strategy that will make planning your social media content as easy as, well…1, 2, 3. This strategy may not change your world, but it will certainly change the way you plan your social media calendar. So, stop letting holidays and bank events sneak up on you, and start telling the stories that your bank should be known for with this simple strategy.
ABA Banking Journal | Content Planning for a Year Not Far, Far Away
When a big bank swoops into your local market and acquires a bank, it’s easy to imagine the marketplace disruption is rife for gathering new deposits from that bank’s old customers. But in actuality, 5% of that bank’s customers leave—10% in a worst-case scenario. Josh and John talk about your bank’s real opportunity when a competitor gets bought out—talent acquisition.
ABA Banking Journal | Flip the Script on M&A Marketing
In 1985, an unknown men’s clothing designer forced his way into the national men’s fashion conversation with a single billboard. Josh and John talk about how, at a time when most men’s fashion brands advertised their clothes similarly, this designer stood out from his much more famous competition by doing something completely different. Banks face a similar challenge. How can a bank in a high-parity market and highly regulated industry stand apart from the rest? Certainly not by copying the competition.
The Economist | Tommy Hilfiger on a Game of Hangman
ABA Banking Journal | What Can Bank Marketers Learn from High Fashion
Josh and John are back from Austin and ready to get back into the flow of things. They like to use The ABA Bank Marketing Conference as a barometer for the coming year in bank marketing, so join them for a recap of all the things they learned, the talks they gave, and the questions they were asked.
Josh and John have been thinking about ESPN’s Monday Night Football mix-up all week, and what banks can do to learn from it. ESPN heard viewer complaints that down-marker graphics were easily confused with penalty graphics and had the problem solved before halftime. Is your bank putting off customer service problems that could be fixed as easily?
The business community looks to Disney for lessons in customer loyalty, but often that means overlooking the example Disney sets for market saturation. Disney has released or announced so many new projects in 2019 that the company is a part of every conversation—every breath—in the entertainment industry. They’re acting like a company doing everything they can to stay in business—throwing everything against the wall and pulling out all the stops. But they’re doing this while they’re successful. Why can’t you do the same for banking? Josh and John don’t think banks need to open “The Wide World of Banking” theme parks, but they do have some tips for how banks can dominate their marketplaces.
What’s the most underrated service in banking? Cash flow management—or “treasury management,” if you prefer to be formal. This week, Josh and John are joined by Mabus Agency Chief Strategy Officer Hunter Young as they talk about the benefits of leading the marketing conversation with cash flow.
It goes without saying—Josh and John are hyped about the upcoming ABA Bank Marketing Conference in Austin, Texas. Even though it’s almost two months away, that won’t stop them from dedicating an entire podcast to talking about it. Listen in to this episode of Marketing Money to find out all there is to look forward to at this year’s conference.
Brick-and-mortar banks are screwed. At least that’s what Goldman Sachs partner Adam Dell recently told a room full of conference attendees. Josh and John disagree. Incumbent banks have an incredible opportunity to surpass their peers in the current buy-or-get-bought world of banking. Listen as they discuss digital relevancy and take a surprisingly relevant sidebar into modern uses for direct mail.
Nearly two-thirds of bank names contain one of the following words: first, national, trust, or savings. This week, Josh and John talk rebranding and ask the question: If you’re going to change your name, why not go for something totally different from your competitors?
If a bank marketing department operates as an expense instead of P&L, can a bank really measure marketing ROI? The short answer is no…and somehow also yes. The best way a marketing department can show its value (and the value of its individual campaigns) is through smart attribution. So what is marketing attribution, and how can you use? Tune in to hear Josh and John hash it out.
For this episode of the Marketing Money Podcast, Josh and John dive into the complex romance between ad agencies and banks. Listen up as they discuss the finer details of choosing the appropriate ad agency and how to navigate the working relationship.
In this episode, Josh and John hash out John’s 23andMe results, underrated films from the 90s, and 20 advertising pointers from “Wizard of Ads” author Roy H. Williams. They relate these advertising principles to the banking sphere, covering topics from SEO to budget allocation to marketing automation.
Josh and John are in Las Vegas, but that doesn’t mean they’re shirking their podcast duties. They sat down with Jane Barratt and Brett Allred of the bank data aggregation and artificial intelligence firm MX while attending the Financial Brand Forum. Listen up as they discuss how MX uses AI (assisted intelligence) to empower their customers and their customers’ customers.
In the constant tug-of-war between loan and deposit growth, it can be easy to forget about investing in your most important resource: your brand. How can you develop marketing efforts that put your brand first? Too many bank marketers get stuck in the moment—something John and Josh have plenty of thoughts on. Listen to this week’s Marketing Money podcast to get the scoop.
Seth Godin’s blog The Elegance of Nothing
On this week’s Marketing Money Podcast we trade John Oxford for the team at Rain Local to talk about digital advertising, building smart customer databases, and geo-conquesting. Rain Local has been pulling levers and pushing buttons behind the scenes of some of Renasant Bank and Mabus Agency’s most successful digital campaigns. Listen this week as they share some of their secrets.
Rain is a full-service mobile marketing agency that specializes in advertising for community and regional banks with federally compliant ads that generate clear ROI. They help your bank connect with the ideal clients. Their dedicated mobile experts will help ensure your campaign meets your goals every step of the way.
Josh and John can’t understand why banks continue to copy each other while insisting they’re different. They imagine a generic bank’s website offering “a different way of banking,” while featuring images of handshakes, teller rows, and smiling couples handing bankers manila envelopes. Bank clients expect banks to be banks, but they also want to find the bank that is best for them. The solution? Don’t tell us that your people are the difference, tell us why your people are the difference. Don’t tell us you’re a community bank, show us what you do to strengthen the community.
Josh and John react to “The Problem of Small-Town Banks: People Want High-Tech Services,” published by The Wall Street Journal. Do they think the article is fair? Maybe. Do they think you should read it? Absolutely. Community banks don’t necessarily have to compete with Bank of America or the new BB&T-Suntrust megabank on proprietary technology—they can’t. But community banks do have to work with their core providers, web developers, and third-party vendors to offer customers an ever-increasing baseline technology experience.
Marketing Money gets down to basics this week with a discussion on checking accounts. Most consumers can’t tell one checking account from another, so what is your bank doing to make the ones you offer stand out? How do they add value to your clients’ lives? Tune in to this week’s episode as Josh and John check in with their takes.
In this industry, your competitors offer nearly identical products as you do—which means it’s vital to make the most of your messaging. On this episode of Marketing Money, John and Josh give insight on how your bank can strategically position itself to win clients, drive business, and succeed in almost any market.
Marketing Money Podcast is back, and John and Josh are talking about relevance. See, you’re either relevant or you’re not—and in the case of community banking, there’s not much going around. Tune in to this week’s episode to learn how your bank can readjust its marketing strategy and capture the attention of your audience.
On this episode of Marketing Money, John and Josh are joined by Avery Tate and Khaoula Kamal, the highly ambitious students who started the financial literacy initiative, Money Moves. They stop by to share the organization’s roots, talk about the principles it’s built on, and of course, manage to make our hosts feel really old. It turns out, they’re quite successful at all three. Does Josh even know who Cardi B is? Is John using the word “yeet” correctly? Tune in to this week’s episode to find out.
Is Marketing Money now a sports podcast? Drew “Rex” Grossman, Associative Creative Director at Mabus Agency, joins our dynamic duo to clarify that he’s not the former Chicago Bears quarterback and share a few stories about his previous work for the Atlanta Hawks. Eventually, Josh, John, and Drew dive into a captivating dialogue about how to balance data-driven work with the power of creativity. Tune in for practical bank marketing advice and sports commentary that nobody asked for.
As Associate Creative Director at Mabus Agency, Drew oversees advertising and branding for bank marketing clients. He’s worked with major brands, including the Atlanta Hawks, New Balance and National Geographic, as well as many national and regional financial institutions. As an advertising copywriter, his work has been recognized by the American Advertising Awards, the Telly Awards and various financial services trade organizations. In 2017, he won a National CUNA Diamond Award for Best Financial Brand Make Over and Advertising Campaign for Workers Credit Union, out of Boston. For the 2018-2019 NFL season, Drew spearheaded creative ideation and execution on two sponsorship deals between a large, national financial institution and the Los Angeles Rams and Las Vegas Raiders. Drew has a bachelors degree in creative writing from Florida State University and masters degree in communications from the University of Maryland.
What does your bank have in common with Disney World? This may seem like a ridiculous question, but Mabus Agency’s Motion Director, Devon Hosford, thinks it’s time community banks start asking themselves this very question. As this week’s Marketing Money guest, Devon shares a few stories from her time at the house of the mouse, and delves into how that experience informs her creative approach to bank marketing. We also learn about John’s subpar lifeguarding abilities, and the group does a deep dive into the meaning of “pigeonholed.”
Devon Hosford is a Motion Design Director at Mabus Agency. She has worked with a diverse range of clients and brands, including Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Nickelodeon, McDonald’s, Quilted Northern, Charles Schwab, Adobe Systems Inc. and The Walt Disney Company. She escaped to Georgia from New Jersey in 2010 and graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design 4 years later. She currently resides in Atlanta, GA with her two cats and her person. She also serves as a senior Chapter leader for Lean In Atlanta, where she works to empower women in the Atlanta-metro with education and support. When not designing or animating, she spends time working on her fixer-upper and searching for vintage furniture in need of some TLC. She prides herself on cooking from scratch, and will feed anyone that gets too close.
ABA Banking Journal editor-in-chief Evan Sparks joins Josh and John on the latest episode of Marketing Money. The trio discusses GDPR and a variety of hot banking topics while diving into some of the great work the ABA is doing to support open banking initiatives across the United States. Also, Evan gives us a sneak peek of his upcoming story about how the small town of Tupelo, Mississippi, is making a big splash in the financial services sector.
Sparks is a writer and editor based in Washington, D.C., where he is currently vice president for publications at the American Bankers Association, a trade association for banks of all sizes and charters in the nation’s $15 trillion banking industry, and editor-in-chief of the association’s more-than-century-old flagship magazine, the ABA Banking Journal. He leads a team of writers, editors and publishing professionals who produce print and digital periodicals, including a daily e-newsletter with more than 70,000 readers.
Prior to joining ABA, Sparks was managing editor of Philanthropy, a publication of the Philanthropy Roundtable and where he continues to serve as a contributing editor. Before joining the Roundtable, he was an associate editor at the American Enterprise Institute, where he wrote and edited a wide range of publications, updated the think tank’s website, and worked on social media projects. During that time, he created a blog on aviation policy, which is no longer active but whose archives he keeps available. In 2009-2010, he was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute.
Sparks has published freelance articles and reviews on aviation policy, philanthropy, and a wide range of other topics in the Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, Commentary, Forbes.com, The American, TCS Daily, and other outlets, and he writes for the National Geographic Bee. His ghostwritten work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Huffington Post, Roll Call, The Hill, and other major outlets.
Joining John and Josh on today’s episode of Marketing Money is Selena Swartzfager, president of the Mississippi Council on Economic Education. The trio discusses some of the great work the council is doing in Mississippi, and how banks can benefit from providing basic financial education to their clients. Also, Josh attempts to read German, and we learn about John’s deep love for all things Mary Poppins. You can’t make this stuff up, folks. Give this week’s podcast a listen for more classic Marketing Money hilarity and practical bank marketing advice.
An accomplished leader and educator, Selena Swartzfager was selected as president of the Mississippi Council on Economic Education (MCEE) in August 2010. In her capacity as an advocate for educating Mississippi teachers to teach their students financial readiness skills, she draws on more than 20 years of experience in the corporate world and the classroom She is a licensed teacher in the areas of Business Education, Economics. Before joining MCEE, Selena was a business teacher at Clinton High School (Clinton, MS) and a business instructor at Virginia College (Jackson, MS). Previously, she was the operations manager and served on the adjunct faculty for the University of Mississippi Medical Center, School of Nursing (Jackson, MS), and held several positions of increasing responsibility at Raytheon Aerospace (Madison, MS). While in secondary education, Selena coached teams that were first place Mississippi regional winners in the Online Financial Literacy Challenge, two years in a row. She was the co-developer of “Arrows in Action”, an ACT prep program. In addition, she served as faculty advisor for Future Business Leaders of America. Ms. Swartzfager is President-elect for the National Association of Economic Educators and for MS Association of Fundraising Professionals. She served as chair of the board of governors of Youth Leadership Jackson from 2008-2009 and served in various other capacities on the board from 2005-2014. She has also served the MBA Association of Mississippi as President, Vice-President, Treasurer and Board Member. In addition, Ms. Swartzfager has served as Planning Chair, President-Elect, President and Past-President for the Business Officers of Nursing Universities and Schools. She is a member of the Leadership Jackson Alumni Association and of the Rotary Club of Downtown Jackson. Selena’s work has led to a number of honors. She was most recently selected by the Mississippi Business Journal as one of the “Top 50 Leading Business Women in Mississippi.” She was selected by the Council for Economic Education to speak about her success in the classroom at their annual “Visionary Awards” at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City. The Mississippi Business Journal awarded her the “Top 40 Under 40” award. She was selected as a member of the Leadership Jackson class in 2003-2004 and has appeared on MPB’s “Money Matters” on several occasions. She occasionally writes for the MS Business Journal. Selena earned a B.S. degree in Management with an emphasis on Human Resources at the University of Southern Mississippi and an M.B.A. degree from Millsaps College. Raised in Bandera, Texas, Swartzfager now lives at the Reservoir with her husband, Glenn (attorney) and sons Ashton (graduate student at Millsaps College), 22 and Greyson, 14 (student at Northwest Rankin High School).
What’s the biggest opportunity your bank is missing out on right now? John and Josh will help you find the answer on this week’s episode of Marketing Money. The duo delves into a slew of hot topics, including digitization, the value of customer service, and their all-important ongoing campaign to change bank names across the nation. But wait, there’s more! Want to see how your bank stacks up against the competition? Listen in to learn about Mabus Agency’s latest endeavor that proves all bank accounts aren’t created equal.
John and Josh need a word with you. The dynamic duo is back from Baltimore and the ABA Bank Marketing Conference, and while they were gone, they decided that bank marketing needs a wake-up call. Who better to sound the alarm than the Marketing Money hosts themselves? Listen in as they drop truth bombs all episode long.
On this episode of Marketing Money, the duo teams up with Cassandra Giovanni, marketing manager at Savings Institute Bank & Trust Company, to talk about the rising popularity of artificial intelligence products within community banking. Do these services add value to customer experience? By the end of the podcast, you’ll certainly know John, Josh, and Cassandra’s views on the subject.
Giovanni is a results-driven Marketing Leader with a strong background in brand and digital management with experience creating highly effective strategic marketing plans that drive revenue through marketing efforts.
– Spearheaded the rebranding of Savings Institute Bank & Trust to help establish a brand culture that strongly resonates with the bank’s core and future demographics, both internally and externally in RI and CT with proven measurable results.
– Continuous lead in product development of innovative solutions for Savings Institute Bank & Trust.
– Created Strategic Marketing Plan that resulted in an increase in interchange revenue of over $100K in the first year of its implementation.
– Highly knowledgeable in digital media such as online, mobile and social media.
– Responsible for the building of the Social Media presence of Savings Institute Bank & Trust, and growing the presence by over 1,000 followers in an 8 month time period.
– Successfully implemented new Email Onboarding Program for the bank with assistance from Marketing Specialist
– Recently recognized as one of the American Banker Association’s ‘Banking Brand Experts’
In addition to her banking experience, she is Senior Creative Partner at Show n’ot Tell Publishing. She has a total of 10 books currently published, several of which have been noted as Amazon Best Sellers.
Risk is a part of banking. You probably didn’t need us to tell you that, but that won’t stop John and Josh from spending an entire podcast talking about it. What does true risk look like in the bank marketing world? Are you taking enough risks? The guys even bring in PKM systems partner Terry Ammons to lend his expertise to the conversation. Terry discusses relevant risk management strategies for financial institutions of all sizes—like how to better understand your bank’s cybersecurity measures and the idea of embracing risk as a tool.
Terry specializes in assurance and consulting services for financial institutions, fintech (payments, managed services, loan servicing, software development) and a variety of private technology companies. He is a frequent speaker to financial services and technology companies on a variety of topics including vendor management, cybersecurity, internal controls, regulatory compliance and strategic planning/alignment.
Terry has been featured in numerous banking industry publications and outlets, including American Banker’s BankThink discussing how banks and financial technology firms can build closer, more cooperative working relationships, BankNews on how bankers can build and engage employees with a culture of risk management and in Banking Exchange on the topic of vendor risk management, among numerous others. In addition, he also spearheads PKM’s successful webinar series “Vendor Management from a Vendor’s Perspective,” and is the host of PKM’s recently launched podcast GroundBanking, featuring both banking and fintech experts as they discuss the challenges and opportunities in today’s financial services industry.
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Stop what you’re doing—Marketing Money Podcast is here.
This week, we have an interruptive podcast about interruptive marketing. John and Josh weigh in on the topic and answer important questions like “What qualifies a smart media buy?” and “Who knows the best knock-knock joke?” Marketing Money Podcast—answering the tough questions so you don’t have to.
Is it a podcast about deposits or branding? Honestly, John and Josh just can’t decide. In this two-for-one special, you’ll learn how thoughtfully crafted marketing brings in those almighty deposits and how powerful branding helps your bank make a lasting impact within your market and beyond. Sit back and buckle in for another rant-errific episode of Marketing Money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SveYQwkXFqg
John and Josh are bringing the heat once again. Inspired by a conversation with a fellow bank marketer, the duo discusses the differences between brand advertising and product-centric campaigns. Which strategy does your bank use? Which should it be using? You may want to seek shelter, because Josh is dropping truth bombs left and right this week. Get ready for an action-packed episode of Marketing Money that you won’t want to miss.
John and Josh are back with an in-depth discussion on how geo-targeting works (sort of) and how you can use it to optimize your bank’s digital campaigns. The hosts also welcome special guest Shelly Loftin, Senior Vice President of Retail Banking and Payments and Lending for the American Bankers Association. She discusses the upcoming ABA Bank Marketing Conference in Baltimore, where things are rumored to get “Dungeness,” as well as John’s tiny feet—which are rumored to be size six or smaller
Shelly Loftin lives in a world of branding, banking, and boys. She is a banker who was promoted to customer then turned ABA team member. Loftin believes banking and education should be fun, simple and helpful. She is a mom to two superheroes, ages 7 & 4. Her career started in the nerve center of the bank, the proof department, when she was 15. Loftin learned to run a sorter, key like a champ and became fascinated with how banking worked. After a few years of keying, balancing and counting zeroes, she held multiple retail roles including teller, customer service representative, and financial service representative before transitioning to the marketing side of banking. For the past 14 years, Loftin has worked on branding, marketing & retail in several positions at various community banks. Prior to joining the American Bankers Association, she was Chief Administrative Officer at Bear State Bank. Connecting brand, culture & customer experiences across channels is her passion. She is a cultivator of member happiness. Passionate about improving the experience banking business. Brand ambassador, training enthusiast, conference concierge, design fanatic, team builder and infographic nerd. Covey facilitator, creative collaborator, culture advocate, professional learner and happiness sharer. Forever a Bear, as there are always trails to blaze & pawprints to explore. A millennial–kind of. Solving problems collaboratively is Loftin’s preferred way to work and she is a strong supporter of communication.
On today’s podcast, John and Josh have in-depth discussions about SEO (search engine optimization) and TPR (tackle pass run)—one of which is entirely legitimate and the other, well, you’ll just have to listen. If you’re interested in boosting your bank’s “searchability”, tune in to learn some practical steps on how to accomplish just that.
John and Josh know a thing or two about branding. As a matter of fact, they know a thing or two about a lot of things. This week, Marketing Money becomes a beer podcast, a sports podcast, and strangely, a podcast about apologies. And, they even get around to talking about bank brands as well. Confused? Listen and see what all the hubbub is about.
Best Buy/Bud Light Logos
We know cash’s popularity is fading fast, and apps and services like Venmo and Zelle are impacting the banking industry at large. Even friends and family members—grandma included—have begun to forgo cash and checks in favor of these electronic payment methods. How important is it for your bank to adopt new payment technology? John and Josh discuss digital payment services and how they’ll affect the future of banking. And, of course, John also managed to work cryptocurrency into the conversation, because he can find a way to bring Bitcoin into anything.
In the life of a bank marketer, too often compliance officers are made out to be the villains. They are the butt of most bank marketers’ jokes. But, is everything really their fault?
This week, John and Josh discuss practical tips to help you maintain a better relationship with your bank’s compliance department. The duo was supposed to be joined by a special compliance guest, but he needed more time to review the opportunity before coming on the podcast (if you laughed, congratulations, you’re a true banker). If it makes you feel any better, this week’s podcast would have never made it through compliance. Never.
What’s the future of bank branches? In a world where online banking seems to offer almost anything clients might need, you may wonder if there’s any benefit to managing physical locations. John and Josh talk with Siya Vansia of ConnectOne Bank about the importance of investing in the in-branch experience. Listen to learn how your online offerings and in-branch customer service can work together to meet clients where they are—and grow your bank.
Siya Vansia is VP, Marketing at ConnectOne Bank (CNOB), a $5 billion institution with twenty-two branches throughout NJ and NY. The bank was founded in 2005 by civic and business leaders to serve local residents and businesses by providing the highest level of personalized community banking services.
In her current role, Ms. Vansia is responsible for the marketing, branding and public image of the bank. In her time with ConnectOne, Siya has developed and managed the bank’s social media strategy and maintained its digital presence through its blog and numerous online channels. In 2013, she oversaw the rebrand of the company to ConnectOne Bank from its previous name, North Jersey Community Bank. In 2014, Ms. Vansia led the marketing efforts of ConnectOne’s merger with Union Center National Bank, rebranding 16 locations and expanding the ConnectOne name to a new marketplace. The merger positioned the company as a Premier Community Bank in the NJ/NY Metro Area with over $3 billion in assets. Aside from her marketing role, Ms. Vansia is also responsible for internal communication and assisting Senior Management with internal corporate culture initiatives. In 2012, she was instrumental in launch BUILD, an internal leadership program led by the company’s Chairman & CEO.
Prior to her existing role. Ms. Vansia worked as the Executive Assistant to the CEO. Ms. Vansia holds a BA in Economics from Rutgers University.
How many unread emails are sitting in your inbox? If you’re anything like John, that number may be too embarrassing to admit. Although many proclaimed email marketing dead in the past decade due to oversaturation, John, Josh, and Mabus Agency President of Financial Services Hunter Young have a different story to tell. Tune in to learn some practical email marketing tips you can utilize starting today.
Leading Mabus Agency’s Financial Services Marketing division in our Raleigh office, Hunter and his team dig deep into transactional and engagement data and craft marketing programs that help companies acquire prospects wisely, deepen relationships, and retain customers. Hunter Young has always pursued the toughest marketing challenges. He led the global and retail web teams at BB&T ($200B asset bank) and managed marketing and data teams at one of the fastest growing community banks in the country before joining Mabus Agency.
Download Hunter’s white paper.
John and Josh welcome Chris Nichols, chief strategy officer of CenterState Bank, to discuss crafting marketing budgets that will make your bank stand out. The trio even delves into Chris’s early days of blazing the trail for online banking—the life of a pioneer. Tune in for advice from Chris and bid farewell to your budgeting woes.
Nichols is an active bank investor, entrepreneur, and lover of quantified banking. He is passionate about reimagining community banking based on a foundation of enhanced customer engagement, quantified decisioning and an efficient allocation of capital.
John and Josh are back at it, celebrating some marketing wins. Josh recounts his beef with The New York Times, and the duo discusses how Apple swagger-jacked a Renasant commercial from nearly two years ago (although Josh doesn’t really know what ‘swagger-jacked’ means). How can John and Josh’s success help you make informed marketing decisions for your bank? Listen and find out.
Josh’s rebuttal to The New York Times’s article:
We Reject The New York Times’s Skewed Picture of Tupelo
Renasant Bank’s Mobile App spot featuring Vulfpeck | Back Pocket
Apple’s iPhone X – Fly Market spot featuring Vulfpeck | Back Pocket
Sometimes we get distracted by the new and shiny. Figuring out the next fintech breakthrough or deploying the latest marketing tactics seem exciting, but in this chase for the latest and greatest, we often overlook the basic fundamentals. In this podcast, the marketing money team reviews five basic fundamentals to help you execute your marketing plans successfully. So turn off that shiny device and get back to the grind.
From advocacy to education and networking, associating with your banking and industry associations can be very beneficial. In this podcast, John and Josh discuss partnering with your banking associations and getting the most out of it. Let the word play on associating with associations begin!
Tax season is upon us! While everyone is trying to maximize their tax return, learn how to maximize your marketing message while clients have “extra money.” John and Josh talk with Dave Pond, former Digital Program Manager for H&R Block and the newest member of Mabus Agency, about taxes, banking and David Ortiz.
Happy Monday from Marketing Money Podcast. In this special episode, John and Josh discuss their favorite, and least favorite, commercials from the Super Bowl. We will get back to bank marketing next time, but for now, enjoy 30 minutes of buffoonery from two bank marketers with too much time on their hands.
In this episode of Marketing Money, John shares his excitement for the upcoming Justin Timberlake concert, and Josh teaches us what “Superb Owl” means. They eventually get around to talking about Super Bowl commercials, too. How can you learn from the Super Bowl when it comes to marketing your bank? Listen and find out.
The Price is Right might be a game show, but in the world of banking, pricing your deposits correctly can make or break your ability to fund loans at lower costs. How do you get your price right? In this podcast, John and Josh attempt to discuss pricing retail deposits while amusing you with their quirky anecdotes and pointless references to things only they think are funny.
Listen in on the last Marketing Money Podcast of 2017. John and Josh sit down with Carey Rome and Lisa Beck of Cypress Resources to discuss the real-world challenges of content creation within each channel.
Although content is the current power word in today’s marketing vernacular, even the most creative and amazing content producers lose if they cannot convert it into business. Herein lies one of the most difficult aspects of marketing and sales – the conversion process. In this edition of Marketing Money Podcast, John and Josh discuss the four points–or the finer points, depending on your opinion–of converting your content, as well as some obvious mistakes many financial institutions make during the process. Roll it!
In the financial service industry, there are often fears surrounding social media participation. Many of those fears are driven by compliance related issues, along with an inability to create relevant and attractive content. In this edition of Marketing Money Podcast, John and Josh sit down with Carey Rome and Lisa Beck of Cypress Resources to discuss challenges banks face with social media and available solutions.
Social Media might as well be traditional media now. If you’re not on social media, you are probably missing crucial channels in your marketing mix. If you are on social media, how do you know you’re successful? In this episode of Marketing Money Podcast, John and Josh tackle social media and banking – albeit futilely – and the challenges in executing properly.
When communicating with clients or prospects, delivering the proper message can make or break your success. Too many financial institutions lose their message by promoting products and self-serving events (it’s our 77th birthday!) that do not give a benefit to the client. In this podcast, John and Josh riff on messaging and commonly made mistakes in everyday business communication.
Cryptocurrency and the blockchain infrastructure it carries leaves many bankers scratching their heads. Will it be a disruptive replacement for wire transfers, currency and payments? Will it be adopted to varying degrees and become a more accepted function of moving money? In this Marketing Money Podcast, John and Josh riff on the potential impact of crypto on micro-corporate economies and the banking system. Recorded with a live audience at the ABA Bank Marketing Conference in New Orleans, this side convo becomes the “what if” discussion of the day.
The 2017 ABA Bank Marketing Conference was a fun-filled four days of learning and networking. Listen as John and Josh talk about their biggest takeaways and why you should sign up for the 2018 ABA Bank Marketing Conference in Baltimore.
The “marketing whisperers” are always selling automation as an attempt to ease the ad request flow—ad lockers, auto-fill forms, pre-approved templates and much more. Often, what appears to simplify your marketing deliverables workflow actually causes more headache than relief. In this Marketing Money Podcast, John Oxford of Renasant and Josh Mabus of Mabus Agency discuss bank marketing automation, issues with trying to make everything one-size-fits-all and some recommendations for more efficient marketing to help fulfill internal client requests.
AI was a menace on the court, but will “it” be a disruptive menace to the digital banking experience? In this podcast, John Oxford and Josh Mabus talk about the implementation of Artificial Intelligence, or AI, and it’s potential impact on bank marketing. We’re not talking about practice.
We’re talking about real robots doing real things.
Ready for a change? How do you know when it’s time for a rebrand, rename or new tagline? While every bank is different, changing your mark is a major decision with many variables to consider. In this episode of the Marketing Money Podcast, John Oxford of Renasant Bank and Josh Mabus of Mabus Agency discuss the ROI of a brand change and what you should consider when upgrading the identity of your financial institution.
Our Brand is Crisis is a 2015 movie that is hopefully not the internal tagline of your bank and marketing department. As marketers, there are hair-on-fire days, and then there are true crises – a major security breach, a bad act by an employee, a bank robbery, a weather issue – you get the idea. These events are often so randomly specific that preparing for them is akin to preparing for the unknown. Although we cannot prepare for the exact nature of every crisis, we can still have a working strategy and game plan for various situations. In this Marketing Money Podcast, John Oxford of Renasant Bank and Josh Mabus of Mabus Agency discuss how to plan for inevitable crises and how to communicate when they do occur, as well as tips to keep from escalating the already urgent situation.
This September, the Big Conference is going to the Big Easy! In this Marketing Money Podcast, John Oxford and Josh Mabus review the schedule and hot marketing topics presented September 24-26 during the annual ABA Bank Marketing Conference. Listen as John butchers every speaker’s name, and Josh tries to keep himself from correcting him every time. So sit back and enjoy a preview of all the super knowledge you will acquire when you attend the ABA Marketing Conference in New Orleans – laissez les bons temps rouler!