Your Opportunity Out of the Crisis
NOTE: This article originally appeared in the April 2020 issue of Great Lakes Banker Magazine.
Stay-at-home orders have driven dramatic shifts in media and advertising consumption trends in just the past few weeks. People are at home, reading news, email, and watching TV with vastly different patterns. At your bank, you’re not interacting face-to-face anymore, your phone is likely ringing off the hook, and you’re consuming information from the government and banking authorities as fast as it can come in.
Amidst all of this, consumers are aching for not just information but trusted information. They are focused on their family, business, and community more than ever. And as a community bank, these are exactly the things you wanted to talk about even prior to the stay-at-home orders: trust, security, community, and growth. And, these are things that your bigger competitors can’t touch at the local level.
So, this is not the time to pull back on your advertising and marketing messages. Brands that lower their marketing budgets will later struggle with top-of-mind awareness, a core need for banks to maintain in a world of heavy competition. And, there is a bigger opportunity today for your messages to breakthrough.
Since mid-March:
One of our clients, a $150M bank in central Illinois, has seen a doubling in the performance of their Google Search Ads. More than twice as many people are clicking on their ads. Overall searches for banking-related terms are lower, but those people that are searching are far more interested in what the bank has to say.
The cost of ads on streaming TV services (Hulu, etc.) has dropped over 30%, due to a sharp increase in ad supply (more people watching), and a drop in demand (at risk businesses pulling back their budgets).
The same trends hold true for general digital banner ads as well – there’s more inventory and lower demand, meaning better ROI for you.
Traditional Out-of-Home channels (think billboards, bus decals, posters, and the like) are suddenly not performing. Banks that are able to re-purpose their Out-of-Home budgets to digital TV, banner, and search ads should do so immediately.
Local Radio and Television News consumption is up, as more Americans tune in for updates, especially in their local areas. If you have a local station that is closely aligned with your service area, now is a good time to update your ads.
After businesses reopen, people will have learned how to use your online products and their usage patterns will have changed permanently. Some people will embrace a return to the face-to-face bank lobby, but many others will have become accustomed to the drive-through or online banking, and won’t return to the way they did things before.
Looking forward now is the time to be educating your customers about your digital products and positioning yourself as a digital-first bank. The best way to do this is by advertising where they already are: on digital platforms.
So what do you do next? It’s time to evaluate your overall ad program and re-align your budget: does it heavily emphasize digital search, digital display, streaming TV, local news media, and content (blog) marketing? All of these just became far more important, and your bank has an opportunity to stand out from the competition.
Brands that are able to adjust their messaging and advertising channels quickly stand to come out of the crisis stronger than before. Don’t miss the opportunity.