Artificial Intelligence is here to stay. It’s not a fad. It’s not a flash in the pan.

I think it will continue to evolve and bring even more value. But I also think we’ve jumped the shark a bit. Every marketing conference agenda I see is chock-full of AI talks. It’s like it’s all we care about.

And why not? The prospect of a machine doing our jobs for us—or at the very least, helping us find efficiencies—is pretty compelling, right?

Hopefully, we’ll continue to find ways to use AI to enhance our daily work life. What’s better when you’re trying to compose a tough email than to ask an AI bot to give you a start? A few days ago, I asked ChatGPT for meal ideas, and it gave me a weekly menu with nutritional info for each meal!

There are amazing benefits to having most of the human thought that’s been captured cataloged and organized in one place, and driven by a conversational interface. But what’s the balance? 

I think author Joanna Maciejewska (@AuthorJMac) captured it best when she tweeted: “You know what the biggest problem with pushing all-things-AI is? Wrong direction. I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.”

But we’re in the ad world, not the art world. And not all of us are graphic designers and copywriters, but all of us have tremendous pressure to make great ads, year after year. 

I want to state plainly: I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with using AI to produce ads. But I do think it’s dangerous.

Every trend changes. And most of the time, they reverse. Bootcut jeans are in vogue; then we go to skinny jeans (and now back to boot-cut). Low rise? Nope. Now, it’s high-waisted mom jeans. In art, we go from realism to abstract. Culturally, we go from the free-wheeling 60s and 70s to the buttoned-down yuppy 80s, and then into the fun 90s. And don’t get me started on the French tuck. Things don’t just change; they have an almost Newtonian (equal and opposite) reaction.

Yes. I know I said AI is here to stay. So are blue jeans. And both are going to keep changing.

Bold Predictions

It’s always dangerous territory to make predictions. This will be out there to bite me in the butt if I’m wrong. But here goes anyway: I think we’re going to see a huge pendulum swing back to REAL in the next 18-24 months.

The evidence that trends seems to reverse is one component of this prediction. Another is how dangerous AI is becoming. The photo below was widely circulated on Facebook after the devastation of Hurricane Helene in September 2024. 

The first danger is how many people didn’t realize the image was AI-generated. The second danger is when it was pointed out, people kept posting the image with captions like, “I don’t care that this is AI. It shows the plight of people in the Carolinas. No negative comments.” I believe it is incredibly dangerous when people can’t tell reality from fiction. It is even more dangerous when we don’t care. Here’s the deal: As humans, we gravitated to that image because it captured how we wanted to feel about the situation, but without an ounce of realism. It’s too pretty. It’s too clean. It didn’t at all capture the tragedy—which was much messier and not in the least bit cute. 

Beyond that, the first major regulation* of AI hit in August of 2024 with the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act. If the past has shown us anything, we can bet on the US adopting EU standards, and regulations continuing to grow. There is an incredibly low likelihood that AI images will be banned, but a future in which they have to be disclosed is not out of the question. A future with a “Created with AI” badge on images seems quite possible.

As a species, it stands to reason that we’ll grow weary of the extra mental energy it takes to discern fact from fiction. We’re cautious of artificial coloring and flavoring. Artificial intelligence will eventually join that list. 

What’s Next?

As much as holistic eating and farm-to-table was a reaction to generations of processed food, I think we’ll see a return to real. The oversaturation of AI in our bank marketing conferences is worrisome. Those who only attend AI breakouts will find themselves lacking if my predictions are true.

I believe society will put a higher premium on real experiences, real stories, and real images. This squares with a community banking mindset, anyway. One of the benefits of choosing a smaller institution is the human aspect—real people helping with real solutions. So, the risk of balancing a photography class with honing prompt writing skills isn’t risky at all. There will always be a premium on actual creativity. The commodity of operating an AI interface will eventually become saturated. Human skills will become even more important. AI can do a lot of seemingly magical things, but at the end of the day, it’s just a collection of what humanity has done up until that point. It’s the same information you can get from a regular Google search—just via an interface that seems more like you’re chatting with a person. It’s more novelty than revolution.

AI can give you information, but it can’t give you insights. That’s still firmly in the realm of humans.

*We acknowledge the October 30, 2023, US Presidential Executive order, but do not regard it as major regulation.

The Inverse Triangles of Content

The term “content” is thrown around a little too loosely and generically. 

Imagine for a moment you’re single, looking to go on a date.

You’re grocery shopping and you meet someone who perfectly matches any superficial parameters you might have.

He/she notices you noticing him/her and seems interested.

You work up your courage, walk over, and say…

“Will you marry me?” Then you spend the next two to three hours relating your deepest, darkest secrets.

Totally inappropriate, right? (Hopefully, you agree. Otherwise, this isn’t the blog for you.)

So, why then, when we’re writing copy for our banks, do we try to dump all the information we can on a viewer of our ads or visitor to our website?

It’s a tendency that seems a bit more natural when you have this mindset:

“They showed interest!

“This is our only chance!

“Show it ALL to them!

“We won’t get another chance!”

Much like the earlier, hyperbolic example, the “interested party” probably won’t stick around for long.

There is an appropriate order to conversation. A deep understanding of this order can help you create more engaging content that draws in people instead of running them off.

A few years back, I created the Inverse Triangles of content:

The triangle on the left is a standard visitor funnel. It assumes that you will experience a drop-off in traffic as visitors dig deeper into your materials. But that’s not the whole story. My personal breakthrough came when I began comparing content to visitor drop-off. The depth and breadth of content is represented by the triangle on the right.

As I teach this to my staff, I break both triangles into three levels. You might have many more than three levels, but let’s stick with that. Also, for clarity, let’s use your website as an example. But this can apply to ad copy, videos, or almost any content with which you intend to engage an audience.

Level One

This is your website’s home page or a landing page. It’s the first engagement point with a visitor. It’s also where most of your traffic will occur, thus represented by the largest area of the visitor triangle. But it’s the smallest area of the content triangle. That’s because this is the most superficial area. This is where a visitor’s gut-check kicks in:

“Does this place look reputable?”

“Does this look like a bank with which I would do business?”

“Are these the products/services I’m looking for?”

“Am I even on the correct site?” (This is particularly true if you aren’t diligent about brand consistency from ads to web.)

Just like in any form of attraction, there are superficial cues—sometimes conscious, other times subconscious—that give us an internal green light (Go! Go! Go!) or red light (Hold up!).

You should always strive to make your top-level content engaging to a wide audience, but you must also understand that not everyone will dig deeper. You can’t be everything to everyone. But don’t get sad. It’s not a true loss. If you gave the visitor compelling content and a path to dig deeper, you will only lose those who were nothing more than superficially interested (more on those folks later) to begin with.

Level Two

This is the middle ground. It’s the product page or checking account comparison page. If there’s a formal theory around the Inverse Triangles, it would be stated like this: As a group of people seeks more information, the audience will shrink, and it will want information in greater quantity, depth, and detail.

Your superficial visitors aren’t interested in the granular details of each and every checking account. But some of that top-level audience is. The trouble is you can’t tell which visitor is which. You must give everyone a chance to determine if your information resonates with them, provide a path to continue to learn, and continue to give relevant information at the next level.

You can assume that those who click the “Learn More” button want to learn more. Staging information in this way not only makes a better user experience and customer journey, but it also frees up space to organize information better.

Level Three

Only the most interested and detail-seeking folks will make it here. But you have to give them a destination, as these people might become some of your most dedicated clients.

Also, keep in mind, you’re not hiding information. You’re organizing it. There are folks who’re ready to sign up for that new checking account on level one. Don’t hinder them by forcing them to muck through deep information that doesn’t interest them. Give them easy access to the Apply Now button.

Similarly, don’t make it difficult for the person who wants to read the fine print to find it. It’s appropriate to put that deep level of detail under more superficial information. 

Your website, ads, etc. are yours. It’s up to you to make a better user flow even if that means creating new content and new paths from scratch. And again, it’s all about organization.

Organization

The example deals with the way content flows from page to subpage. This lesson also applies to vertical space in an individual webpage or ad (which is why you always see disclaimers at the bottom).

The readers’ knowledge grows as they travel the path you set. They’re ready for more in-depth information because of the foundation you set earlier.

Keep in mind, that information can (and many times should) grow in volume further down the trail. 

As important as it is to organize the data, I can’t reiterate enough that you’re providing paths. Just as you’re providing a path to go deeper, you must also provide a path to engage/convert. Make certain that you provide the visitor ways to easily sign up for services when they’re ready. Provide multiple ways to convert at each step—even risking overkill. Because, in the end, all of this is about providing a more comprehensive environment for your audience to find the comfort needed to do business with you.

Compliance

Be sure to have your internal compliance department review your flow. Your team may be a bit more conservative in approach, and prefer to not separate certain components or details. You may also have to add disclaimers to each page that describe the product—which is fine, as long as the page is laid out properly.

Revisit the Superficially Interested

I hope you didn’t forget about those superficially interested visitors who chose to leave your page. I didn’t. 

Never discount the amount of budget required to generate visitors and never forget that most visitors aren’t convinced on the first pass. At the very least, you must implement a retargeting campaign to serve ads that acknowledge and follow that visitors who were distracted by a Facebook notification and forgot they went to your website in the first place. Beyond that, you can consider building true lead capture efforts around marketing automation and other emailing platforms.

The short version: you’re wasting money if you attract people to your website and forget about those who don’t convert on the first try.

Set the Stage

You don’t have to rewrite your entire website tomorrow. But now that you know about the Inverse Triangles of Content, you do have to start somewhere. Start with an easy win.

Perspective points out community banking’s value. The lens of time focuses on what’s important.

Change needs perspective to be appreciated, especially the kind of change that makes a real difference. To think about where banking is today, those of us who work in its midst have to consider things from a much different point of view. As it turns out, our world is more different than we’ve probably ever realized.


In his book, “Rise of the Creative Class,” sociologist Richard Florida poses an interesting thought exercise: Imagine someone in America transported from 1900 to the middle of the century, then someone else transported from mid-century to the present day and considered who would notice the greater change.

Florida posits the traveler from 1900 to 1950 would marvel at society’s technological advancements. You could broadcast a live image of a human from one coast to another almost instantly. Automobiles replaced horses. Skyscrapers lifted cities into the clouds. The traveler from 1950 who arrived in 2000 would likely be disappointed in the incremental shifts in technology. Televisions, cars, and buildings advanced mechanically but showed little obvious, fundamental improvement. The changes that would drop the jaws of this traveler are more in the social sphere. On the negative side, television now drips with profane language, and everything is sexually charged. Far more importantly and on the positive, attitudes toward race and gender have progressed tremendously and, while still far from ideal, demonstrate we are headed the right way.

Perspective matters.

As specialists in bank marketing, we thought it would be interesting to send each of those travelers to the bank and see what turned up. We found the enclosed newsreel on YouTube. With this video from the BBC. Take four minutes to travel back in time and rejoin us below… 


What you saw captures some of what our first traveler would have seen when he arrived in about 1950 from 1900. Instead of counting coins by a smoldering candle or finely wrought promissory notes, you see the birth of virtualized currency.

Cutting edge for the day, computer-assisted banking and record-keeping were sufficiently noteworthy to merit a short, general interest feature by the BBC.
For the first traveler, the computerization of banking would be mind-blowing. Would his counterpart, someone from 1950 brought to today, be as startled?

Granted, computers have come a long way since then, but, at their heart, the mechanics are the same. There are differences even more striking than those the first traveler saw, though; they just take a little more noticing. So what would the second traveler notice? Certainly, the ability to conduct a full suite of banking services on a computer/television/phone/camera that fits in your pocket would be impressive. But consider the common thread of communication from most banks.

Since the days of the video, banks have run a race against technology as they’ve been saddled with more and more compliance and regulatory oversight.
In the 1970s and 80s, it was all about traveler checks and debit cards. In the 1990s to 2000s, it was online banking and at-home computerized financial tools. In the 2000s and beyond: mobile banking of all sorts.

These advances have driven our external messaging. When the neighboring bank launches a new bell or whistle, we feel the need to add something comparable—and promote it. When the big banks roll out new technology, we stand panting at the doors of our core providers, waiting for them to give us comparable technology.

Through all this, we’ve adopted a mantra: all the technology of a big bank with the service of a community bank. However, we’ve put much more emphasis on the technology than the service—at least in our messaging.

The biggest difference a traveler would notice in the post-modern world is banking no longer requires a banker.

And while “requires” is the operative word, we’ve also forgotten to let our communities know why they need a banker.

Whether chasing efficiency, running out of budget, or overfocusing on the techy aspects, banks stopped connecting customers’ needs to the type of help a real human can provide. And this doesn’t mean the standard banker ad that just shows a lender’s face and does nothing to communicate his or her value to the audience.

We don’t like artificial colors or flavors, so why would we value artificial intelligence over real intelligence? More importantly, why would we insult our customers with artificial interaction when real interaction is available with our bankers?

Big banks have tried to convince their customers they don’t need a human to help them bank. In so doing, they’ve convinced some community banks technology comes before connection. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Aaaaooooooogaaaa! That’s the clarion call of “disrupt or die!” The horn has been blasted loudly and repeatedly from the mountaintops—mainly by those who get paid for their opinions and guidance moreso than those of us who have to do the work.

There is no wonder we hear we must change our banks from the folks who get paid to tell us to change our banks.

"Disruption is Dead" with lightning bolts behind it

Implementation specialists

Change agents

Innovation consultants

I’m tired of them. And I’m tired of the talk about disruption.

It’s time to talk about discernment.

Let’s clearly acknowledge banks do, in fact, need to embrace change and become active participants in innovation. However, there is a time, place, and pace for everything.

I feel like, now, we’re in a crowded theater, someone yelled “fire,” and we’re in a mad, haphazard dash toward the exits—crushing one another on the way to an uncertain future.

Your job is not disruption. Your job is discernment.

No matter your role at the bank, your job is to determine what needs to change and when.

Disruption is Vogue

“Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Something interesting is happening.” ― Tom Goodwin, Digital Darwinism: Survival of the Fittest in the Age of Business Disruption.

This quote has been shared and misattributed countless times on LinkedIn and poorly-wrought conference PowerPoints. We’ve deified these companies who came along and created upheaval. Even Tom Goodwin has asked us to refocus how we frame these companies—especially considering how varied their paths unwound since the publishing of his book just a short time ago in 2018.

Watching Uber and Airbnb come to life is as exciting as watching an elite athlete put on the performance of a lifetime. It’s compelling to watch magic—someone achieving the impossible. That’s why the Michael Jordan documentary, The Last Dance, put up record viewership numbers. It showed peak Michael Jordan. And there’s only one MJ.

It’s exciting to watch disruption happen, but none of us expect to go out on the court and be like Mike.

Banks Need Change

Along with the excitement of disruption, banks need change. Somewhere along the way, though, we mistook a need for innovation for a need to disrupt.

We watched companies like Chime, Venmo, and SoFi march up to the gates of banking and bang loudly. Or at least that’s how it looked. They actually did something totally different. Yet banks rushed (a little too late) to capture the leftover market with products that don’t live up to the predecessor.

Banks are victims of the pendulum swing all the time. We wait and catch it on the high arc.

We feel like we’re late. We listen to the “sky is falling” consultants—who are also late to ring the bell. And we spend tons of money for marginal results.

Look at Venmo. They popped onto the world stage, and folks flocked to their service. We watched and watched and finally heard:

“Hey, this is a threat to banking!”

“Hey, you need to offer your own P2P. Don’t let others hold your cash!”

“Hey, you’re going to look uncool if you don’t have this!”

But there’s a problem. Venmo had already innovated. They captured the early adopters. They captured the second wave, which was influenced by the first wave. Who was left? Those that Venmo—the Michael Jordan of P2Ps—couldn’t attract. But consultants convinced us we should try our hand at capturing them anyway.

And we wound up with campaigns like “convince Dad to send his college-age daughter some cash” or “split the wine bill with your octogenarian friends.”

There wasn’t much audience left. They already made their decisions to go with technology or to be happy with folding money and checks.

The Incumbent Factor

We tend to look at the darlings of disruption from the wrong angle. We only look at their innovation in their given field. We don’t look at what was wrong in the first place.

Was Uber successful because it was innovative?

Or because cabs suck?

Both. But I don’t think we would care about the former if the latter was not only true but aggressively true.

I’m profoundly unsuccessful at hailing cabs on the street in New York City. I hate the queue at LaGuardia, where you march down the stanchions to get into the next cab. And, to me, the experience only gets worse when you get inside the cab. You’re surrendering your livelihood to a short-tempered person erratically piloting a yellow, foul-smelling sarcophagus on wheels.

My first experience with Uber in NYC was the exact opposite. I exited a plane, summoned a driver as I was walking through the terminal, and was told where to meet my car. He was waiting for me with a smiling face and a clean vehicle.

The experience couldn’t have been more different. But, at face value, Uber was really just “whelming.” A decent person with a decent car with a decent drive. Sure, the technology was cool, but when we think about it, it’s not THAT groundbreaking. It repurposed and repackaged the steps you’d go through to ask a buddy for a ride. But, when this experience is cast against the horrors of riding in a cab, Uber becomes overwhelmingly transcendent.

lightning bolts

Disruption has less to do with how good you are and more to do with how bad the incumbent is.

It is well-known incumbents are hard to beat. Good incumbents are even more difficult.

Also, at some point, we were convinced banks are the challenger. You are not the challenger. You are the incumbent.

This perspective is important. It doesn’t mean you don’t need to innovate. It also doesn’t mean you’re always defending your position. But largely, we’ve forgotten we’re in the power position. It’s easier to sell you consulting when you feel weaker than you are.

As with Uber, disruption isn’t always about innovation. Most times, it’s about solving what is wrong.

So what is wrong in the industry that you and your bank can solve?

It’s actually probably not “the industry.” The place you can affect the most change is likely in the communities you serve.

Instead of listening to Chicken Little pundits who make money from “Sky is Falling” rhetoric, look closer to home. 

Recently, I was speaking with a client at a restaurant. I’ve had a version of this conversation several times.

At this point, a random couple walks up. Somehow, they’d discerned the bank and listened in on the conversation. They owned a business and had commercial and personal accounts with the bank.

Yes, banks have worn out the “our people” message. And it is difficult to frame creatively, but the simple act of being available might be as disruptive in your bank’s service area as any new technology. It’s just not as sexy. And it might not be as expensive.

Discernment Simplified

Look at innovation through the lens of customer’s problems instead of coming trends from a cracked crystal ball. Sometimes this will require innovation. Sometimes this will require focus on what you already do well. But don’t let anyone outside set your pace.

I learned a simple axiom that added to my ability to discern change in my business. You have three options when it comes to innovation. 

1. You can be early

2. You can be late

3. You can be right on time

Being early costs a bit more money and comes with more risk, but your potential for reward is higher. Being late costs less money and is less risky, but you lose opportunities. Being right on time is impossible. Once you stop considering this fallacy, decisions become a whole lot easier.

It’s not the size of the data…

If you’re trying to catch a lot of fish, which is better: one fishing line or a net? 

When there’s a missing person, does one person go out looking for them? No. It’s a group, often arm-in-arm, covering every square inch of the search area. 

Archaeologists looking for lost antiquities cover large swaths of land using a grid so they can dig methodically. 

But marketing? That’s laser-focused. No shotguns here! Only finely tuned rifles, loaded with the best data out there. 

Right? 

That’s certainly what we’ve convinced ourselves we need.

Overtargeting and Overmissing 

Let’s look at a simple scenario. Your bank needs to add new checking accounts. You hope to add clients with high deposit amounts. So, which is better: 

Scenario A is not outlandish. The premium rate-searching sites are charging this much per lead—not per conversion. You get a chance to market to a prospect alongside all the other banks that paid $75 for the same lead. Scenario B is a typical cost for a well-qualified list purchase. 

Even so, this is a simple example. It doesn’t take advertising costs into account. While acquisition costs are the same, it will cost 10x more to market to the larger list. 

But bear with me. We’ll get back to this. 

The base problem with the scenario above is twofold: yield and scale. 

A hundred highly qualified prospects will still be the victim of statistics. You might not waste much money, but you won’t get much yield, even if your campaign performs well beyond any reasonable expectation. 

Over-targeting can lead to over-missing. 

Pinpoint targeting means that if you miss, you’ll miss big. 

Scaling factors such as postage on premium leads can eat your lunch. You must plan on a yield to balance out the investment. It’s not just about saving money. It’s about producing results. 

Sometimes, it’s beneficial to back up. A friend of mine was recently running for a local political office. He found himself in a runoff. A consultant priced out a direct-mail campaign to the most important neighborhoods. It was expensive. My friend called me for my opinion. We quickly looked at the USPS website’s Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) map. EDDM lets you buy a full mail route at a much lower postage cost and no list cost. There is no personalization, but you can blanket a large area. My friend purchased three carrier routes and sent nearly ten times the number of mail pieces needed to reach every home in these neighborhoods for a quarter of the cost (printing and postage included). He won the primary runoff. 

I want to reinforce a key point: not only did he buy ten times the houses for one-fourth of the price; all of the houses in the targeted list were included in the carrier routes. He could’ve overpaid to reach those houses. By backing up, he reached his targeted list and their neighbors—and likely picked up more votes in the process. 

My friend might have killed a cockroach using a hand grenade, but it was more cost-effective – and just plain effective. 

The Best of Both 

Neither approach is fully correct, though. 

As we mentioned, costing comes into play in both mailing scenarios. More pieces can cost more money. This is why you should layer your approach, especially in the testing phase. You might send a more upscale (expensive) piece to the more targeted list while sending something more generic (cheaper) to the less-targeted list. As you find success in one area or the other, you can always scale up toward that method. Conventional contemporary wisdom leads us to lean into targeting (sometimes a little too much). Don’t be afraid to back up and look at a wider universe. This will ensure you’re not putting your eggs into the wrong basket—or at least too many of them. 

Data Data Everywhere…   

For many, big data projects proved to be big problems, but it opened minds to a new universe. Bankers were led to believe there was a data point for everything—accessible for just one high-high fee. 

We knew what was possible. We heard stories of tools that promised to easily find the needle in the haystack. To this, we added our hopes and dreams. 

But a strange translation happened. Both because of our own leanings and promises of vendors, we began to think “if we can’t use our own data, let’s just see what we can buy—the same data must exist out there somewhere.” 

Surely, we can analyze our data and predict when someone’s about to leave our bank.

If that’s true, we should be able to determine when someone is leaving another bank.

I bet we can buy a list of people looking for mortgages right now! 

Most of us have to fight for every marketing dollar we’re entrusted with. We’re looking for budget efficiency wherever possible. We want to avoid the situation articulated in John Wanamaker’s famous quote: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.” 

The lure of a magical process that can ensure we’re making the most of every dollar is irresistible. 

Digital Snake Oil 

Marketers weren’t just assuming this data was available. We were actively being misled. 

A few years ago, I interviewed Cassie Giovanni on the Marketing Money Podcast. When we spoke, Cassie was Head of Marketing for Savings Institute Bank & Trust Company in Connecticut. She’d just ended a contract with a service that claimed to provide an artificial intelligence engine powered by machine learning that would deliver ads to very specific potential clients. It promised to dynamically design ads individually targeted to a person’s financial needs. After a look behind the curtain, Cassie determined this system was powered by hopes and dreams, but nothing was actually happening. 

You can listen to the podcast here.

This is an egregious example of a bad actor misleading a client. But we fall for these bad actors all the time. We want to avoid waste, and our well-meaning attempts to do so can unwittingly undermine our potential success. 

rectangular jagged line

Echoes of Efficiency

Not all data promises were lies, but many marketers were led astray. It boggles the mind to speculate how many marketing dollars were wasted between 2012 and 2019 chasing unicorns. 

Why do brand advertising when my cable outlet promises 1:1 data on folks looking to switch bank accounts? 

Why build name-i.d. and awareness when we can buy a list of high-net worth individuals looking to buy CDs? 

Instead of playing to win, banks played to avoid losing. We were promised easy-to-justify campaigns. It all sounded too good to be true, and it was. 

As in all things, it’s best to find a balance—which we’ll cover in the third and final chapter.

The bigger they are… 

Eight-ish years ago, you couldn’t attend a banking conference without being bombarded with talks about big data. It’s a natural fit. Banks store an incredible amount of data—transactional and personal. But to use these huge data stores, one needs appropriate hardware and software to process all the bits and bytes. 

The term had been around for years, but technological advancements in 2012 brought data processing to the forefront. Ever-more powerful computers made it possible to turn mountains of information into actionable data—allowing us to learn more and more about our bank’s clients, build “lookalike” audiences, determine trends and more. 

Big Data. Bigger Barriers. 

Much like other specialties, machinery does not equal expertise. You can go buy a race car, but unless you’re a great driver, you won’t win any races. Third-party vendors dangled carrots for years, promising results. Certainly, some banks were able to wrap their arms around their data and use it to nurture relationships, but most big-data projects died under their own weight. Finding the right mix of knowledge, ability, and effort to yield results was insurmountable for most. 

The lure of big data is understandable. There are incredibly compelling reasons to tap your own data pool. You can determine everyone who holds a DDA at your bank who also holds a mortgage with another bank. You could cross-reference that data with the individual’s home purchase price and back into their interest rate. From there, you could gate the information to automate a campaign to send emails, direct mail, texts, and more to those who might benefit from a refi at your bank. 

But the barriers are huge. Who’s going to create the data streams? Who’s going to map and cross-reference them? Who creates the campaign strategy and creative? Who measures the results? 

This is why most projects were shelved. They were just too much to undertake. 

colorful pixel squares

Start Small and Grow 

Once you ask yourself “can we?;” I recommend asking, “should we?” Too many marketers (especially vendors) approach data projects as all-or-nothing endeavors. We can use all the data, so why don’t we? 

Because the project will be too big. I promise. 

But it seems like we can’t help ourselves. We implement a CRM and we just have to add the scheduling module for our bankers. We set up email and we try to connect every data point and set up every automation possibility. 

Here’s our rule of thumb: do it manually until it shows enough success that you must automate it. Begin with the most profitable endeavors and start incrementally. If you don’t have an onboarding program, start with a welcome email. Don’t stymie yourself trying to build a survey and automated flow. Digital processes are living and breathing. You can always go back and add to the process later. It’s much better to welcome a client today than to send them a 42-part email campaign 10 years from now.

Find easy wins. Contact those who have a mortgage with your bank, but no checking account (and vice versa). Renasant Bank had tremendous response with a simple campaign to those who had regular checking accounts, but no savings. You can read about it here. Once you do these campaigns once, they’re much easier to automate in the future. 

Start with baby steps and I’ll see you out along the road.

When someone buys a brand-new car, what do they say?

“Well, mine was getting up in miles. The trade-in value was dropping, and I really wanted something with better gas mileage.”

This is the rationale.

“I wanted something with more safety features.”

“I needed more reliability.”

“Have you seen the trade-in deals lately? They almost paid me to get a new car.”

These are the logical facts we share so we don’t look like an insane person for committing funds to a quickly-depreciating asset. 

So what was the reason?

If we’re honest with ourselves, here’s how we’d really answer: “I saw an ad on Facebook during my pre-bed-time doomscrolling. The ad made me feel better than all the disquiet I’ve been feeling, so I clicked through. Building out a car online, to my exact specs, made me feel even better. If a virtual shopping experience feels this good, I imagine a test drive will make me feel ecstatic!”

Once, I asked an “expert” used-car salesman why all used-car ads relied on insane gimmicks with a pitchman yelling at the camera. Almost all consumers say they hate this style of advertising, yet it keeps going, and people keep buying cars.

His response: “You have to realize that for about 72 hours around the purchase of a car, the buyer could be considered legally insane. They’re making completely emotional decisions. These ads play into this emotion. And they work.”

Emotional buying isn’t limited to cars or even large purchases. 

Do you really think you buy M&Ms because they “melt in your mouth, not in your hand?” No. You’re probably not even hungry when you buy them. They’re not healthy. They won’t sustain you very long. There are few logical reasons to buy junk food. You could buy a whole bag of salad for the price of a small amount of M&Ms. We don’t buy junk food for any rational reason. We buy M&Ms because they make us feel better, even in a small way.

People make decisions based on emotion, and they backfill with logic.

My mentor, Duane Birch, repeated this axiom to me almost every day we worked together. He never told me who told him first—or if he picked it up in his multi-decade national brand experience. From Yugo to Yoo-Hoo, consumers proved to lean toward what they want before they make certain it’s what they need. This Harvard professor agrees.

Ok. ok. But what about banking?

As a general rule of thumb, bank advertising relies on rationale—the secondary side of decision making. This is based on features, logic, and math. Banks (generally) don’t seem to realize people make decisions on excitement—impulse—how the brand makes them feel (if the brand is good).

Perhaps banks drank the wrong Kool-Aid and believed potential customers couldn’t be excited about banks. Maybe they forgot  banks, almost literally, perform magic—transferring funds from your strong brick building to a trendy retailer to complete a purchase—almost at the speed of light.

Either we forgot how magical—how helpful—banking is. Or, at the very least, took it for granted and forgot to tell people.

Banking is emotional.

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Most customers who switch banks do so for two reasons: poor service or a mistake (which likely wasn’t handled well). The customer is angry—they feel mistreated or unimportant. They feel emotional. And they want to find another bank that will not do this to them. They want a bank that will not make them feel this way.

First, you must realize you’re not creating ads trying to convince satisfied people to leave their bank. As we covered in a past blog, only 2% of people are either Dissatisfied or Very Dissatisfied with their primary bank. You have a small potential audience who is ready to leave at any time. You must be ready with advertising messages created to speak to those looking to leave their current bank.

Second, you must build your message around a beneficial brand. To do so, you need to deeply understand the difference between benefits and features (and those features trying to be benefits). We cover that here.

Third, you must combine these into a consistent, benefit-based brand message. This is much easier said than done, but if it was easy to do, everyone would be doing it. Your advantage? Out of 5,000 banks, almost no one is doing this well. 

How does that make you feel?

A paradox is an unanswerable question. One famous example is: “What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?” This question dates back to ancient China and is credited with creating the word “contradiction” in the Chinese language. The adjectives do the heavy lifting here. If something is truly unstoppable, an immovable object can’t stop it, and the force can’t move it.

So, what gives? Nothing. Except maybe our minds—which tend to explode over problems like this.

Scissors cutting yarn

Banking also has a conundrum.

As part of its Unconventional Convention, the American Bankers Association unveiled a research report by Morning Consult that outlined customer sentiment in banking. This study showed a statistically overwhelming positive sentiment for community banks.

89% of those surveyed indicated they were satisfied or very satisfied with their primary bank.

96% said their primary bank’s customer service could be characterized as good, very good, or excellent.

That’s a helluva good job! These are awesome stats, and we celebrate with you. The survey goes on to outline even more positivity, specifically around banks’ response COVID-19.

But as we look forward to a day beyond the pandemic, where we fall back into our norms of loans and deposits, this survey provides a bit more information.

Unstoppable Goals. Immovable Customers.

When you look at the data one way, it shows your customers are likely satisfied (or better). This is good news for you. And bad news for every other bank.

But what happens when you’re the other bank? Most banks are flush with deposits due to PPP funds being held, but those dollars will flow out eventually. The world will return to normal (new or not), and we’ll face our old goals.

We learn from the same survey that only 1% of bank clients are very dissatisfied with their primary bank. Another 1% are simply dissatisfied. Generally speaking, customers have to be on the more extreme side of this scale to leave.

New deposits? New loans? Those come from new customers—and we’re faced with asking someone to leave their primary bank where only two out of every hundred customers are looking to leave their bank at any given time.

This is the paradox. Your bank must continue to grow. But customers aren’t looking to leave.

Loosing the Gordian Knot

Some paradoxes do have answers, but you generally have to cheat—or at least think laterally— to find a solution. Another well-known paradox is the Gordian Knot. If you want the full story, I recommend the Wikipedia entry.

The short version is thus: Alexander the Great was confronted with a prophecy: an oxcart was hitched to a post with the Gordian Knot—one so complex it could not be untied. It was foretold that whoever unraveled this knot and unhitched the cart would be the ruler of all of Asia (then defined as basically the Middle-East).

Although Alexander was great, he first approached the problem as most of us would: when confronted with a knot, one tries to untie it. The problem was the knot was so tangled and intricate that it was truly impossible to untie. We do it all the time. We confront a problem based on preconceived notions. This is the underlying reason why almost all magic shows are entertaining, and most jokes are funny. The payoffs of both subvert our expectations to humorous or astonishing effect.

There’s another saying: “when you’re a hammer, the world is a nail.” We try to find solutions with the criteria at hand.

There are two versions of Alexander’s solution.

The more straightforward version rumors he cut the rope. Another version (for all the purists) says Alexander pulled the lynchpin of the wagon’s yoke, pulled it through the knot (thus unraveling it), rehitched the yoke, and dusted his hands in satisfaction.

It turns out even paradoxes are paradoxes. What is supposed to be unanswerable can be answered. This is even true of unstoppable forces and immovable objects.

Stopping the Unstoppable

You might say, “But Alexander found a loophole and exploited it!” To that, I say, “yes!” Solutions to complex issues can be found more in looking for answers than the problem itself. What didn’t the rules say?

The place to start on our banking quandary is to stop—stop the 1-2% from leaving your bank.

When researching for this article, a startling trend became apparent: folks aren’t thinking about retention. There is a dearth of research on what makes customers leave. There is plenty of data on what they say when they leave, how likely they are to say it, how to re-attract them, the costs associated with customer loss, BUT very little available research on WHY.

The clearest assertation comes from Michael Leboeuf’s book, How to Win Customers and Keep Them for Life (2000). Laboef breaks it down as follows:

Unless you have a warlock on staff, we can skip addressing “death.” If these general business numbers hold true for banking, the first answer is simple: train your people well. I’m sure when you agree in assuming it’s likely that dissatisfaction in community banking leans more toward product and competitive reasons.

 “We have all the products of a big bank” is a truth, but many of those megabanks outpace the off-the-shelf options given to us by our limited vendors. While there is little you can do about this, you must be willing to push vendors and upgrade when possible. The world waits for no bank.

“Competitive reasons” for banks can probably be expressed as a word: rates. You won’t win every deal. You don’t have to be told this, and there’s not much you can do here. You can determine exactly what’s going on in your bank by performing your own satisfaction survey. It’s a great way to reconnect with clients, hear their needs, and rekindle communication.

We’re only talking about protecting 1-2% who aren’t satisfied, though. Once we have the trickle plugged, it’s time to move onto the more daunting task.

Moving the Immovable

The answer to the first paradox is astoundingly (and perhaps frustratingly simple). What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? The force goes around the object. The framework of the problem urges you to solve the problem directly, but more often than not, it’s simpler to sidestep the issue with lateral thinking.

Banks ensnare themselves in this trap almost every time they sit down to create an ad. Look at the field of banking ads. Yes. They’re all the same. And almost all fail to live up to their potential for one key reason: they’re made to convince someone (anyone) your bank is good.

They’re written, designed, filmed, and published to simply inform about your bank. This happens under the guise of “branding.” We have to inform people about our brand!

Sure.

But now it’s time to upgrade those efforts.

It’s time to consider the 1%.

Before we go any further, let’s back up and look at the numbers. 89% of bank customers are satisfied or very satisfied. Yes, an overwhelming majority, but stop for a second and consider how you’d react if one of every ten customers who interacted with your bank was not satisfied or very satisfied?

One more aside. It’s easy to get too focused on the paradox and say, “Well, if I lose 1% and my competitor loses 1%, we’re just trading customers.” Keep in mind you might have to guard your 1% against ten competitors, but you have the opportunity to grab 1% from each of those ten competitors.

So how do you upgrade your bank ads to win this battle? You create ads for the 1% actually in play—those looking for a new bank. Stop making generic ads stating the obvious to everyone in your town. Think about the person who’s making the drastic decision to leave his/her bank. Would you speak differently to a person you knew was about to make a banking change than one who didn’t give you that information? I hope the answer is “yes.”

While this audience hasn’t raised their collective hands, they’re out there. They’re ready to move. Turn your advertising toward them.

Instead of saying: “We provide really good service!” (like every other bank), say: “Make the move to the banking service you’ve been missing.”

Replace “11 convenient locations” with “Looking for a bank closer to home?” What if they don’t live close to your bank? The message won’t resonate with them. But you know whose bell it will ring? Bingo. Those who live close.

And, yes, target these messages whenever possible. But these are meant as stark examples to confront the innate fear of using a message that might not resonate with everyone in your markets. Would you rather move 100% of your audience 1% or 1% of your audience 100%?

Not convinced? Our methods and philosophies probably don’t resonate with you. It’s ok. You’re part of the immovable 99%. For everyone else, we’ve said enough.

Listen to our bonus discussion with Josh Mabus, Kevin Tate, and Robbie Richardson below.

Community bankers face one of the harshest competitive environments in any industry. At times it can feel we’re adrift on a sea of sameness—in undersized vessels—while gigantic megabanks churn the waters around us.

It’s difficult. We struggle to differentiate ourselves from similarly-sized competitors while contrasting our value against larger banks.

But there’s an alarming trend that I’ve seen emerge from this. Community banks tend to be very insular and cagey against the competition. This is fine—excepting one thing: too many community bankers have never darkened the door of the competition. This leads to making uninformed claims about our own products and service.

We’re the friendliest bank.

Our service is the best.

We’re much more efficient.

But. Do you really know that?

As with anyone thrown on the waves of choppy water, it’s no wonder we cling to what feels safe.

Have you ever opened an account at a competing bank? Have you ever tried their products or services to make an unbiased comparison against yours?

I’m worried that too many of us will say “no.”

Now, this isn’t some kumbaya guide to getting along. Quite the opposite, actually.

You can look at it two ways:

  1. A vital part of warfare is scouting the enemy.
  2. How can you ethically compare yourself to the competition if you’ve never experienced what they have to offer?

You can pick either because both are true.

Perhaps you say, “We don’t cast ourselves against the competition. We do our own thing—our best every day.” That is a valid and admirable approach. But, again, it’s insular. 

You’re discounting the options from which a potential client must choose. I am not suggesting you advertise “Our bank is better than XYZ Bank.” You don’t have to (and shouldn’t) name the competition. But you can rest assured that clients will consider more than one bank when choosing their primary financial institution. It is your job to understand what your bank does better and make very certain a potential client knows.

I suggest that you can enhance how you serve clients and your community by understanding the offerings present in your bank’s footprint. Otherwise, how do you know what is missing from your bank’s offerings? From your client’s experience? What could you offer that no other bank brings to bear? These could be concrete concepts like products or abstract offerings like service and availability.

Perhaps it’s even simpler.

One day, a bank that serves small businesses will realize that the bank is only open during the entrepreneur’s busiest hours. That bank will shift its hours to 10am – 7pm to be available for that client base and will win business.

We tend to internalize that the grass is always browner on the competitor’s side. This is born from a sort of group egocentrism that “we” (wherever “we” might be) is best. Do you remember early in elementary school when you found out that the United States wasn’t the biggest country? Nor the most populous? There was no reason to have this belief. No one had told us that the US was larger.

We do not need to fall into a similar trap with our banks.

What if you find out the competition is actually super friendly? Or incredibly organized and efficient in processing loans? It probably makes you a bit sick at your stomach to consider that the competition is better in an area or two. Perhaps you find out that you kick THEIR tail.

Regardless, if you haven’t shopped the competition, you don’t know. And that’s dangerous.

I believe in this so much, I took $1,000 of my own money and handed it to Mabus Agency copywriter Riley Manning when he was relatively new to bank marketing. I told him to open 10 bank accounts at 10 banks. It was one of the best training exercises for Riley as he learned about banking. But it was also eye-opening as we engaged with several types of banks. We were constantly surprised about which one was really good (or really bad) in certain aspects of banking.

As you prepare to shop the banks with which you compete, I suggest you watch and listen to Riley as he recounts his adventures—and dig deeper into our special blogs that capture, in detail, what he discovered.

Learn from Riley’s direct experience, but also use our rubric in your approach and valuation of the competition. It’s worth the effort. And your grass will be greener because of it.