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How We Fit

Company Background

We know that better banks build better communities. For too long, marketing firms have underserved banks in every way, from strategy and brand to web development and advertising. At Mabus Agency, we know better. We are a full-service advertising agency that specializes in financial marketing. Our goal is to reduce the stress of creating high quality, effective marketing, and advertising and help banks like yours reach their full potential. From strategy to creative to placement, we bring deep expertise and high skill to every facet of your marketing.

We Understand Banking

Talking about our commitment to better bank marketing isn’t enough; we back it up in action. Every Mabus Agency strategist, creative, and support team member is required to participate in ongoing bank training through the American Banker’s Association. We work to make certain that every staff member you work with has completed ABA’s core curriculum to understand bank regulation and compliance.

We Help Banks Transform

We’ve seen and worked with banks in every stage of marketing. Very few banks can take full advantage of the entire scope of marketing resources available to them. Even fewer integrate them seamlessly for a robust customer experience. Heritage Bank does a great job using marketing to drive clients to the bank, but we identified opportunities to enhance your strategies to yield even better results.

We Drive Measurable Results

Beyond our general banking knowledge, we are passionate about driving ground-level growth. We don’t just want to prove our worth; we want to ensure our work provides the best possible results. We work with clients to choose metrics, track our campaigns, make adjustments, and continually improve. Marketing and brand awareness aren’t just fluff to us. We create campaigns that drive measurable results.

We Know Bank Growth

We help support bank growth—from rapid organic expansion to M&A activity, to de novo announcements. Renasant Bank stood at $2.6 billion in assets when we began work for the bank. Now its assets will total more than $17 Billion. During that growth, we supported eight mergers and expanded into three new markets through de novo entries. Minnwest Bank recently completed two near-simultaneous mergers. In the regulators’ closing remarks, they cited Minnwest’s merger communications as the clearest and most concise they had seen. Our staff’s total combined asset growth support totals more than $25 billion in acquired assets and 16 individual mergers. Mabus Agency’s flexibility and special skill in supporting rapid expansion can greatly benefit Heritage Bank.

Our Approach

We are a strategy-first company. We begin each new client relationship with an intensive discovery session. While financial institutions offer similar products and services to one another, there are distinct differences around brand. These differences are usually nuanced but must be understood and embodied within all communications to market your bank effectively.

We work collaboratively with clients to understand their needs and their brands. Our goal is to understand the “why” behind any new initiative. Establishing measurable goals allows us to benchmark success and prescribe changes to enhance effectiveness.

Our goal is to simplify the complexities of bank marketing. And to that end, this video explains our process in just a few minutes:

See How We Do It

Account Management & Billing Process

We built our processes around transparency and accountability. Our approach will be particularly helpful in light of your recent experience.

  1. We provide complete transparency on all projects by giving you access to our project management and proofing software. You see what we see: real-time reporting on each project in queue.
  2. We provide dollar-level reconciliation on all project, creative, and media billing each month.
  3. We maintain an escrow account for all media purchases. This is well beyond industry standard and requirement. We maintain clear lines in regards to media fees and will not mix these in our GL.

Meet Your Team

You will onboard with a dedicated team who has already lobbied to serve Heritage Bank. This team is well-versed in banking and undergoes routine training around products, regulation, and compliance and is fully supported by the entire staff at Mabus Agency.

Your expanded team includes media placement, video, motion graphics, and digital marketing departments who work closely with your dedicated team on your projects, as well as access to teams dedicated to other clients (should your workload demand it).

Point of Contact

Communication Overview

  • Standing weekly check-in calls with your Mabus team
  • Monthly web conference around projects, creative collaboration, and budget reconciliation
  • Quarterly strategic check-ins to assess previous period’s performance and plan for upcoming quarter
  • Annual planning, held in-person at your headquarters

Tyler Richardson


Relationship Manager

  • Deep experience serving agency clients in a variety of highly regulated industries.
  • Proven track-record of managing project activity and communication with client and creative team.
  • Develops realistic timelines and keeps projects on track to meet deadlines and exceed expectations.

The Creative Team

Ryli McQuary


Traffic Coordinator

  • Comprehensive background in accounting and project management
  • Long history of customer service
  • Integral part of our project management team

Jordan West


Senior Designer

  • Leads team in brand-setting and visual communication
  • Well-versed in utilizing existing brand elements and creating additional components to increase usability and flexibility of brands
  • Uses skills in typography, layout, and design to build incredible brands

Sarah Tewolde


Graphic Designer

  • Veteran designer with years of agency experience
  • Exceptional at bringing brands to life, creating materials that shine in both physical and digital environments.
  • A true design thinker, constantly innovating work to function in the real world.

Cameron Cummins


Graphic Designer

  • Versatile designer across many styles
  • Utilizes strategy to create compelling design within multiple platforms (traditional and digital advertising, emails, etc.)
  • Uses balanced approach between creative thinking, practical application, and real-world circumstances

Michael Gann


Web Developer

  • Full stack developer with great mastery of design, development, and security
  • Expert across many development platforms and content management systems
  • Hard working, quick thinking, creative, and grounded—the perfect balance of skills for web design and development
  • Independently developed several fully-functioning FI websites from start to finish

Strategic Leaders

Josh Mabus


President, Chief Creative Officer

  • Worked hand-in-hand with Renasant Bank to boost assets from $2.6 billion to $17+ billion—reinventing how community banks can market through growth
  • More than a decade of bank marketing experience—from small local institutions (sub-$200 million) to regional banks
  • Extensive strategic and creative direction experience
  • Helped transform marketing of 20+ financial institutions

Emma Geiger


Marketing Director

  • 9 years of bank marketing experience
  • Multi-discipline creative
  • Part of Creative Oversight team, responsible for guiding all agency creative from concept through completion
  • Responsible for managing marketing plans for all bank clients

Robbie Richardson


Art Director

  • Seasoned creative lead
  • 9 years of experience in bank marketing
  • Multi-discipline creative
  • Oversees all creative work

Your Expanded Team

We provide comprehensive solutions without third-party involvement. Here are three in-house groups (outside your dedicated team) that will provide broad-based resources to support your goals.

Media Placement

Our team specializes in finding the right media mix to drive engagement, conversion, and results. Through traditional, digital, geotargeting, social, environmental, and sports marketing—our goal is to find the right combination that drives what matters to you.

Videography

We specialize in creating compelling content. This is realized by marrying thoughtful narrative with beautiful imagery. Our video team is led by a director of photography with an MFA in filmmaking and two Emmys under his belt.

Motion Graphics

Consumers who understand banking products are much more likely to engage with them—and you. In many cases, the complexities of banking products require an additional boost to help increase understanding. That boost comes from animation. We use motion graphics to help consumers connect the dots around your products and provide deeper understanding. 

Our Portfolio

Portfolio Examples
Case Studies

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