Financial institutions all over the world are trying to restructure their digital marketing efforts to align with the needs of their customers. More than ever, it is essential that an FI’s digital marketing strategy can deliver fast, relevant information to its audience.
When this does not happen, FIs risk losing out on huge potential consumer bases and alienating their existing account holders. Below, we’ve described in detail how Prisma helped a community bank overcome its struggles with outdated digital marketing and stay true to its foundational principles.
Meet Emprise Bank
Emprise Bank is one of the largest Kansas-based community financial institutions. With 32 branches and over $2 billion in assets, Emprise has grown to serve residents in every corner of the state and is an indispensable partner to its customers. Since its founding, Emprise has placed great emphasis on community involvement and has been nationally recognized for its philanthropic efforts.
Emprise Bank, like many other financial institutions, was attempting to revamp its digital marketing efforts to enhance the customer experience and secure more business. While Emprise Bank had clear objectives set for its digital marketing strategy, it lacked the technical expertise to craft and execute campaigns.
Emprise needed strategies that helped them stay ahead of customers’ needs without placing undue pressure on the organization. Previous efforts to revamp digital marketing had fallen flat due to the amount of time and effort it took to analyze data, execute campaigns, and study the results.
The Solution
Emprise Bank initially decided to implement Prisma’s technology and strategy in two different campaigns. These campaigns were chosen for their substandard performance, but also because they gave Emprise Bank a great chance to implement predictive analytics and raise satisfaction among their existing customer base.
CashPlease Campaign
This program was designed to offer short-term, low-interest loans to customers who were in need of a boost. Potential customers could apply and be approved in a very short time, meaning even those in urgent situations could take advantage of the offer.
Contextual targeting allowed Emprise Bank to target customers whose accounts were incurring insufficient fund penalties, showed a steadily declining balance, or were receiving deposits from payday lenders. By offering rates on short-term loans that were significantly lower than other parties, Emprise Bank could earn business while shielding their customers from the often predatory practices of payday lenders. Sixteen different versions of campaign notifications were drafted, each personalized to fit the customers’ specific situation and preferred channel of communication.
Checking Optimization Campaign
Emprise Bank offers tiered checking accounts to its customers, allowing them to take advantage of rewards and perks for higher deposits. By tracking trends in account data, Emprise Bank was able to determine which of its customers would benefit most from switching the tier of their checking account.
This campaign was all about increasing customer satisfaction and ensuring loyalty. While Emprise Bank did not materially profit from switching customers’ account types, it showed that Emprise was willing to go out of its way to ensure customers were getting the best deal possible. The bank made the transition totally frictionless for the customers.
Results
Both campaigns saw a strong response from Emprise Bank customers, with the CashPlease campaign seeing a 4x overall lift in sales after implementation. Email open rates for both campaigns hovered around the 50% mark, up from their previous >10% mark, meaning that Prisma’s personalization drastically increased the likelihood of engagement from target audiences. With Prisma’s marketing automation and personalization, Emprise Bank saw a significant reduction in pre- and post-campaign processing time. In the future, they hope to use this formula to treat other campaigns similarly.
Matt Michaelis, the president, CEO, and board chairman of Emprise Bank, said, “We’re very intentional about our focus on our customers. We build relationships. That’s the core of who we are and what truly sets us apart.”
Emprise Bank’s choice to focus on these particular campaigns reflects their dedication to this sentiment. Instead of choosing to enhance campaigns that drove maximum profit for the organization, they put their effort into campaigns that drove maximum value for their customers. They chose long-term loyalty over short-term profit.
See a complete breakdown of the campaigns, results, and feedback from Emprise. If your organization is in need of a partner like Prisma, schedule a demo today to see what marketing automation can do for you..
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