Remember the days before Garmin, MapQuest and Google Maps? Those days when you never went anywhere without a glove compartment full of printed maps purchased at the local gas station? Of course, just one was never enough… unless you had the trusty Atlas of the United States. Otherwise, you had a map for each and every state in the Union, as we did when I was a kid. And, for my dad, it was the perfect excuse to never stop and ask for directions, no matter how lost we were.
Well, those days are gone. If you wanted to find a printed map, you’d probably need to visit the Library of Congress. The point is, and I do have one, that maps are important. And not just for finding your way from here to there on a long drive. They’re also important to community banks and how they take their marketing plans “from here to there.”
A marketing map is known as a marketing or marcom (marketing communications) calendar. What is a marcom calendar, and how does it take you where you want to go? According to HubSpot’s article, What is a marketing calendar?(and how to create one you’ll actually use), “a marketing calendar is a schedule of upcoming marketing activities and important dates. It covers a month, quarter, or even year and plots/tracks product launches, social media posts, blog articles, sales, and live events.” Seems simple enough, doesn’t it? Why then, do many banks continue, going back to our roadmap analogy, to go so far into unfamiliar territory without stopping and asking for directions?
Strategic planning and consistency
Plain and simple, a marcom calendar serves as a strategic blueprint for bank marketing teams to outline their marketing activities throughout the year. By planning ahead, they can be certain that their marketing efforts are consistent, and that they align with their institution’s long-term strategies and goals. This is especially critical to smaller, local banks which, by and large, work with a very lean marketing team.
As we all know, consistency is key when it comes to marketing messaging. A well-structured calendar helps banks maintain a steady flow of consistent, strategic communication with their audience; which is essential to meeting challenges such as maintaining a trusted brand, promoting products and services, and fostering customer loyalty, to name just a few.
Moreover, a marketing communications calendar – with its clear overview of upcoming marketing initiatives and the timing of each – allows the bank’s marketing team to allocate their budget and personnel resources more efficiently. This proactive approach prevents last-minute scrambles and ensures that marketing campaigns are executed smoothly, accurately, and on time.
Aligning with business objectives
For local community banks with limited marketing budgets and resources, aligning marketing efforts with business objectives is crucial. Luckily, a marcom calendar can provide a framework for integrating their marketing strategies with their broader business objectives. For instance, if a business objective is to drive the sale of mortgage products, the calendar can be tailored to include campaigns that promote those products during those times of the year when marketing mortgages makes the most sense. I.e., peak home-buying seasons. This alignment ensures that every marketing dollar is well spent and that the initiative has the maximum impact on the bank’s overall success.
Capitalizing on local events and opportunities
One of the significant advantages that small, local banks have over large regional and national players is their uniquely personal connection with their communities. Use your calendar to plan for how you’ll market that connection. Neighborhood charitable events are, of course, ideal candidates. Holidays, too. (Experts in “the biz” refer to this as “occasion marketing”). By putting these community activities on your calendar, you’re engaging with your audience – the community – in a way that only community banks can.
A handy reminder… in case you forget!
Sometimes, most likely because they’re quickly moving from project to project and juggling several at the same time, members of the marketing team can lose sight of what needs to get done next. A marcom calendar is one of the easiest ways to track work priorities. It’s easy to open the calendar up on a regular basis – I would recommend daily – and make sure that team members are on task and the work is getting done on time.
For example, let’s say you plan to launch an integrated digital marketing campaign in April to support your home mortgage products. Use your calendar to list out the tactics you’ll use and when they’ll launch, i.e., when your landing page should go live, when the emails should be ready to send and the social messaging ready to post. Then back up from those dates and enter your milestones; when the work on each should begin, the progress check-ins along the way and lastly, the ready-to-launch date. Back to the roadmap analogy – the calendar will get you where you want to go and, importantly, if you pay close attention to it during the entire journey, it’s almost certain you’ll arrive at your destination on schedule. And PS: Don’t try to just “set it and leave it.” This is a fluid document. Just as you can encounter unexpected detours on a road trip, there will be times when you may need to adjust your calendar to internal resource or external market changes.
What’s next?
Get that map out and get to where you’d like to be. A marcom calendar will get you there. For community banks with limited resources, it’s a tool that is truly essential. And, it’s easy to set up and utilize. In fact, to get started, I suggest you visit Smartsheet.com. There you’ll find a whole host of calendar templates in a variety of formats, from social media and content marketing, to email and blogging. Have fun. And, as always, I welcome your thoughts.
Bank Marketing Center
Here at bankmarketingcenter.com, our goal is to help you with that topical, compelling communication with customers — developed by bank marketing professionals for bank marketing professionals — that will help you build trust, relationships, and revenue. But, that’s not all. We want to share what we know – and learn along the way – with all our community banking friends. Whether it’s the latest news on AI technology, the benefits of a marcom calendar, or the importance of data protection, we’re here to make bank marketing the best that it can be.
Want to learn more about what we can do for your community bank and your marketing efforts? You can start by visiting bankmarketingcenter.com. Then, feel free to contact me directly by phone at 678-528-6688 or via email at nreynolds@bankmarketingcenter.com.