Ep 116 - Marketing and Lending

Ep 116 - Marketing and Lending

At most community banks, marketing puts out ads and tries to pull people in the door. Lending makes calls, shakes hands at Chamber meetings, and occasionally asks marketing for a brochure. Both teams are trying to bring more business into the bank, but only coordinate infrequently. Community banking is built on relationships, but the relationship between marketing and lending is often not given the attention it deserves. In this episode, Dan and Chris make the case that connecting these two teams gives a bank serious advantage over others still operating in silos. In this episode: • Why marketing and lending are running on parallel tracks at most banks — and what both teams are missing because of it • Three ideas for connecting inbound and outbound marketing and sales efforts • How marketing can make a lender's cold call a warm one • What lenders can give marketing that no amount of research will surface on its own Resources: • Want to talk about how your marketing can better support your lending team? Reach out: contact@bankmarketingshow.com [contact@bankmarketingshow.com] • The Bank Marketing Show: www.bankmarketingshow.com [https://www.bankmarketingshow.com] • The Bank Marketing Minute (Newsletter): www.bankmarketingminute.com [https://www.bankmarketingminute.com]

Ep 115 - DIY AEO

Last episode, we told you to go ask AI about your bank. If you did, you probably didn't love what you found. We gave you some actionable next steps, but we go much further into the "Now what?" this week. Most of the mass market AEO advice out there is written for e-commerce companies and big local service businesses that live and die on web traffic. Community banks don't operate that way. AI visibility is still important, but there are some things you should do differently when your goal is trust-building and engagement, versus maximum web traffic. Dan and Chris break it down into four concrete steps you can do on your own, starting this week, with no budget and no developer. In this episode: • Four steps to improve your AI visibility, that you can do now • Why your local competitors and digital competitors are not the same • A technical step that nearly no community banks have done, that you can have AI write for you • How getting started puts you ahead of 90% of community banks Resources: • Google's Rich Results Test for checking your schema: search.google.com/test/rich-results • Want a deeper AI visibility audit? Reach out: contact@bankmarketingshow.com [contact@bankmarketingshow.com] • The Bank Marketing Show: www.bankmarketingshow.com [https://www.bankmarketingshow.com] • The Bank Marketing Minute (Newsletter): www.bankmarketingminute.com [https://www.bankmarketingminute.com] • Contact: contact@bankmarketingshow.com [contact@bankmarketingshow.com]

Ep 114 - Can AI Find Your Bank

Go ask ChatGPT or Claude who the best bank in your town is. Or ask Google AI where to get a small business loan in your county. See what comes back. If your bank isn't in the answer — or worse, if a competitor is — that's not a future problem. That's happening right now, every time a potential customer asks AI for a recommendation instead of typing "bank near me" into Google. This isn't a traditional search ranking issue. People are having conversations with AI — asking real questions in plain language about real problems. And AI is answering based on what it can find. If your website says "your trusted financial partner" and nothing else, there's nothing for it to work with. In this episode, Dan and Chris walk through how to audit your bank's AI visibility, why most community banks are invisible in AI results, and what to do about it — starting this week. In this episode: • How to audit your AI visibility right now — and why you should search as a customer, not as a banker • Why generic messaging makes you invisible to AI — and the difference between ranking for a keyword and being the answer to a question • The thin content problem: why a bullet-point feature list isn't enough anymore • Why getting specific about your geographies, your customer types, and your specialties makes you more findable — not more narrow • Who you're competing against online may not be who you think you're competing against on the ground Resources: • Reach out for a deeper AI visibility audit: contact@bankmarketingshow.com [contact@bankmarketingshow.com] • The Bank Marketing Show: www.bankmarketingshow.com [https://www.bankmarketingshow.com] • The Bank Marketing Minute (Newsletter): www.bankmarketingminute.com [https://www.bankmarketingminute.com] • Contact: contact@bankmarketingshow.com [contact@bankmarketingshow.com]

Ep 113 - Finding The Whitespace

Every community bank knows they need to differentiate. But how? Most banks skip the hard part — figuring out what the market actually looks like from the customer's perspective — and jump straight to writing a tagline. The result? Messaging that sounds like every other bank in town. The answer is whitespace: the gap between what your competitors are saying and what your ideal customers actually need to hear. Find that gap, and you have a marketing message people will pay attention to. Miss it, and you're just adding to the noise. In this episode, Dan and Chris walk through a four-step process for identifying whitespace in your market and turning it into messaging that resonates with the customers you're trying to reach. The process builds on the AI and competitive analysis topics covered in recent episodes and the Kadince webinar — including a live competitive analysis demo available at bankmarketingshow.com. In this episode: • Why most competitive analyses don't lead anywhere useful — and what to do differently • A four-step process for finding the messaging gap your bank can own • The difference between digital whitespace and on-the-ground competition — and why both matter • How AI fits into this process without replacing the thinking • A simple test to know if your messaging is specific enough Resources: • Watch the competitive analysis demo in the AI webinar at bankmarketingshow.com • The Bank Marketing Show: www.bankmarketingshow.com [https://www.bankmarketingshow.com] • The Bank Marketing Minute (Newsletter): www.bankmarketingminute.com [https://www.bankmarketingminute.com] • Contact: contact@bankmarketingshow.com [contact@bankmarketingshow.com]

112 - Peter Ort - Marketing and Culture

You can't fake culture. You can put posters in the break room and bring in an ice cream truck on Fridays, but your employees and your customers will know the difference. Real culture is lived, not declared — and when it's real, it shows up in your marketing without you having to force it. Peter Ort is EVP and COO at MCS Bank in central Pennsylvania, where he oversees operations, development, and marketing strategy. MCS Bank serves communities that range from Penn State's tech-driven economy to rural Amish communities — and Peter's approach to building a consistent culture across that spectrum is something any bank can learn from. In this episode, we cover: • Why marketing isn't just external — and how celebrating your employees internally creates the stories that power your external brand • The courier who fixed a customer's gate, and why you can't buy that kind of marketing • How to find your real culture: honest assessment, anonymous surveys, and getting out of the corner office • Four elements of a thriving culture: voice, trust, communication, and shared vision • Why Peter hires on attitude over aptitude — and sits in on every interview, including part-time summer hires • The difference between telling your story and telling your customers' stories — and how the best marketing is when your customers celebrate you Lightning round: • Personal best: Graduated with honors from the Pennsylvania Bankers Association Advanced School of Banking • Book: The Dichotomy of Leadership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin • Best advice received: Never take criticism from someone you wouldn't take advice from • What he tells his team: "Are you ready for another day of banking excellence?" Resources: • Peter Ort: peter.ort@mcs.bank [peter.ort@mcs.bank] • Peter on LinkedIn • Book: The Dichotomy of Leadership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin • The Bank Marketing Show: www.bankmarketingshow.com [https://www.bankmarketingshow.com]