Marketing & Promotion

John Wanamaker—who pioneered the department store in his native Philadelphia in 1861—once famously said, “I know half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, but I can never find out which half.

Just as in the movie “Field of Dreams,” financial service leaders sometimes seem to put the product out there and hope they will come.

This much everyone knows: Content marketing remains effective.

Many banks think they’re hip with social media.

Most banks have a sense of purpose beyond turning a profit, yet too few clearly articulate their purpose in their marketing and communications.

CarrieAnne Cormier talks about creating the “Avidia Smarties,” a group of bank employees who use social media to engage and entertain audiences, while gaining Avidia national and international attention.

After banks shifted marketing online, they populated their sites with financial advice, success stories of small businesses and tools to calculate useful information from car payments to accounts receivable turnover.

Many bank executives still view marketing as the champion of brand building, essentially a middleman that funnels leads to sales and adds little value to the bottom line.

When J.

For consumers, alerts have become commonplace.