Community banks face both challenge and opportunity in 2016 as they face uncertainty over interest rates, a sluggish recovery, increased regulations and rapid changes in customer preferences.

An effective digital strategy includes personalizing your online customer interfaces so that your institution can stand out from the crowd.

Going beyond traditional marketing, bankers now post blogs and white papers, offer credit coaching and extended hours and pay for leads to gain an edge in pursuing small business customers.

Marketing executives say digital channels offer a great opportunity for building a bank brand but also present quantitative challenges in proving the business case.

Digital advertising can be very effective for reaching target audiences, but only if marketing budgets are allocated appropriately and results accurately measured.

New digital capabilities give bank marketing a prominent place at the table for designing and implementing strategies for revenue growth.

To improve their marketing outreach, financial institutions need to focus on strategy, or targeting the appropriate customer segments, and upgrading their capacity in data analytics.