For bankers in nonmarketing positions, marketing can seem like a “nice to have” when compared with daily operations, especially when strategies have longer return on investment (ROI) timelines. 

Where a campaign focusing on new checking account openings within a designated period is easy to track, for instance, quantifying the financial impact of community involvement—such as volunteer work and sponsorships—is more challenging. 

These uncertainties make C-suite buy-in crucial for marketing teams that need funding and support for their efforts, even if those strategies don’t immediately influence the institution’s bottom line. Having the C-suite on board also avoids unexpected surprises like budget cuts, with marketing usually being first to the chopping block when times are tough. This is because most organizations—community banks included—consider marketing an expense versus an investment. 

“We did our own survey of community bankers and asked about the top three areas they’d cut if they had to reduce their budgets by $200,000,” says Jim Pannos, president of Pannos Marketing in Manchester, N.H. “About 60% of them put marketing at the top of that list—mortgage operations and general operations ranked No. 2 and No. 3, respectively.”

This approach can significantly affect a community bank’s bottom line and throttle its growth. To avoid these issues, Corinna Danilevich, VP and director of marketing at $2.2 billion‑asset Texas First Bank in Texas City, Texas, says marketing departments should view the C-suite as an ally and work to cultivate a strong relationship with leaders. 

“Marketing departments help banks grow their bottom lines,” she says, “but when you have C-level support, it even goes beyond that.”

For example, the alignment of marketing and the C-suite helps create a more unified bank culture overall and sends the message that everyone is on the same page, with similar goals. “This helps create a positive workplace culture that customers [and employees] can sense and be proud of the next time they see their bank advertised on a billboard, winning an award or getting involved with the community,” Danilevich explains.

Set the stage for success

For best results, Danilevich tells marketing teams to focus on what’s most important to the C-suite and the business. 

“Assume everyone is skimming email quickly, so tell them why they need to read the rest of the email in the first two sentences,” she suggests. Use the fact that community banks have more compact leadership structures, which makes the initial approach and subsequent interactions easier to implement.  

“We have the opportunity to serve as a trusted resource for the C-suite,” Danilevich says. “It's up to us to provide that meaningful information in an authentic way that really helps people understand the value of making these marketing investments.”

Texas First Bank’s COO Lincoln McKinnon says community banks are uniquely positioned to tell a “fantastic story,” and their marketing departments help them do that. When the C-suite understands this, the magic begins to happen. 

“When the marketing department has full buy-in from the C-suite from a strategy and resource perspective, amazing things happen,” says McKinnon, whose bank has been able to successfully expand into new regions and markets over the past five to 10 years. 

Make your case

McKinnon credits Texas First’s marketing department with helping the institution achieve those goals. 

“We rely on good communication across the organization,” he says, “to ensure that everyone understands the new market potential and how we’re going to approach this in order to get the desired market saturation and brand awareness.”

Pannos says marketing teams that “speak the language” of the C-suite may have a better chance of making their cases and getting the support they need. For example, being able to talk dollars-and-cents and prove the potential ROI for campaigns can be powerful. If the goal is to increase checking account numbers, for example, determine just how much revenue the bank will earn on average from each new account, likely $300 to $400 per year, according to Pannos. 

Let’s say the investment will be $50,000 for a campaign that targets new direct deposit checking account customers and offers them $300 to open an account. Those funds will be used for direct mail and email marketing, digital advertising, signage in the bank and other promotional initiatives. 

Doing the math, and factoring in an average checking account lifespan of 12 to 25 years, Pannos says 30 new accounts with an average deposit of $300 will each translate into about $4,500 over the total lifespan of that account. That’s a pretty powerful business case to present to the C-suite. 

“It’s similar to an annuity in that you invest upfront, and over time, that one person who came in and opened a $300 account translates into $4,500,” says Pannos. “So, if the campaign yields 30 new customer accounts, the total return is $135,000 minus campaign expenses and the $9,000 in deposits.” The returns don’t end there: every existing customer is also a “warm” candidate for multiple auto loans, mortgages, CDs, investment accounts and other products and services. 

“Those customers are going to come to you, their core banking partner, first,” says Pannos, who encourages community banks to go beyond looking at marketing as a “secondary thought” that’s easy to cut when budgets shrink, and to “flip the equation and view it as an investment in the organization’s future.”