Page 21 - Spring 2025

Marketing Personalization Is More Than Adding Names to Emails

The advent of data-focused, personalized marke�ng has opened up doors

to deeper customer rela�onships for community banks.
BY ELIZABETH JUDD

One of the enormous advantages enjoyed by financial ins�tu�ons is the
At its finest, a personalized marke�ng campaign is one so calibrated abundance of relevant data within their grasp. Banks could know far more
to an individual customer that the customer walks away feeling like their about spending pa�erns than, say, retailers or hospitality companies, notes
community bank really knows them. As Elyse Richmann, AVP and director of Crystal Steinbach, director of digital marke�ng for Des Moines, Iowa-based
professional services at the banking CRM pla�orm provider 360 View, puts it, firm Mills Marke�ng.
“Personalized marke�ng is not a blanket campaign but a campaign catering to
a par�cular customer and making [that individual] feel special.”
“Half the ba�le is ge�ng the data,” she says. “And when we can get the data,
we’re going to use it [for personaliza�on purposes].”
The goal may sound straigh�orward enough, but the ques�on of how to make
such a warm, fuzzy and relevant impression a reality is not so simple, and the
difficulty is compounded by the very nature of community banking.
“Customers go to the smaller, community banks because they [want more
personalized service],” says Richmann. “They don’t want what the larger
banks are doing.”
For Mark Hanna, president and CEO of The Bank of Glen Burnie in Glen
Burnie, Md., finding a way to personalize digital communica�ons is a growing
impera�ve as the $365 million-asset community bank’s branch traffic declines.
“We’re using our website and emails—as well as some new and different
media—to stay in front of our clients,” he says. “Face-to-face banking is not
dead, but it’s taking on a different meaning.”

Hanna notes that the bank’s website is becoming the thing that drives a
majority of its personal conversa�ons. “A�er we pique people’s ini�al interest,
they do more fact-finding,” he says, “and that leads to a phone call or a
mee�ng to discuss how we can support their financial needs.”
According to Juliet D’Ambrosio, chief experience officer at Atlanta-based
branding consultant Adrenaline, community banks are now inves�ng in their
own data and technology to clean up and merge customer data, as well as
consolida�ng duplica�ons from email and other customer lists into a workable
dataset.

It’s all about data
Bravera Bank in Dickinson, N.D., is a case in point as it expanded beyond its
tradi�onal geographic footprint into Minnesota and Montana. As part of its
growth strategy, the $3.2 billion-asset community bank is inves�ng in data and
technology so it can compete with larger financial ins�tu�ons, says chief
marke�ng officer Kelsey Dahl.

When it comes to iden�fying what types of data ma�er most for a successful
marke�ng campaign, approaches differ. Some banks rely on demographics,
placing a premium on knowing what life stage a customer is in, explains
Richmann. Demographic data might include whether a customer has children,
owns a home, has a business or is saving for a par�cular goal like re�rement.
Others place the emphasis squarely on financial data, such as the types of
accounts owned and balances carried. A hyper-personalized approach
Over the past decade or so, marke�ng has evolved at warp speed. “Back in
the day, it was the batch and blast. You had all these customers, and you sent
Increasingly, banks also rely on predic�ve analy�cs, which may be driven by
AI, to use this “matrix of customer data,” as Richmann calls it, to iden�fy the everyone the exact same thing,” says Steinbach. “Pre�y quickly, you saw
most appropriate products for a given customer. “You can create campaigns or massive numbers of unsubscribes [and low engagement].” From there,
journeys specific to a customer’s needs based on all that informa�on,” she marke�ng progressed to incorpora�ng first names and other easily acquired
says. personal informa�on into emails and other communica�ons.

Arkansas Community Banker | 21 | Spring 2025