Marketing firm Pannos Winzeler first started its major push for getting banks into social media at a 2008 American Bankers Association marketing convention, recalls Jim Pannos, president of the New Hampshire-based firm. At the time, the bankers’ response was underwhelming.
But Pannos Winzeler, a traditional advertising company with a new emphasis on social – or “interactive” media – kept pushing the idea. By 2010’s ABA conference, Pannos said, bankers were mobbing the company’s booth.
Pannos Winzeler is not alone. Fred Doleac, president of Praxius Technology, launched his new Internet-marketing business division at the New England Mortgage Expo this month, and now has approximately 60 companies requesting more information about the company’s concept. Praxius is geared specifically to connecting real estate agents and mortgage lenders, who work together to update websites and social media platforms.
“It’s amazing, the response we’ve had,” Doleac said of the new division.
The rise of social media as a potential marketing tool has spawned a bevy of new consultants who say they can help busy financial companies write blog posts, update Facebook pages and monitor online chatter about their institutions. Others are traditional marketing companies that decided they needed to get smart about social media, and fast.
For their part, many financial services companies have accepted the idea that they cannot placidly put up a simple “brochure” website and wait for customers to find them.
In a December 2010 Banker & Tradesman reader survey, done in conjunction with Sudbury-based Bannon & Co., 60 percent of bank or credit union respondents reported they expected social media outlets to be a source of new business. About 20 percent believed social media was a waste of time, but most marketers wholeheartedly disagree.
Different Strokes
Each consultancy has its own angle within the financial services marketing world. Praxius aims for mortgage lenders and real estate agents. Pannos Winzeler aims for community banks and credit unions. Connecticut-based insurance researcher LIMRA has a social media advisory service for insurers. Waltham-based IMN distributes consumer-friendly banking content to community financial institutions.
That’s only a handful of such companies that are either new, or have a new idea to offer. But Kip Gregory, a Washington, D.C.-based media consultant, said financial institutions should always be careful.
“In the early days of any new development – and it’s not the very early days, but it’s still in the early-stage growth of the industry – anybody can hang out a shingle and call themselves a consultant,” he said.
Institutions just have to do their homework, and make sure their consultant or advertising firm is delivering what they expected, Gregory said.
Praxius is a new division of real estate agency Virtual Homes, of which Doleac is also broker/owner. The idea behind the division, Doleac said, is to build upon existing relationships between real estate agents and lenders: Lenders need purchase loans, and oftentimes, they get their leads from real estate agents.
With Praxius’ system, lenders operate a simple-to-use website featuring content – either original or occasionally contributed from Praxius – about the topics of their choice, including available listings, highlights from the local community or the general homebuying process.
The lender and the cooperating real estate agents are essentially contributing writers, able to set themselves up as local market experts, Doleac said. The process creates tighter connections between real estate agents and lenders, who can also use Facebook, Twitter, or other social media outlets as part of the process. The combined activities, in turn, will push that lender’s site toward the top of would-be homeowners’ Internet searches for information on the area.
Waltham’s IMN, on the other hand, relies heavily on sending content directly to existing customers, said Craig Capp, vice president of banking services. Participating banks or credit unions can take that IMN-generated financial content and tweak it however they like, adding a local spin or community-specific information.
Creating Connections
Putting out consumer-friendly information – with the bank’s name on it – creates a stronger connection with the customer, Capp said. That customer can also then e-mail, Facebook or re-tweet that information, rapidly expanding the bank’s online presence with virtually no effort from the bank itself.
IMN has gotten good response to the idea, Capp said, and just launched a new small business information product this month.
Pannos Winzeler, a more traditional marketing firm, added a variety of options for helping banks deal directly with social media. The firm offers advisory services for bankers, including monitoring and updating a bank’s blog or Facebook page.
“Being an ex-banker, I knew that bankers didn’t want to spend time looking at Facebook every day,” said Pannos, a former mortgage sales director at Family Bank in Haverhill, which eventually became part of TD Bank.
Every month, more banks are wading into online marketing, he said. A year and a half ago, about 74 percent of clients’ marketing dollars went to print media and 13 percent went to online, interactive media. As of October, according to Pannos, 52 percent went to print media and 26 percent went interactive.
Still, Pannos added, the idea is to find the right mix of marketing venues for individual clients, be it traditional or online.
“We have a saying here – we want our clients to fish in as many ponds as possible,” he said.
