Are you marketing your bank’s programs and services by the old standard or the gold standard?

The old standard is large spreads in local papers and glossy ads in regional magazines with your bank’s name (and perhaps a few benefits or programs) prominently displayed. These efforts are splashy and impactful.

For about five minutes.

They’re also prohibitively expensive to run more than once. And since advertising research shows that people generally gain brand recognition and purchasing incentive after six repeated contacts, where does that leave your bank? Stymied, that’s where. Because executives can’t decide whether to channel slim resources into marketing efforts or into programs and services beneficial to the customer.

So, instead of following the old standard, why not try the gold standard of thought leadership? It’s easy to do, inexpensive, and value-laden for the customer. In addition, there are so many platforms available today for branding a company through thought leadership that everyone in your bank can be involved in the effort.

Thought leadership involves showcasing your organization’s financial expertise into many and varied educational vehicles that target customers can access at little or no cost. It gives value to the people you’re trying to reach while building your organization’s credibility. It’s a powerful selling tool if applied consistently, and builds name recognition and brand at a fraction of the cost of traditional ads.

Digital Branding

Some of the most common platforms for displaying thought leadership include free articles, white papers, checklists and surveys on the bank’s website, podcasts on the website and iTunes, videos on the website and YouTube, Twitter tips and blogs on WordPress. All of these presume a basic knowledge of digital technology, but most are astoundingly easy to begin and maintain. For instance, anyone can start a blog in about five minutes and learn the basics of maintaining it in half an hour.

An employee doesn’t need to have a master’s degree in journalism to produce intellectual property for the bank’s thought leadership collection.

What kinds of offerings am I talking about? Any information that provides value to your customers. Some professional service firm owners I know have a hundred free articles on their websites, as well as blogs, podcasts and videos. The range of topics is limited only by your collective imagination.

Target Your Audience

For example, in a community with an older demographic, such topics might include: “Twenty Ways to Stretch Your Retirement Dollars”; “Are You Getting All the Tax Breaks You Deserve?” “Starting a Savings Account on a Shoestring Budget”; and “How to Shave Cost from Your Monthly Bills.”

In a younger community, offerings might include: “Eight Strategies for Starting College Funds For Your Infants That Don’t Cramp Your Lifestyle”; “Should You Rent or Buy a Home?” “Saving Now to Fund Your Future Dreams”; and “Ten Reasons Why You Have to Stick to Your Established Budget.”

The beauty of these pieces of intellectual property is that they can be re-purposed. For example, say you develop an article called “Thirty Services Your Bank Offers That You Didn’t Know Existed.” You can place the article on the bank’s website under a “Free Resources” tab. You can offer it as a handout to customers in the teller lines. You can turn it into a podcast for iTunes or a video for YouTube (with a link on your website to access it).

And don’t forget face-to-face marketing. You can use the “Thirty Services” article as the basis of a speech to the local Rotary chapter or to a group at the local library.

Using this method consistently to produce value-added intellectual property, you can design and implement a powerful, ongoing marketing strategy at very low cost. And you can brand your organization as the community’s premier thought leader in all things financial.

Sally Mounts is president of Auctus Consulting Group, a management consulting firm near Pittsburgh. Email: drsally1@live.com