5 Benefits Retail Banks Get From Consolidating Localized MarTech Solutions

The U.S. retail banking market is expected to experience a compound annual growth rate of 4.49 percent from 2021 to 2026. While the industry continues to grow, what is your retail bank doing to stand out from competitors? That’s where localized marketing comes in. 

Localized marketing is the process of empowering local banks and agents to market themselves to their communities. However, many retail banks are hesitant to fully commit to localized marketing because of fears over the cost and time it would take to market across each bank location. Many retail banks often have separate platforms for managing social media, reviews, local pages, and more.

Consolidating your marketing technology (MarTech) stack can help make your localized marketing program more efficient. While marketers may think negatively of the term consolidation, it doesn’t have to be scary! There are ways your bank can consolidate its localized marketing efforts while still generating a solid ROI and winning new clients. 

This blog will highlight the top five benefits your company can receive by consolidating marketing solutions and investing in localized marketing. Let’s get started! 

1. Increase Efficiency  

As a marketer for a retail bank, you often don’t have much free time on your hands. Finding a way to juggle marketing efforts at both the corporate and local levels while maintaining compliance can be tricky. 

Save Time by Logging Into One Platform

One of the most significant advantages of consolidating your marketing efforts into a single solution is your ability to increase efficiency. With a single solution, corporate and local teams can get back the time previously spent logging in and out of various platforms to complete different tasks. This will allow your teams to get creative and spend more time on improving other aspects of your marketing strategies. 

Focus on Individual Tasks

You’ll also decrease the likelihood that one of your tasks will get lost in the shuffle of moving between solutions. For instance, with multiple solutions, you may be in the process of adjusting a local page when you get sidetracked and want to ensure a local bank has a social post scheduled. With a consolidated solution, you won’t have to worry about getting pulled away from tasks and letting things fall through the cracks. 

Outline Responsibilities Early On

It’s worth noting that while a single solution will improve efficiency, it’s essential to establish who on your teams will be responsible for different aspects of your marketing strategy. For instance, will the local banks manage their ratings and reviews while corporate creates local social content? Doing this ahead of time will again ensure you don’t neglect any tasks. 

2. Gain More Buy-In From Local Teams 

While your corporate team may be able to see the benefits of consolidation more easily, local teams may feel more hesitant to learn how to use a new solution. 

To get buy-in, you must highlight the benefits of consolidation, and while it may take a little more work up front, it’ll be well worth the investment long term. 

For instance, rather than having your local team members learn how to use a solution to manage social efforts and another for local listings, teams will only have to learn how to use one platform. Properly training local teams on how to use one platform often makes them more willing and excited to participate in marketing efforts. 

It’s also essential for your brand to supply local banks with the tools needed to become successful outside of the platform. For instance, consider providing your banks with a local social strategy they can easily schedule and execute. Our Localized Social Content Guide for Financial Services Companies can provide more detail.

3. Save Money on Platform Fees 

Optimizing your return on investment (ROI) is at the top of every marketer’s mind. Consolidating your MarTech stack will save you money. Rather than paying separate fees for each platform, bundling them together is often more cost-effective. 

Many of us are guilty of sticking with various platforms because we’re used to them, and finding an alternative will take time and effort. Once you understand the benefits of consolidation, you’ll be more inclined to look into other options. A day or two of research can lead to years of cost and time savings — ultimately boosting your bottom line.

4. Improve Data and Performance Across Locations  

As you’d expect, your bank’s performance will also increase because a consolidated solution will boost efficiency and drive more buy-in from local teams. The right solution will give you performance and reporting insights, further allowing you to manage all aspects of your marketing strategy from a single platform. 

Being able to track how each of your efforts is performing in a more streamlined manner will allow your brand to recognize areas that need improvement faster and make optimizations accordingly. 

For instance, through insights and reporting, you may notice that some banks are crushing its online reputation while others struggle.. You can then analyze what these banks are doing differently, take tactics that work for banks with a higher reputation, and implement them at lower-performing locations. 

If your brand consistently optimizes its localized marketing efforts, you’ll see the hard work pay off and further business performance improvements. 

5. Win More Local Clients And Boost ROI

Improving each bank’s localized marketing efforts will ultimately result in more local clients. Research shows that localized content performs 12x better than non-localized content. Consolidation allows you to manage each bank’s marketing strategy at the local level, again highlighting how consolidation will lead to more local clients. 

More local clients and less money spent on platform fees will boost your return on investment, which is every marketer’s goal. 

If your bank needs additional tips for creating a comprehensive localized marketing strategy, check out our Ultimate Localized Marketing Template for Multi-Location Brands. This guide highlights local search, social, and reputation factors your brand should focus on and also provides checklists to guide you through developing your strategy. 

Find the Solution That Works for Your Retail Bank

The benefits are clear. Finding a solution that consolidates your MarTech stack is non-negotiable. But how do you find the right solution for your retail bank? As a financial services company, compliance is something that has to be considered as well. That’s where SOCi comes in! 

SOCi is the only central place to scale compliant localized marketing efforts across every channel at every location. With SOCi, your retail bank can increase your local brand visibility and engagements and drive more customers to your banks, all while adhering to the regulatory and compliance needs within the industry.

Our results speak for themselves. For instance, by consolidating solutions and partnering with SOCi, First Montana Bank saw a 20 percent increase in clicks on all listings year over year and a 21 percent increase in search views. 

When looking at consolidation, SOCi has all of the tools your retail bank needs to dominate its localized marketing efforts all within a single platform. Easily manage hundreds or thousands of agents and locations’ organic and paid social content, information, reviews, local pages, and more with SOCi.

Ready to get started? Request a demo today!