NEWSLETTER PROVES TO BE AN EFFECTIVE INFORMATION TOOL FOR FULLERTON COMMUNITY BANK
Fullerton Community Bank is a full-service bank serving individuals, businesses and organizations in North Orange County, California.
As a community bank in one of the country’s most fiercely competitive financial markets, Fullerton Community Bank needs to communicate, on a regular basis, its core strengths — including credibility, commitment, service and stability — to long-term, new and prospective customers.
Educate customers. Offer practical, reliable, consumer-friendly information on a variety of personal and professional financial topics — from planning for retirement and buying a home to setting up a business checking account and applying for a construction loan.
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“We don’t use our newsletter as one big sales tool. It’s an information piece. It lets us sit down and talk to our customers about seven or eight different topics that we believe will be of interest and value to them.”
— Becky Hall, Vice President – Director, Marketing & Training,
Fullerton Community Bank
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Reach out to customers. Provide news and information about Fullerton Community Bank that might otherwise go unnoted, such as the appointment of a senior manager, the launch of a new online banking feature or a special offer on a particular product.
Feature customers. Share some of the success stories that Fullerton Community Bank has created in helping local companies and organizations grow their business.
In its eight decades of serving the community, Fullerton Community Bank has firmly established a reputation for offering hometown customer care and a full suite of sophisticated services for individuals and businesses. For the past eight years, First Marketing has helped the bank build on that success by creating — from copy concept generation and design to printing and fulfillment — a quarterly newsletter titled For Your Interest. The newsletter:
Positions the bank as a partner in the financial well-being of its customers
Provides money-management information to customers
Promotes the bank’s products, services and community commitment
Provide information of value. Knowing the market, the client believes that a “hard sell” effort would be less effective than a product that reinforces their role as the customer’s financial partner. To that end, regular features include a personal message from the bank’s president, a consumer-advocacy article and a profile of a bank business customer.
Focus on the client’s place in the community as a counterpoint to megabanks. The newsletter must reflect and reinforce the fact that Fullerton Community Bank is truly concerned about the financial needs of its customers, not simply its own bottom line.
Ensure quality. Working in partnership with the bank’s marketing staff and personnel, First Marketing’s team of experienced financial writers provides the copy, including the president’s message, employee profiles, customer testimonials and other articles that require interviews.
Encourage readership. The newsletter is mailed to personal and business customers with their quarterly financial statements. In addition, each of the bank’s eight branch offices receives copies to share with current and prospective customers.
Promote cost-effectiveness. For Your Interest is produced as a two-color, four-page newsletter. Horizontal orientation gives it a distinctive appearance. First Marketing’s turnkey approach, including our on-site printing and fulfillment capabilities, keep production inexpensive and uncomplicated.
After eight years, For Your Interest has proven to be an effective marketing tool precisely because its nature is consumer-educational rather than strictly promotional. “All I’ve heard is positive feedback from customers,” says Becky Hall, Vice President–Director, Marketing & Training. “Our Investment Department Manager wrote an article for the newsletter a year ago about paying taxes on Social Security income, and he still gets calls about that article. What that says to me is that our customers really read and remember the newsletter. That’s very valuable to us.”
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