Word of Mouth Marketing: Your Bank's Best Tool

1. Create special events

Banks can take the initiative to generate good word of mouth. StonehamBank purposefully creates what Doherty calls “shareable moments.” 

“We provide exceptional service during life milestones, such as the birth of a baby or a first-time home buyer,” he explains. “We make those moments feel for our customers that they’re the only one. If you make them feel good, they will talk about you.”

2. Share community-based stories

Stories about involvement with nonprofit and community organizations align banks with community concerns and values. 

“We’re seeing data that supports that, so many consumers are making choices based on values,” reflects Jess Doerr, director of client solutions for Social Assurance, a SaaS company and marketing services provider. “Eighty-two percent of consumers want a brand’s value to align with their own. Telling stories of what community banks are doing in their communities is the best way to strengthen their marketing.”

MCBank in Goldthwaite, Texas, recently purchased print advertising for a local FFA group’s fundraiser. The $450 million-asset community bank’s logo was on the advertising. 

“We’re not advertising for ourselves per se, but it seems to draw a lot of attention from the community,” relates Mindy Hopper, the bank’s CEO. 

Lauren Kleck, VP of advertising/marketing for Peoples Bank & Trust in Troy, Missouri, reports that the $875 million-asset bank highlights its community involvement both in an email newsletter and on social media platforms. 

“We get a lot of feedback about how much people appreciate us supporting the community,” Kleck relates. 

Banks don’t have to limit themselves to qualitative data, either. Social Assurance has introduced Community Spark, software that tracks volunteer hours, donations, board seats, loans for low- to moderate-income demographics, and other ways banks are contributing to their communities. 

“The powerful thing is to have this data at your fingertips,” says Doerr. “You can use it to tell stories that are grounded in data. People want to work with a bank like that.”

3. Put your team to work

Most community banks are well represented at community events, whether school sports meets, fundraisers or festivals of all kinds. Make sure your team is prepared to take advantage of these opportunities to garner testimonials and referrals. Prime them to gather information and pictures. 

“People on the ground aren’t professional content collectors,” Doerr notes. “Give them guidance, such as a short photo list of things you’d love to see. They can get that content to the marketing team, which can curate it into a really good story.”

4. Partner with small business customers

Working with your small business customers on publicity multiplies the eyes that will see and take interest in a story. Williamstown Bank in Williamstown, West Virginia, created a local spotlight for its small business customers on its Facebook page. The $230 million-asset community bank posted the business’s story—how it got started, what drives it—and paid a modest fee to boost the post on Facebook. 

“[The businesses] get some free advertising, but they also share that post, their employees share it, and that results in their employees coming in, and that opens the door for us to talk about our banking services,” says Sharon Anderson, president and CEO of Williamstown Bank. “We had a lot of success with that.”

5. Ask for testimonials and referrals

“‘Ask’ is the most important word in sales,” declares Doug Nodgaard, Omaha market president of $500 million-asset Equitable Bank in Grand Island, Nebraska. “You don’t get [them] if you don’t ask.”

Nodgaard and his team make it a point to insert referral requests into most conversations. 

“The best time to do this is after a good experience,” he says. “This is a compliment to customers, because we say, ‘We’d love to have 100 customers like you, so if there’s anybody that you run into and banking comes up, keep us in mind.’ They feel important and refer a friend or a neighbor.”

6. Reward customer referrals

StonehamBank started a “Refer a Friend” program to jumpstart referrals. The program gives $100 both to the referring customer and to the new account owner. 

“We’ve already seen great engagement from it,” says Doherty. “It’s a good way to start conversations and a great way to reward customers for banking with us.”

7. Survey customers for stories and referrals

James Pannos, president of Pannos Marketing, recommends surveys of existing customers to harvest testimonials. He explains that Pannos Marketing frequently takes this approach for branding projects. 

“You can tabulate the results, the positives, the negatives, and ask them, ‘Would you mind if we used your comments?’ Now you have a library of testimonials,” he says. 

Pannos advises community banks to use short and easy questionnaires. “Don’t make it a 15- to 20-question survey and drag your customer along forever,” he cautions. “They’ve got other things to do.”

8. Coach employees to ask for feedback

Employees are a key channel for capturing referrals and testimonials. 

“Your people reinforce your brand,” Pannos says. “It starts with employees, the team that represents you at the teller line or on the phone talking to someone with a problem with their checking account.”

StonehamBank holds monthly meetings with retail teams for coaching and conversation skills. “We want them to feel confident to engage customers authentically,” he says. “We’ve seen success. It’s very helpful, especially for employees that are newer into banking.”

9. Give employees needed training

In addition to training, empowering employees to help customers can go a long way to generating good word of mouth. 

“We train them to talk to customers and recognize their needs,” says Hopper. “If a customer accidentally overdraws an account because they didn’t get home from the soccer game to make an account transfer, our employees can say, ‘Sure, we’ll take care of that for you.’ Positive word of mouth in our community comes from us empowering employees to listen.”

Equitable Bank takes a similar approach. “I tell our people that they can waive any fee at any time, if they think it’s the right thing to do,” Nodgaard says. 

10. Engage with social media

Word of mouth is amplified by social media and makes a strong impression on potential customers. “Most people won’t buy anything on Amazon until they read reviews,” Pannos says. “Testimonials and reviews have become a real driving factor in consumer behavior.”

Williamstown Bank has partnered with Social Assurance to funnel the main review platforms into a dashboard. “There’s too many online platforms for us to manage as a small bank,” notes Anderson. “This will help us be more efficient and not have to monitor multiple sites ourselves. If we receive a review, we can respond.”

Anderson makes it a point to reply to comments on a Facebook page dedicated to regional community events. “It’s not something we can control, but if someone tags us with a positive comment, I’ll go in under the bank’s name and thank them.” 

Anderson adds that if she spots a negative comment, she reaches out to offer a private message to resolve a problem. 

“It shows a level of humanity that we’re interacting with a local page,” she says. “People have opened accounts because they’ve seen something like this on the community pages. It allows a human element. It results in a positive reputation in the community and builds to what people are hearing from neighbors and friends.”

MCBank has taken a similar approach, engaging primarily through county websites and message boards. “Most locals go there to post good and bad experiences,” Hopper explains. She adds that the community bank has made changes based on social media feedback. Recently, it widened and repainted a handicapped parking spot based on customer concerns. “It showed the community that we were responsive,” she says. 

Doerr advocates generating more online reviews. Social Assurance recently ran a review generation campaign for a client that raised its overall Google rating from 4.2 to 4.7 stars. “Some of the stories that came in, they genuinely love this bank,” she says. “They appreciate them so much. They start to say these things very publicly.”

Ultimately, word of mouth starts with strong customer relationships. 

“As a community bank, relationships are what make or break us,” says Anderson. “The best way to get word of mouth referrals is to consistently offer products and services that bring customers back.”

---