The Story

As promised, we are excited to begin the first of several posts that continue the discussions started at last week’s ABA Marketing Conference. In partnership with our friends at Market Insights, we will each be sharing our thoughts on five key topics raised in the Branding Roundtable session last week. Be sure to check out the Grow Your Bank blog for more insights into the discussion.

Topic 1: The Definition and Process of Bank Branding

A brand is the sum total of all the experiences anyone (customers, employees, shareholders, the media, etc.) has with your company anytime (whether applying for a loan, or simply driving down the street and seeing your sign). These little experiences are called touch points. And their sum total, your brand, becomes what people know you stand for. Branding, therefore, is about managing these touch points so that their sum creates that single thing you want to stand for. So it’s about managing not only your marketing materials, but all other touch points as well. That’s why bank branding far transcends mere bank marketing.

Bank branding is best approached as three steps: 1) Find the Story, 2) Tell the Story, and 3) Prove the Story.

Find the Story

You hear a lot of bank marketing folks (and even CEO’s) talk about needing to “tell the story” better. But you can’t Tell the Story until you know exactly what the story is. That’s why Finding the Story is such a key (but often brushed-off). Finding the Story means gaining a ridiculously razor sharp level of clarity about what precisely your bank’s brand stands for.

Tell the Story

Once you’ve found the story with enough clarity and razor-sharp precision, now you can worry about how to tell your story using marketing and communications. Only now will you have enough focus in order to make sure every communication is on-message, building your brand, and positioning you appropriately.

Prove the Story

Ahh, this is where true branding really happens. Telling the story is great, but it’s just lip service if the only place the brand lives is on paper or websites. It’s just words at that point. Proving the Story is about demonstrating the story in everyday actions. In other words, living the brand. This is far more meaningful and impactful for the recipients of your message than just reading a brochure that says what you stand for. Prove it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 9:42 am and is filed under Bank Branding, Bank Marketing, Touch points, Branding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.