By Tad Gage -- Just about every community bank has a functional website, facilitating customer logins, access, account management and so on. But taking more than a few turns around the Internet have shown me that beyond the purely function, a lot of community banks are missing a great opportunity to reinforce their name recognition, values, products and services.
Today’s reality is that people make a lot of judgments about companies (and banks) based on their websites. If your website is wearing jeans and gym shoes to a formal event, you’re going to be negatively categorized. An attractive (not glitzy) site with meaningful content can reinforce all the work you're doing to win and retain customers.
Here are a few ideas of places where your company’s website could work harder:
About the Company/Bank: Many community banks have interesting strategies designed to differentiate them from competitors and provide value, differentiated products and services to appeal to customers. Surprisingly, many community banks don’t take this essentially free opportunity to market itself to customers and potential customers. By compiling this information in one place, banks can demonstrate their practices and value. Highlight management’s strategy for growth and maintaining capital strength. If a bank has a long history, highlight it. If not, focus on how the bank has positioned itself for long-term success.
“Our People”: Use the website as an opportunity to highlight the experience and capabilities of the management team and board of directors. Rather than posting resume-like career accomplishments, put the team’s accomplishments and capabilities in context to illustrate the role they play. Be sure to include members of the senior lending and service teams, credit officers and technology pros. A few photos of team members (nothing fancy, just good quality candid shots) help put a face on the bank. This is particularly important for customers who rely heavily on web-based delivery of services and info. A community bank is all about the people, and the website can help deliver a more personal feel even if customers don’t frequent the physical locations.
Communication: Your website is the chance to communicate. Easy to access news releases, messages from executives, information about upcoming events such as financial planning seminars or community activities sponsored by the bank are all valuable ways to reach out to stakeholders and new business prospects.
Disclosure: Because all regulated banks are required to share financial information about their performance, why not include selective charts and information that highlight good financial performance, asset growth, and a few other basics? Privately owned banks and even smaller publicly traded banks fail to do this. Especially with all the concerns about bank strength and solvency, people appreciate the reassurance of knowing their bank is financially sound and well-managed.
Graphics: A bit of color and style go a long way. Keep backgrounds white or light colored, but use photos and design elements to liven up the site. Make sure it's easy to use with handheld devices. Use the bank’s logo frequently to enhance awareness and reinforce awareness when people pass the physical locations. Many banks have LPOs and facilities that have no signage. A website can be particularly useful to supplement minimal signage. Replace free stock photos (you know the ones – smiling people shaking hands, generic pictures) with real photos. Stock photos are easy to identify, and many people find them a turn-off. Scenes from your community, pictures of actual employees, interior photos of your bank, etc. add veracity.
Easy to Navigate: If tabs and hyperlinks are difficult to locate and use, people check out. Make them large, easy and clear. And NEVER have a link that takes a user away from the site by replacing the current link with a non-site link. If there’s an appropriate need to utilize other sites such as stock market info, alliances with financial planners or financial calculators, make sure the link opens a new window but keeps the original window open.
Keywords: I often find when I enter a bank’s name (or part of a name) in a search engine, I get a lot of sites not related to the bank I’m searching. Invest in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to move your bank to the top of the search engines with a minimal amount of information. It’s relatively inexpensive and there are a lot of web consultants who specialize in SEO.
An informative, attractive, easy-to-use website is something any bank can offer. Call me at 312-466-7646 for more information on this cost-effective way to enhance your communications.
