Digital Marketing, SEO and Website Solutions

In today's world, digital marketing plays a pivotal role in reaching online consumers as they are looking to make a purchasing or banking decision. It also plays a major consideration in retaining existing relationships by ensuring your website is easy to navigate for day-to-day banking needs. By combining best practices in website design, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), in-depth analysis, and the right digital marketing solutions, we can help your financial institution develop a comprehensive digital strategy to maximize your online presence, reach and results.

There are a number of steps to be considered in order to help your financial institution succeed in the online and digital world. Stellar Strategic will analyze proprietary and un-biased third party reports to analyze local, regional and national competitors in your market. We will also determine what market trends exist in your branch foot print and how your current website is designed for ease of navigation and optimizing organic searches. The final step is recommending, then testing, the most effective digital products to strategically target your market.

Digital marketing clearly speaks to and engages with Millennials, however, over 60% of all age groups have clicked on a financial ad via their tablet or smart phone (The Financial Brand, 2014). Clearly in this day and age, it is increasingly important to maximize your digital marketing presence and reach to ensure you are engaging consumers in all possible marketing channels, including both traditional and online marketing options.

Digital marketing has become the fastest growing segment in advertising, and for good reason based on recent consumer channel preferences. Stellar Strategic Group is positioned to help guide you through each step of the process to achieve the optimal digital marketing presence in your banking footprint.

The Strategy

Our approach combines four steps for a complete and comprehensive digital marketing strategy to help your financial institution reach your online goals:

Step One: Great website design has always been important, but now more so than ever. There are several key factors to take into account when reviewing, recommending and designing bank-related websites including:

Intuitive site navigation featuring prominent links to your top pages (such as online banking, locations/contact information, online account opening links, and/or products you offer).
Responsive design with cross browser compatibility that allows your content to work on any device including mobile, tablet, and laptop - not just desktop.
User friendly layout that appeals to your clientele while maintaining your brand identity, that also provides a clear call to action to help funnel conversions, leads and online openings.
Compliance with ADA regulations is critical to banking websites. Legal action regarding the new guidelines is already being served on community banks and credit unions. If your institution has not made this a priority you could be subjected to a class action lawsuit and your website will not be compliant.
Click here to learn more about ADA compliance.

Step Two: SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an integral part of any digital marketing program. The goal is to have your institution rank high organically on Google and other search engines when a prospect searches for financial products and services. Stellar Strategic Group will incorporate the following to ensure the best organic search rankings:

Analysis of your website to determine how well you are optimized for search engines including title tags, meta tags, plus long and short key words.
Examine competitor websites and keyword rankings including the top 5–10 Google search results.
Development of a prioritized list of targeted search terms related to your product line, customer base and market segment.

Step Three: A Market Trend Analysis will be completed to maximize your digital marketing budget. Stellar Strategic will run an analysis on your account opening trends in your market to help determine the best areas to utilize our digital solutions. This analysis will feature:

Account opening trends in your banking footprint and what areas should be targeted around each branch.
Determination of the competitors that are most vulnerable in your market and how to position your marketing message.
What digital solutions to utilize depending on your goals based on branding, offer specific targeting and social media sites (Facebook and Instagram).

Step Four: The optimal digital marketing mix will be developed based on the analysis of the previous steps. Stellar Strategic Group will recommend digital strategies based on the following solutions:

IP Targeting: IP Targeting focuses down to the household level. We can match IP Addresses to any database of names and physical addresses. Your ad will only be viewed by devices attached to that physical address. Think of it as direct mail for the internet as we can target specific addresses.
Competitor Replay: As branch closings continue at high levels in the banking industry, Stellar Strategic Group now offers a new solution to market to consumers that bank at your competitor's locations. Competitor Replay allows you to capture Device IDs at high value locations. In other words, you have the ability to capture a consumer's Device ID at events they attend, where they work, where they study, where they shop, where they bank - all with the ability to advertise to this high value audience. Learn more.
Geo-Fencing and Geo-Targeting: Geo-fencing displays your ad to selected geographic areas (on the zip code level or a set radius around each of your locations). Geo-targeting allows us to pinpoint certain online behaviors or key word searches to ensure the right message is displayed to the best prospects in your selected market.
Facebook and Instagram Targeting (Social Media Marketing): Reach potential prospects on Facebook and Instagram in their News Feed with your display or video ads based on demographics, interests, behaviors, or your list of email addresses or phone numbers. This is a great way to specifically reach the Millennial market, an existing account holder or model existing account holders to find similar prospects.
Mobile Conquesting: Location based targeting is combined with demographic and behavioral targeting to reach consumers with display ads on their mobile devices. Capture auto loans or target competitor locations with this approach.
Retargeting: Retargeting consumers after they leave your website is one of the most important steps to maximize your digital marketing efforts. Not all visitors will convert the first time they visit your site so it is crucial to keep your message active on their devices. We cap the frequency so that your ads will not follow prospects excessively online.

Stellar Strategic Group, LLC is committed to creating and executing the most effective online marketing strategies available to the financial services industry. From ensuring your institution's website is optimally designed, 508 compliant, and well-positioned for organic searches, to reaching new and responsive audiences with digital and social media messaging, we can help you reach your digital marketing goals.