Florida Banking April 2023

dropping. And they have unlimited access to thousands of layouts and millions of Getty photos and images. Hickey: I get it. I’ve been in your portal and seen the campaigns. It looks like you offer everything from digital signs, direct mail, statement stuffers and social media posts to ads, flyers and brochures. Basically, everything a bank needs to market their products and services, honor holidays, build their brand, celebrate their employees… all kinds of things. Reynolds: Very true, Brian. And you’re making a very important point about our marketing messaging. The content on our portal has been created by people who know the business, and this is really critical. We have a team of financial industry marketing professionals who are constantly researching financial industry trends, products and services. Then, using decades of marketing experience in the financial services space — community banking, in particular — they develop and add new, customizable creative to our library of ads almost every day. This is the major difference between our service and some of the template-driven applications out there, such as Canva. Like everything in life, you get what you pay for. Programs like Canva don’t apply the highly sophisticated principles of marketing that we do at BankMarketingCenter.com. Hickey: Can you talk a bit more about how it works? Reynolds: Sure. Our portal can also, if the user wants it to, automatically insert their institution’s logo, address, and phone numbers into their ads. The portal then facilitates proofing of the ad, automatically routing it along a predetermined, pre-arranged compliance approval path. Another very useful feature, and one that

iPhone. That doesn’t sound like a big deal but, well, Apple thinks it is. Their Trademark Guidelines tell you that “Only Apple and its authorized resellers and licensees may use the Apple Logo in advertising, promotional, and sales materials.” Needless to say, the last thing your bank needs is a Cease-and-Desist letter from Apple’s legal department. Hickey: Thanks very much for your time, Neal. This has been great… very informative stuff. Reynolds: Thank you, Brian, for giving me this opportunity. I hope it helps your banks better understand what we can do for them. BankMarketingCenter.com (BMC) is a web-based marketing portal that empowers banks to produce professionally designed, bank-branded marketing materials in a matter of seconds. As an endorsed partner of the Florida Bankers Association, our member banks receive a 20 percent discount on the already low-cost monthly subscription. For more information or to schedule a no-obligation demo, visit www.bankmarketingcenter.com. About the Author Neal Reynolds began his career as an art director at J. Walter Thompson ad agency in Chicago where he worked on the advertising for Oscar Mayer, Kraft and Ford. At that time, it was the largest ad agency in the world. Reynolds started his own ad agency a few years later, working with a large variety of clients, including many small community banks. Fifteen years ago, he started BankMarketingCenter. com, a web-based marketing portal that is now being used by 350 banks. Reynolds can be reached at 678-528-6688 or nreynolds@bankmarketingcenter.com.

many overlook the importance of, is that each user has easy access to their order history, enabling them to track all the marketing materials that are produced. This is a huge benefit if and when, in a compliance review, they’re asked by regulators for access to their marketing materials. No other web-based messaging portal does this. Hickey: You mentioned images. Millions of them? Reynolds: Yes, roughly 9 million and that includes videos as well. And your members can use any of them without concerning themselves about the usage rights. Here’s an example of what I’ve actually been seeing – banks promoting their mobile banking with an image of an

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