BIA/Kelsey’s Local Commerce Monitor™ survey of small businesses (Q3/2016) asks small businesses in key industries such as financial services (banks, accountants, tax services and financial-based franchises) about their advertising strategies. As with other industries, digital media plays a large role in financial small businesses marketing but so does traditional media including local community sponsorships. When we look at the top ten most used channels by financial services small businesses, community sponsorships are the most used along with Facebook pages, websites, direct mail, yellow pages and newspapers. Small businesses in financial services rate future (47%) and current (44%) customer awareness as important advertising results.
Banks with local branches or a financial services franchise business with multiple locations, local sponsorships offer a powerful way for local representatives to build relationships and visibility in the communities they serve. Sponsorships are effective because supporting local sports teams, charitable causes, the arts and other cultural organizations puts the brand in front of the customers and prospects financial services small businesses most want to reach at the local level. However, the need to advertise locally for some financial small businesses like banks has increased dramatically due to community reinvestment requirements and local sponsorships are a big part.
For multi-location small businesses like banks and franchises, local sponsorships can present a number of challenges including improper representation of the brand across advertising channels and underestimating resources needed for execution. Vya, a leading provider of simplified marketing execution for distributed organizations, introduced ad resizing services and ad distribution automation to help bank marketers effectively manage advertising requests from local associates. Vya’s new ad systems enable bank marketers to reduce turnaround time for ad resizing, redeploy talented creative resources to higher-value projects, and build a central repository of ads in varying sizes.
For more strategies on successful local community sponsorship strategies with any small businesses, check this out.
BIA/Kelsey’s LCM, Wave 20 reports can be purchased a la carte in the new BIA/Kelsey eStore. Our LCM reports look at where particular SMBs (broken out by size, vertical, etc.) spend the most, as well as the top channels for marketing and advertising. Additionally, our reports provide analysis on the best product and service offers for highly coveted groups of SMBs.
