Independent Banker - March 2025 - 58

90%
of millennials
prefer direct
mail over email
when receiving
promotional
messages.
SOURCE: HYDRATE MARKETING
depending on who visits or signs in.
Posting an ad or banner with the
most attractive savings-account rates
for customers most likely to engage
in those products or who are lacking
such accounts is also website hyperpersonalization
in action.
Beyond displaying custom offers,
savvy community banks are making
sure that the website images selected
resonate with the audience they're
targeting. Paul Tonelli, VP and creative
director at Manchester, N.H.-based
firm Pannos Marketing, points out
that for one Midwestern community
banking client with branches
primarily in agricultural communities,
" presenting the right style and
imagery " is key to being relevant and
building lasting relationships.
What's more, for some banks, a
kind of DIY personalization can boost
a website's appeal. Take The Bank of
Glen Burnie, which has 50 financial
calculators in its Online Education
Center, ranging from mortgage payoff
tools to a " cool million " calculator
designed to show when your current
savings plan will make you a
millionaire. " Our goal is to make sure
we're anticipating our customers'
[financial] needs, " says Kim.
4.Branches and call centers.
Personalized marketing campaigns
need not be executed solely via
remote channels. Highly targeted
marketing intelligence can be
furnished to bank employees, who
then directly present customers with
only those product suggestions that
Should gamification be part of
your personalization mix?
Sometimes, personalization means
putting the reins in the individual
customer's hands. One way to
boost savings rates is by making
a game out of growing a bank
account, one in which customers
are rewarded with small cash
bonuses or other incentives for
achieving specific financial goals.
Mike Palazzolo, assistant
professor of marketing at the
University of California Davis
Graduate School of Management,
describes this technique, known
as " gamification, " as " the use of
game-like elements in a non-game
context, or taking the features of a
game and using these features for
something other than just a game. "
In a paper published last year,
Palazzolo studied what happened
when a bank app that incentivized
users with raffle tickets, in-app
currency and other rewards
removed all gamification for 50
days. What he found was that bank
app logins decreased by 20%.
While gamification is not
synonymous with personalization,
there are ways that the two
strategies do complement each
other, says Palazzolo.
" Gamification produces the
same sorts of engagement and
stickiness that personalization
fosters, " he says, " so it may serve as
a substitute in an era when some of
that personalization that happens
face to face is not happening quite
so often anymore. "
58 // ICBA Independent Banker // March 2025
Independent Banker - March 2025

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