Who
A long-time community bank with $657 million in assets that operates out of Watertown, NY, as well as 9 locations throughout the North Country.
What
Differentiate WSB from a growing number of competitors and grow market share.
Why
WSB has been looking to differentiate itself from the growing competition in its market without sacrificing its community roots.
Solution
In August 2018, WSB switched to Geezeo PFM to power its Money Tracker PFM. WSB uses Geezeo’s free marketing content to position its PFM as a unique resource for its customers.
The Goal
Watertown Savings Bank has been serving the Watertown, NY, community since 1893. But its reputation has become a double-edged sword as banking has changed.
It’s "institutional" reputation makes it more challenging to be associated with more tech-forward features that newer or bigger FIs offer. These new competitors challenge Watertown to at once remind customers and potential customers of the value of a hometown bank while also demonstrating that local banking doesn’t mean antiquated banking.
This is where its digital banking platform comes in, and its Money Tracker PFM in particular. The goal is to use the PFM as a differentiator; an easy-to-use, powerful PFM with a local flavor.
The Strategy
“We try to make our Money Tracker prominent to our members across all our promotional platforms,” says WSB’s Marketing Director John Morgia. "We feature it in the top banner on our website, which links to a landing page with more information, and we’re running radio ads as well as television ads and including a feature article in our customer newsletter.”
By optimizing free marketing materials from Geezeo - quarterly marketing campaigns, webinars, videos, etc. - Watertown can deploy customized, professional, consistent promotions that demonstrate its ability to be local and contemporary.
Geezeo’s marketing materials allow partners to rebrand the materials to work with their PFMs, in this case as Money Tracker. Geezeo’s high res PFM content even shows up in WSB’s advertising for Money Tracker.
And Geezeo can help with all the data, showing partners how to enrich it so they ‘get granular’ with their customers. That allows Watertown to offer products to its customers that it knows they are interested in, rather than just sending out offerings to everyone, hoping someone will bite.
Again, the enhanced data allows Watertown to show they are interested in each customer, while showing its customers that the bank is competing in the digital marketplace.
The Result
“We launched in August and we’re already up to 1,700 users, so we’re very happy with the response,” noted Morgia.
“As a community bank, we have a very deep connection to the community and to our customers. This was our way of keeping our customers supplied with the most up-to-date tools for managing their financial lives,” observed Morgia. “And they have been very positive in their feedback on Money Tracker.”
“Geezeo’s PFM is very comprehensive, and most importantly it’s unique in our area, which helps differentiate us from our competition,” Morgia said. “It’s a centralized place for all your banking needs.”
“Now that we’ve launched and have a few months of promotion under our belts, we’re looking forward to getting more involved in the marketing research tools the Geezeo’s PFM provides. The more granular we can get regarding our customers’ needs, the better advocates we can be for them."
