Aligning tactics and strategy: an approach for better integrating your marketing initiatives with the bank's strategic plan.

• Author: Rendel, Jeff
• Position: ABC National Bank & Trust Company

HERE ARE EXAMPLES OF MISSION, value and vision statements--respectively--from community banks:

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* "The ABC National Bank & Trust Company of Our Town will provide our area with the highest quality financial services while fulfilling our responsibilities to our community?

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* "Customer-driven quality; leadership; continuous improvement and learning; employee participation and development; fast response; partnership development; public responsibility; and, citizenship."

* "Your financial partner for life."

Chances are your bank has a comparable hierarchy of proclamations.

Where does marketing fit into these grand statements of direction? How do marketing leaders design and implement strategies that support the reason your bank exists, what your bank believes in, and what your bank wants to be?

Here are three ideas that you should keep in mind as you devise, campaign for, and stand up for your bank's marketing initiatives.

1. Integrate your marketing plans, initiatives and efforts with the appropriate objectives of your bank's strategic plan.

2. Promote your plans, initiatives and efforts in a manner that appeals to your C-level leaders and/or your bank's board of directors.

3. Inform the stakeholders who benefit from your marketing strategies about the value your bank provides to their lives, businesses and communities.

Using these steps helps you attain advanced levels of effectiveness, promote a C-level perspective, and ensure that marketing programs result in enhanced customer and shareholder value.

Let's explore these ideas in greater detail.

Integrate

Obtain a copy of your bank's strategic plan. Familiarize yourself with your bank's mission, vision and values. Most important, devote exacting consideration to your bank's strategic objectives for the next one to three years. What does your bank want to be? What will your bank look like in one to three years? One objective could be to "leverage the personal and electronic delivery of high-quality financial products and services." Another objective might state that your bank "will return to profitability and sustain this success with a focus on increasing revenue, efficient operations and controlled costs."

While these are noteworthy guiding statements, how do your present marketing programs or thoughts for the future that support your bank's objectives?

Consider Grabill Bank (assets: S595 million), Grabill, Ind. Its mission is very personal: "We're committed to a philosophy of helping people achieve their financial potential through a More Than Money culture." Grabill Bank's strategic purpose is straightforward: "Making a difference for people everyday." Its marketing efforts are directly integrated with its mission and purpose.

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Karen Cameron, executive vice president of corporate services Grabill Bank, shares how the bank's marketing and branding efforts meet the bank's overall mission and purpose. "We are putting more emphasis on...