Introducing our executive team: when it rebranded and moved into new markets, Bangor Savings Bank, Maine, discovered that one of its most effective marketing strategies was to send out the entire executive team to regular community outreach meetings.

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AT MOST BANKS, IT'S NOT UNUSUAL FOR THE CEO and other members of the executive team to go out into the community on occasion and meet informally with small groups of local leaders, influencers, customers or prospects. At Bangor Savings Bank, Maine, the executive team has taken this activity to a new level.

The bank has institutionalized regular outreach sessions--about three or four each month at peak periods--in which between five and 30 people are invited to chat with the bank's executive managers. These meetings are designed to familiarize thought leaders and key influencers witt the beliefs and attitudes of the bank's leaders. Overt east decade, the executive team estimates that it has conversed one-on-one with literally thousands of people.

Among other things, the outreach program attempts to provide customized information for the needs and interests of the different attendees at these meeting. The gatherings have proved so effective at differentiating the bank from competitors that they have evolved into one of the most important elements in the bank's overall marketing efforts.

"These meetings allow us to engage in intimate discussions with a variety of people--including both customers and noncustomers," explains John Edwards, chief banking officer. "They enable us to present ourselves in a low-key way as ordinary, concerned members of the community. They permit us to promote the bank in ways that advertising cannot."

Started as a mutual savings bank

Bangor Savings Bank, which has $3 billion in assets and 57 branches, calls itself the state's largest independent community bank. Its headquarters is in Bangor, historically the business center for the state's timber and lumber industry. Founded in 1852 as a mutual savings bank, the institution converted to a full-service bank in the latter half of the 20th century. Until the late 1990s, the bank limited itself to its home market and remained modest in size, with about $600 million in assets and 15 branches.

At that time, some of the state's large banks--both local and out-of-state--began to falter as a result of mergers and acquisitions. Bangor Savings saw an opportunity to grab some of the market share from these banks, but it faced several challenges. For one thing, the bank had its roots in the state's eastern section, while the dominant part of the state's population and business community is located on the southern coast. Bangor Savings did not have a single branch in Portland, which is on the coast and is the state's largest...

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