Their number is always: dynamic marketing boosts financial ratios and profitability. For confirmation, look at one of the nation's best-performing community banks, First Premier Bank, Sioux Falls, S.D.

AuthorSablosky, Tanja Lian
PositionFeature

There's a correlation between vigorous marketing and healthy financials. That's the view of Dana Dykhouse, president and CEO of First Premier Bank in Sioux Falls, S.D., a community bank with the nation's most outstanding financial ratios in its asset category. "Marketing truly affects our profitability," he says.

Last year, the annual Performance Rankings of ABA Banking Journal listed First Premier (under its holding company, United National Corp.) as having the best financial performance nationally among S corporation banks with assets under $1 billion. This was the second year in a row that it had achieved that distinction. The holding company's five-year return-on-equity was 78.6 percent and its five-year return-on-assets was 13.1 percent.

First Premier, which currently has 15 locations, wasn't always such a sterling performer. Back in the early 1990s, the institution was viewed as a "sleepy little transaction-oriented bank." The owner decided to build a new team to create a strong, clear image and to improve the institution's visibility. In 1995, Dykhouse and Brenda Bethke, vice president of marketing, were hired from another local bank that had just been purchased by a large out-of-state financial corporation.

They launched the bank's first marketing department, a move that they credit as the driving force behind the institution's invigorated financial profile and profitability. Bethke says it is tough to compare the financial ratios in the early 1990s with the ones today since so much has changed in the way the numbers are put together. "However, these types of ratios don't just happen," she says. "It has been something that the financial leadership of our bank has impressed upon the organization."

Among other things in the last seven years, the bank has: Grown assets from $250 million to $835 million.

* Experienced a 50 percent increase in personal and business deposits, a 58 percent increase in personal and business checking, a 120 percent increase in total trust assets, and a 263 percent increase in personal and business loans.

* Seen its sister organization, Premier Bankcard, grow from 40,000 to 1.7 million credit cards issued nationally.

* Experienced a staff increase from 175 to 2,200.

It's an attitude

"It's hard to separate marketing Out of the makeup of the entire organization," says Bethke. "The old saying that 'Marketing isn't a department, it's an attitude' best sums up the importance of the discipline at First Premier." That attitude is reflected in the commitment of Dykhouse and his colleague Miles Beacom, president and CEO of Premier Bankcard. "Marketing will die a slow death--or sometimes a quick death--if it isn't a belief from the top. We have very strong management at the top," says Bethke. "The true visionaries for marketing's role in the organization are Dykhouse and Beacom. They both deeply believe in the importance of the marketing discipline, and it is reflected in their daily...

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