The challenges: competition and core deposits: although a community bank with roots in a once rural suburb of Washington, D.C., Sandy Spring Bank today has to provide sophisticated products and services to please its affluent and educated customers, says marketer Jim Burrows Jr.

• Author: Albro, Walt
• Position: Marketer Profile - Interview

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Describe your bank's strategic plan.

Our core strengths are the wealth segment on the retail side and the small-business segment on the commercial side. In a sense, this is because our long history as a community bank has resulted in our client base reflecting our community's composition. Our strategy is to make serving these two segments our niche, even as we expand beyond the boundaries of what has traditionally been our community-Montgomery County, Maryland--to the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C.

We are promoting our experience and expertise, our personal touch, and our local decision making, with the goal of becoming the premier bank in Maryland and Northern Virginia for wealth management and small business.

How did the bank decide that its niche would be wealth and small business?

This is basically a niche based on who we already are. Serving these groups is already our strength, our core competency. Then, we studied the statistics and projections, and everything points to the continued predominance of these segments in our market. So it comes down to "Why reinvent ourselves?" If it's not broken, don't fix it! We're successful with these segments and our geographic market is a hotbed for them. Win-win!

Describe your typical customer.

On the retail side, our client base skews somewhat older, wealthy and established. The commercial clients are a mix--but mostly smaller businesses--under $10 million in sales; services such as medical practices, law firms, accounting firms, title companies. We also have a niche with builders and developers.

Do you have a marketing plan?

A three-year marketing plan is in place, designed to build the brand and expand the small-business and wealth segments in support of the bank's overall strategic plan. The marketing plan includes: (1) Building more brand awareness within niche segments through targeted print and radio advertising; (2) Developing innovative products and product packages that meet the needs of our key segments; (3) Creating visibility and brand equity within target segments through focused strategic giving and event sponsorships; (4) Maintaining a focus on and accountability for client satisfaction and relationships through ongoing and actionable client surveying and reporting.

Can you give an example of a product that you developed for a key segment?

We have been in the process of redesigning or bundling some of our retail and business products. We are introducing a new retail "Signature Checking" product in 2009 that will be targeted towards mass affluent clients who want the ability and flexibility to earn interest with a greater level of service and added-value benefits. The product creates synergies between the banking relationships we have with both of the groups that we're targeting--and often they are one and the same--the...