If you search the internet for advice on marketing to small businesses, you’ll find few sources on the subject. The information that is available boils down to a few short recommendations: focus your messaging on saving business owners time or money, and make sure you have lots of testimonials. But what this really comes down to is demonstrating value. That value will look very different from bank to bank.
We can break banks’ strategies for marketing to SMBs down into two categories: people-led and product-led. Geographically focused community banks tend to focus on the former, while digital-first brands focus on the latter.
In this report, we use case studies and interviews with bank leaders to break down these approaches and discuss a crucial thread that runs through them both.