David Horkey - VP, Corporate Marketing

A tried and true method of reaching those you don't have a relationship with is through the mail. 

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A response device's purpose should primarily not be to educate prospects, but educate you on who they are and their interests. 

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This response device could be anything, as long as the message that creates the conversion to ask for the device is clear enough that you or your sales staff can comfortably reach out to take the next step.​

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Enter: BankFinancial

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BankFinancial wanted to focus on growing it's assets under management through the acquisition of new customers.​

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After an analysis of their demographic base, they felt that there was opportunity to gain additional business by promoting four core wealth management services.

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BankFinancial already utilized Merrill Anderson's content to provide a trust overview booklet through in-branch distribution, but wanted to expand that reach throughout the year and give their sales team additional tools to succeed.

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Enter: The Merrill Anderson Co.

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Since they already had a response device, the question was how to get it into the hands of non-bank customers. In other bank activities, BankFinancial was finding success with sending postcards with a call to action for

response device, that allowed a follow-up call regarding that response device. 

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We both felt that strategy could work well for trust services too, and we could match the tone and style of the other postcard campaigns so that there would be brand reinforcement even if the core service wasn't applicable in the particular case.​

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Postcards are cost-effective, but the space for text is limited, especially since you need large artwork to stand out in the mail. Thus, we decided to have four separate campaigns during the year, each of which focused on a particular core service. If the service was applicable the lead would reach out for more information (in this case the response device was the trust overview booklet), which the assigned business development officer would send out with a cover letter prepared by Merrill Anderson that was specific to that particular campaign. This type of approach creates in-bound leads that are product specific and easy to follow-up on.

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After the content was created, and BankFinancial executed the implementation, we checked in to see how it had gone  - here's the response we received:

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I’m hoping your team can help me build out 4 more campaigns. That would include letters and postcards. Here’s the topics I’m looking to build out, by priority:
 
1.       Trust – Estate Planning/Fiduciary
2.       Business Succession Planning
3.       Investment Management – growth
4.       Investment Management – preservation

David Horkey

VP; Corporate Marketing

BankFinancial

After the first year's successful implementation, we continued with the same strategy for a second year. The same response device is still being used, and we've now shifted the strategy of implementation into other areas.

We're proud to be creating efficiency for sales teams like BankFinancial so they can focus on the people that raise their hands to be contacted instead of chasing every suspect.