As we ring in the new year and all its possibilities, we can’t help but look back on all that has come before. Reflecting on 2023, it was one that had its share of bumps for the banking industry as a whole, with the failure of three larger financial institutions, while also providing some solid wins for those of us in the community banking world. The timing was perfect for the community banking industry to step into the spotlight and promote itself, shining a bright light on all the reasons that set community bankers apart from the big banks. The association finished the year strong doing just that in promoting its community banking members in Montana. The BankLocallyMontana.org video marketing campaign had incredible results in the fourth quarter that not only beat my expectations but performed better than any campaign our contracted marketing firm had ever run in Montana. This was largely due to the quality of the video we were able to borrow from ICBA’s national BankLocally campaign, one that our organization would not have been able to produce without their assistance and belief in our ability to run a state-level campaign. I don’t want to throw too many numbers at you, but I do want to share some of the more impressive numbers that stood out to me from this campaign. During the three-month run, our promotional video appeared on consumers’ devices across the state roughly 770,000 times. Of those, it played to completion 483,000 times. Unfortunately, there are no metrics available to indicate what percentage of these viewers actually paid attention to the video. However, drawing on my personal experience with these types of ads, while I may not actually watch most of them, the audio still plays in my background for me to listen to. If this holds true for most consumers, that equates to a significant amount of people who at least heard the message, “Don’t make a big bank make you feel small.” I’m confident enough in the quality of the video content that I believe even those who ignored the visual aspect of it in the beginning may have ended up watching it by the end. PROMOTING OUR COMMUNITY BANKS TIM SCHREIBER, PRESIDENT PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE 6 Community Banker
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