Pub. 12 2024 Issue 1

As excited as I was about the broader success of this promotional campaign, I was even more excited to see the effect it had on MIB’s website traffic. The BankLocallyMontana.org website, which redirects visitors to MIB’s “Find a Community Bank” webpage, lists numerous reasons to support Montana’s independently owned community banks and includes a listing of MIB’s member banks. It also has a search function that allows users to search for member banks in their areas with links to their individual websites. Prior to the launch of the marketing campaign, this specific page saw an average of only one user per day. During the campaign, this average took a massive leap to 37 unique users per day. Over the course of the threemonth campaign, roughly 3,400 new unique users visited MIB’s “Find a Community Bank” page. Not only was this a successful promotion of Montana’s community banking I’m encouraged as our local banking community enters this new year with such positive momentum. industry, but it was an incredible benefit for those MIB member banks listed on the “Find a Community Bank” page as well. While the primary goal of the campaign was to educate and promote community banking to the general consumer, our secondary goal was to drive traffic to MIB’s website and ultimately to our members’ individual websites. With the results just mentioned, I can safely say that we accomplished these goals. I’m encouraged as our local banking community enters this new year with such positive momentum. Here’s to 2024. Community Banker 7

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTg3NDExNQ==