Community Bank

Community Bank operates more than 215 customer facilities across Upstate New York, Northeastern Pennsylvania, Vermont and Western Massachusetts. With a 155-year history and more than $15.5 billion in assets, the company is among the country’s 125 largest financial institutions and has been ranked among the top-performing US banks by Forbes for the past 13 years.

In 2016, Community Bank was using a one-size-fits-all approach to targeting, meaning customers and prospects across the bank’s footprint were receiving the same marketing messages regardless of demographics and psychographics. This approach drove moderate results, but shifts in audience behaviors and evolving digital technologies uncovered a need to better understand the bank’s audiences and how to reach them to stay competitive.

DS+CO knew opportunities were being missed. Without a clear understanding of targets, the lack of customer segments had created gaps in messaging and inconsistent tactics. And while second-party research offered directional guidance about national financial service trends, those didn’t always match what was happening in the bank’s Northeast footprint. The solution: Community Bank partnered with DS+CO to create and refine personal banking audience segments, improve reach and engagement, and optimize media spend for both the short and long-term.

DS+CO conducted target segmentation research that looked at customers and prospects throughout the bank’s multi-state footprint. The study identified four marketable customer segments, then aligned them with each Community Bank product to connect benefits with demographics, behaviors and consumption habits. DS+CO was then able to identify which tactics, messaging and imagery were best suited for scaling lead-generation efforts. Customer segmentation improved media planning and buying through enhanced behavioral targeting and refined, relevant messaging.

The segmentation study’s results were immediately implemented across media campaigns, and new media messaging and creative were developed in tandem for the next campaign flight. As DS+CO’s relationship with Community Bank evolved, the new customer segments were used as the foundation for automated lead-generation campaigns, email nurture streams, branded content creation and the bank’s new website.