Go ask ChatGPT or Claude who the best bank in your town is. Or ask Google AI where to get a small business loan in your county. See what comes back. If your bank isn’t in the answer — or worse, if a competitor is — that’s not a future problem.

AI isn’t going to replace your entire marketing team tomorrow. But it is going to change what you do, and how fast you’re expected to do it. This is part two of our two-part series based on the AI webinar we recently gave with our partner, Kadince. Here, we dive into the topics in more depth.

Every bank says they want to stand out. But most don’t go beyond tweaking a logo, or updating colors, and continue to rely on the number of years in business to build trust. That’s important – but no longer enough to differentiate your bank against the thousands of others with a similar history. It’s time to be bold.

We break down the real reasons bank marketing tactics fail, from our experience seeing these things play out at banks across the country. Spoiler: it’s almost never the channel itself. Google Ads, SEO, and even direct mail DO work – but not if you only focus on the ad itself.

Every community bank has checking accounts and loans. So the age-old question is, how do you stand out? First Financial Bank and Amber Murphy figured it out: they went deep in one niche, and then kept going, building many specialty lending divisions and driving massive growth. Check it out!