Marketing Platform or Marketing Agency? 5 Questions to Ask First

Every DIYer knows that rolling up your sleeves can save you money, but that new countertop or tiled shower will eat a few weekends.

Sophisticated marketing platforms take the sting out of launching print and digital campaigns with preloaded templates and dashboards for performance. Marketing automation features can save you even more time, and monthly payments are typically affordable.

That said, you’ll be in the driver’s seat, so you’ll need space in your weekly workload to craft new communications, measure engagement, and adjust.

With agencies, the time investment is mostly front-loaded. You’ll need to meet with project managers, customer success managers, graphic designers, copywriters, paid ad specialists, and others. Once that’s over, you’ll have regular check-ins to review results.

That team comes at a cost, and the scope of your campaign can act as a multiplier on the invoice. Industry-specific agencies will command a higher price, while general agencies may need more guidance to understand your products and goals.

Either way, you can expect agencies to take a bigger bite of your budget while only nibbling at your calendar.

Agility is a key component of successful marketing. Financial institutions must react to breaking news, sudden downturns, and spiking demand.

That said, you’re also familiar with time-tested trends – auto loans in fall, home loans in spring, etc. Either way, your choice here can have a real impact on your adaptability.

From the driver’s seat, you can easily swerve around obstacles or move into the fastest lane. Seasonal and ad hoc campaigns blend easily in a centralized platform, especially if you’re setting time- and event-based triggers for automatically communicating the right product at the right moment.  

One-off promo campaigns are also simpler to launch. With your own core data for reference, you can build targeted audiences in response to interest rate changes or emerging community needs. 

Turning this boat around will take some time. Marketing agencies thrive on predictable workloads. They serve numerous clients like you and have limited capabilities to take on sudden work with the same personnel.

If you know what you’re selling, to whom, and when, an agency can help you build a year’s worth of marketing efforts for that purpose. But urgent requests or last-minute strategy shifts – if they can be accommodated – may come at a higher price.

While there are many industry players, community institutions have a monopoly on truly knowing who they serve. That said, service areas are expanding, and foot traffic at physical branches is down. Financial products – home loans, credit cards – are roughly similar, even if the people needing them are anything but.

Depending on your community, you may benefit from more or less familiarity in your marketing strategy and communications.

Homegrown marketers are naturally more familiar with the communities they serve. They may even come from that same place, giving them an extra edge when anticipating seasonal needs or communicating value.

They can also leverage hyper-local trends to launch campaigns that may not work elsewhere or at other times of year (e.g., boat, RV, and ATV loans, small business loans). With a deeper knowledge of their people, products, and place, these marketers can use the right platform to communicate with locals in a comfortable (and effective) way.

Excellent research can take agencies far. They have local search trend tools that help them understand product popularity at certain times of year. There are limitations, of course, and with few exceptions, agencies can’t duplicate the lived experience of locals. But agencies remain experts at using the latest tech to determine product demand and timing.

If you’re expanding into new markets, running broad awareness campaigns, or pulling out all the stops to acquire new account holders, agencies can help.

Data privacy is a massive concern for individuals and businesses alike, and financial information is arguably the most sensitive data of all.

When choosing between marketing platforms and agencies, we have to balance our data responsibilities with the success of our campaigns. That can pose more than a few challenges right out of the gate.

Your best option here is a core-integrated marketing and engagement platform with strong security built in. Technically, that looks like SOC 2 compliance – an independently audited framework that verifies how organizations protect sensitive information. Non-integrated platforms with the same security designation can also work, though you’ll need some help from IT when bringing your data over.

Once data is in place, you’re ready to rock. You can securely segment targeted audiences based on account-level details like product adoption, account balance, age, activity, and numerous other criteria. That checks two crucial boxes – data security and data access – while keeping you agile and your campaigns focused.

Agencies will need your help knowing who to contact. They can use zip codes or third-party data to construct a general list of prospects in your area, but for precise targeting, they’ll need names, email addresses, physical addresses, and more.

That often means sharing first-party data under nondisclosure agreements, data processing agreements, and other contractual safeguards. While experienced agencies should be equipped to protect sensitive information, your institution must still be comfortable extending that responsibility beyond its own walls.

Selling lawn care and selling credit cards are two separate endeavors. Financial institutions operate in one of the nation’s most highly regulated industries, after all.

Whether you’re advertising mortgage rates or promoting a checking account incentive, marketing communications often require careful review before they’re ready to send.

Your compliance infrastructure already exists in-house, and the right platform helps you streamline that process. Marketing technology purpose-built for community institutions should come with a compliance review feature. That way, every time you make a new postcard or email, you can easily share it with your compliance officer for a swift once-over.

Furthermore, financial marketers already know the necessary disclosures, rate messaging sensitivities, and required language when promoting deposit products. That puts them in the best position to make the strongest argument while reducing risk.

One more thing: marketing emails and text messages come with their own rules around promotional content, customer consent, and unsubscribe requests. The right platform should help you manage opt-outs and other requirements before every send.

We mentioned earlier that there are industry-specific agencies and general agencies. An agency that serves financial institutions exclusively is more likely to understand compliance practices straight away. General agencies, which serve businesses from all walks of life, may need your help grasping those limitations and communicating them to their team.

You’ll need to be comfortable with slightly more risk here, even from industry-specific agencies. You may communicate compliance issues to a project manager who then passes them along to a customer success manager. They will, in turn, communicate it to members of the production team who are responsible for creating and executing collateral. If nothing else, this game of telephone may require closer attention on your part.

However you slice it, when compliance leaves the building, the risk of an infraction increases. It’s not a guarantee, of course, but it’s something to consider.

In an age of increasing competition, marketing is less a want and more of a need, even for community institutions that have stood the test of time for a century or longer. Thankfully, you have options when choosing the best way to get your message out.

As a final word, whether you’re choosing a platform or an agency, choose one that knows your industry. General platforms and agencies can do the job, but you may spend more time, money, and effort while achieving less-promising results.

Happy marketing!