"Identity is the new money." Dave Burch, publisher of the blog, Tomorrow's Transactions, and number six on The Financial Brand's "25 Most Influential Voices in Banking," said it ever so succinctly. "Identity is the the new money." Said less succinctly, "being who you are and being able to prove it is cash." Burch's stock in trade is technology and currency, not branding. But his insight is a valuable one for bank branding and bank marketing as well. Of course, the primary purpose for developing a bank brand is to generate more and better relationships and transactions. A branding strategy outside…

Mobile Matters More than Ever for SEO Something really big happened yesterday, April 21, 2015. Google acknowledged that mobile has hit critical mass (and maybe even gave it a little push) with it's program to prefer mobile-friendly sites in search results. They actually put it this way: "...today's the day we begin globally rolling out our mobile-friendly update. We're boosting the ranking of mobile-friendly pages on mobile search results. Now searchers can more easily find high-quality and relevant results where text is readable without tapping or zooming, tap targets are spaced appropriately, and the page avoids unplayable content or horizontal…

You're already doing inbound marketing. Inbound marketing (sometimes called content marketing) is kind of trendy right now. But it isn't actually new. In other forms-direct, database, curriculum, permission marketing-it's been around for forty years or more. What is new is the digital technology and cultural norms that enable marketers to send content, consumers to respond to that content, and marketers to respond back...all in real time. Some of the best opportunities are in industries that already do business in a way that involves a deep, information-rich conversation. Inbound marketing for banks: Banks in general, and community banks in particular tend…

3 reasons to use video in your healthcare branding Among the greatest joys for a hospital branding agency is finding ways to differentiate a community hospital using the authentic expressions of real people. It's an approach that requires the ability and willingness to listen carefully, to ask the right questions, to wait for the answers, and to let the silences sit an germinate. One of our labors of love for our Greenville branding agency is branding a community hospital right down the road, called Baptist Easley. The hospital is a uniquely compassionate place at the heart of a community of…