Building on a legacy of success
Oxford Bank is among the oldest commercial banks in Oakland County, Michigan—in fact, they recently celebrated 139 years in business!
Today, with seven full-service bank branches and four customer-focused remote offices, the bank continually strives to provide leading-edge service to its personal and business banking customers while contributing in meaningful ways to its communities throughout Michigan and the country.
Oxford Bank is focused on maintaining its five pillars of accountability, performance, engagement, candor, and transparency while consistently delivering on its brand promise of “Delivering value. For life.”
The bank balances its deep roots with a clear focus on the future, continuously investing in new technology and capabilities that provide enhanced service quality and convenience for customers while providing the highest levels of cybersecurity and data protection at every point of interaction.
As part of its commitment to smart growth and service expansion, the bank recently acquired and launched a new commercial lending arm that specializes in working capital solutions for small and mid-sized companies.
Tackling the need for more strategic marketing
As the bank has continued to grow and evolve, so has its marketing needs.
To keep pace with these increasing demands, the bank’s CEO, COO and other leadership quickly recognized that they required more specialized marketing expertise and leadership.
Specifically, they sought an experienced marketing expert to help support and promote the bank’s unique brand story and strengths through a strategic approach that would resonate and connect with its diverse and growing array of customers.
Oxford Bank enlisted the help of Fractional CMO Stacy Kamigaki for comprehensive assistance. From the start, Stacy worked closely with the bank’s existing marketing team to understand the key pain points that would need to be addressed.
These pain points included:
- Shifting the bank’s marketing approach from tactical to strategic.
- Clarifying the brand message and building awareness.
- Creating more consistent communications across media and online channels.
- Providing additional support to fuel customer and deposit growth across both Personal and Business Banking.
- Elevating the bank’s national profile as a leading commercial lender.
Identifying marketing challenges and opportunities
To better assess the bank’s current marketing strengths and needs, Stacy, in collaboration with yorCMO operational team, conducted a 45-day marketing audit encompassing the following:
- Customer interviews: Engaged with customers to gain valuable insights into their needs and perceptions.
- Stakeholder surveys: Conducted comprehensive surveys to understand stakeholder perspectives.
- Competitive landscape review: Completed a thorough analysis of the competitive landscape to identify gaps and opportunities.
- Digital landscape review: Assessed the bank’s digital presence and performance.
- Asset and collateral review: Reviewed existing marketing assets and collateral for effectiveness.
Based on audit findings, they delivered a comprehensive 50-page report that included an extensive list of issues and opportunities as well as “quick wins.”
They also conducted a Strategy Foundation Session with the bank’s leadership and marketing team to define its two-year marketing goals and Wildly Important Goals (WIGs) as well as identify target audiences and strategies for effective positioning.
Following this session, Stacy and yorCMO team held an Action Session with this same audience to establish top priorities for the next 90 days, devise a scorecard for measuring progress, and create an Evergreen Campaign strategy.
With content for the initial 90 days thoughtfully outlined, the marketing team was able to begin crafting priority campaigns. This provided the foundation for successive 90-day quarterly sprints, each featuring clearly defined objectives, project plans, and measures of accountability.
Delivering powerful results for a powerhouse bank
Under Stacy’s leadership, Oxford Bank was able to improve on several key metrics within the first six months of 2023 alone.
These include:
- Web metrics improvement: The implementation of the new Google Analytics tool provided more comprehensive and accurate data on website performance, significantly improving the bank’s ability to track and understand web traffic and user behavior.
- LinkedIn engagement surge: LinkedIn impressions spiked by 336%, indicating a significant boost in visibility and reach on the platform. Additionally, LinkedIn reactions and clicks saw a substantial 238% increase, highlighting a growing and engaged audience on the platform. The introduction of videos and other multimedia content likely contributed to this success.
- Better email click-through rate (CTR): Email marketing efforts resulted in a 45% increase in user clicks, demonstrating the impact of a more effective communication strategy on customer and prospect engagement and potentially contributing to higher conversion rates.
COO Nancy Rosentrator cites Stacy as a huge contributor to Oxford Bank’s success, saying:
“Stacy from yorCMO has been a game-changer for us. As a fresh voice in the industry, she’s been both mentor and CMO, pushing us beyond our plateaued state. Her expertise has restructured and realigned our approach, and her emphasis on cross-departmental communication has united our team like never before. Stacy’s audit opened our eyes to untapped potential, and her strategic insights have been invaluable. She’s not just about ideas; she brought in resources to support our lean marketing department. I highly recommend a fractional CMO like Stacy. She’s knowledgeable, flexible, and her impact is tangible. She’s breathed new life into our marketing, refurbishing our assets and giving our vision new momentum.”
Paving the way to continued success
Stacy has defined several objectives to continue and build on the bank’s successful marketing momentum. These include leveraging digital innovations, crafting compelling campaigns, and adapting to evolving market dynamics.
By defining clear strategic initiatives and actionable steps to achieve them, Stacy has helped propel the bank’s growth while increasing overall customer engagement and strengthening market presence and brand awareness.
As Oxford Bank thrives, her role as their CMO and marketing consultant will cement her status as an industry expert, paving the way for mutual success.
If you’d like to learn how we can help grow your organization’s marketing success, contact yorCMO to learn how our proven expertise can elevate your brand, boost engagement, and drive sustainable growth.
Stacy Kamigaki
CMO
Stacy is a high-level marketing executive with global B2B success developing GTM strategies and programs for start-ups and high-growth companies.
