Elevating a Community Bank’s Presence
Croghan Colonial Bank is a trusted community bank serving Sandusky, Erie, Huron, Lucas, Ottawa and Seneca counties in Ohio. They’re committed to helping individuals and businesses achieve their financial goals by providing financial services while prioritizing financial education, sponsorships and community engagement.
In December 2022, Croghan partnered with TouchStone Digital to enhance their digital marketing efforts. This case study reflects the improvements made year-over-year from January to December 2023.
Croghan Colonial Bank
Digital Advertising, Social Media Advertising, Email Marketing and Local Listings Management
Internet Advertising Competition Award for Best Bank Website
the challenge
The team at Croghan Colonial Bank wanted to strengthen their digital marketing strategy to drive business growth. Their key objectives included increasing Google Paid Search conversions, improving newsletter open rates and subscriptions and optimizing Facebook and Google Display Ads to support corporate goals and increase engagement.
the solution
TouchStone put a comprehensive digital marketing strategy in place for Croghan to deliver measurable growth across several key areas. For paid search and display advertising, our team launched a Google Ads program with a dedicated budget and optimized target keywords and bid strategies to improve performance. We also built ad campaigns that targeted users based on specific financial services and products.
To enhance the client’s email marketing strategy, we made the newsletter design more responsive and introduced content strategies to raise open rates and engagement. Our team updated Croghan’s local listings with new content and SEO improvements to boost visibility and customer engagement, too.
Year-over-year increase in paid search conversions
0.0%
Year-over-year increase in display ad traffic
0.0%
Increase in social link click-through rate
0.0%
Reaching Users Based on Interest
We implemented paid search ads to get relevant content in front of people who were ready to make a decision. That strategy helped put Croghan closer to the top of search results, allowing them to compete regionally with national banks and online lenders. We created ads for people interested in specific products, such as mortgages, business loans and wealth management. That increased the likelihood of ad clicks, which improved quality scores and lowered cost per click. Paid search ads also produced measurable results such as clicks, calls and form fills that provided necessary evidence to the client.
Deepening Existing Customer Relationships
For banks, growth often comes from existing relationships and encouraging customers to add financial products. The client already had an email newsletter, but we optimized it for mobile to ensure it rendered properly, which elevated open rates to an average of 36.3%. Each email included relevant content like rate updates and financial tips to show Croghan wasn’t just a bank but also a local advisor.
Optimizing Local Searches
It’s common for people to search for “bank near me,” so we wanted to ensure Croghan’s local listings were accurate so every branch appeared with the right address, hours and phone number. Those simple steps allowed Croghan to capture local search volume that could’ve been lost if its location information were inaccurate. Optimized local listings are more likely to appear in Google’s local map pack, so our efforts also enhanced the client’s SEO strategy.
