Bank advertising plans

Introduction

WHILE it is generally conceded that the newspaper is the best advertising medium for banks and trust companies, there are quite a number of institutions which, for one reason or another, do not use the advertising columns of the newspapers regularly. In some cases, there is no suitable publication in the territory served by the bank. In others, the advertising rates seem to be prohibitive as the advertiser is forced to pay for a lot of circulation of no benefit to the institution because many of the readers are not located where they can conveniently deposit at that particular bank.

And then there are banks that do advertise in newspapers, but feel the need also of other forms of publicity to supplement the valuable advertising in the daily and weekly press.

So it comes about that there is quite a field for bank advertising ideas, plans and schemes entirely separate from newspaper publicity, or only partly dependent upon it. The purpose of this book is to present some of the best of such plans and ideas as they have been and are being used by various kinds of financial institutions in different sections of the country, This book is by no means a summary of any one man's ideas or experience. It is really a composite of the plans and successful efforts of a great many keen bankers and bank advertising men.

The author feels that perhaps he has had an unusual opportunity to become familiar with these special advertising methods on account of his long connection with "The Bankers Magazine" as Editor of its Banking Publicity Department, and in view of the fact that for many years he has conducted a bank advertising preparation bureau, which has brought him into contact with hundreds of bank advertisers in the United States and Canada. He also feels that acknowledgment is due the many bankers who have helped him in this work.

Quite a few of the plans outlined in this book have been described in "The Bankers Magazine" from time to time in the past half-dozen years, but this is the first time that any attempt has been made to collect and collate these ideas in book form. The chapter on bank emblems or trade-marks has been included because, in the last analysis, such identifying symbols are really meant to serve as a form of advertisement for the institution using them, and, undoubtedly it will pay any bank to adopt an emblem with that object in view. The large collection of businesssoliciting letters also naturally finds a place in such a book as this. They are good models for any banker desiring to try this form of advertising. "Bank Advertising Plans" completes the trilogy the author has had in mind from the first. Plis "Pushing Your Business" contains fundamental facts of advertising in general and banking publicity in particular. It is a text-book of financial advertisings while "2^,000 Points for Financial Advertising" provides the bank advertising writer with aramunition in the form of phrases and paragraphs for "copy."..* Now this third book of the series rounds out the advertising banker's "equipment by providing him with several hundred tried and successful plans for increasing a bank's deposits and business and a multitude of ideas which can be adapted to the requirements of his own institution.

T. D. MacGregor.

New York, October, 1913.

Contents

I. — 165 Different Plans and Ideas for Bank Advertising. ... 1

II. — News and Advertising 59

III. — Community Boosting 69