Attention to marketing detail

A few days ago I was sorting the mail into "yours" and "mine" piles when I came across an unexpected letter from Compass Bank (no sense in protecting their name in that they were comfortable enough to send these pieces to me in the mail!). Inside the envelope was a florescent-reddish, letter-sized paper with an equally bright lime-green piece inside of it (1/3 page to be specific). Seriously? Are those colors are good for communicating anything other than a garage sale, graduation party or family reunion?

The red page looked like it was created in a standard word processing program and included the headline, "Just imagine what you can do with the equity in your home." It had a good rate. I think the four very tiny-printed (I am guessing 10 point or smaller) paragraphs were probably supposed to entice me to call them ASAP. The typical rules, regulations, compliance, yadda yadda yadda, took up the bottom third of the page. I am a nerd for banking and actually read the disclosures. If I don't get it, the average homeowner won't either.

The funny thing is that there was a space that would probably be considered "white space" in an ordinary ad that had markings for something to be pasted in...about the size of a business card. Instead of pasting a business card to this letter, they simply typed, "Call Misty or Gina" and included a phone number. UGH!

As for the green piece, apparently Misty and Gina can't help me with anything else because Mark is the Mortgage Banking Officer that can save me $300 in closing costs. Here's a list of my rants about his piece:

1. It was 1/3 of a page and wasn't cut straight. If you want credibility, cut the paper straight. If that's too hard, you can always take it to a second grade classroom and ask them for help.
2. The text overlapped the border. If you use text boxes, make sure that when you print the document that ALL OF THE TEXT IS INSIDE THE BOX. Even the above mentioned second graders would notice that someone didn't "write inside the lines!"
3. The border was only on three sides of the piece. Seriously. I am guessing that one of two things happened. Either a.) it got cut off; or b.) the banker couldn't figure out how to make the border go around each of the bottom, middle and top thirds of the page and declared this to be "good enough."

I am going to go out on a limb and guess that there was some kind of internal challenge and incentive for the most HELOCs opened but there was no support from marketing. Maybe marketing didn't know the challenge had been given.

I know I am rambling a little, but here are my ponits:

1. Be involved in every product and service promotion your bank offers.
2. Ask your officers how you can help and what material you can provide.
3. Develop some brand standards and hold all staff accountable for them.

Take the time to make today an extraordinary day! Have a safe and exciting 4th of July!

Jenna