50 of The Best All-Time Posts From The Financial Brand

As The Financial Brand celebrates its 7th anniversary, join us as we look back at the biggest and best articles we've published over the years.

Seven years ago, the financial industry was on the verge of collapse. The subprime housing bubble had burst. Mortgage lenders like Countrywide and Northern Rock were toast, and other financial giants like Lehman Brothers and AIG were sinking fast. It’s not quite what you would describe as “optimal conditions” for launching a trade publication in the financial industry. But that’s what we did.

On May 28, 2008, The Financial Brand made its public debut. The vision? To create an online trade publication for marketing executives working in the retail banking industry. Back then, if you flipped through a marketing publication like AdWeek or CMO Magazine, it just didn’t feel relevant to those working in the financial sector. What can you learn from multimillion dollar ad campaigns from the likes of Budweiser and Nike? It was time financial marketers had their own publication, something that addressed their unique challenges and concerns. So despite the grim state of the financial sector, we crossed our fingers and hit the “publish” button on our first story.

Seven years later, things seem to be going pretty well — for both the banking industry and The Financial Brand. Today, the site is the second biggest in the banking industry. And since we published our first post back in May 2008, we’ve published over 3,100 more articles, each with an average of 1,000 words per story. That’s the equivalent of the King James Bible… 255 times over. Some pundits in the online publishing world might say its foolish to write such long articles, particularly in the hyper-wired, time-starved world we live in today. And yet The Financial Brand’s readers seem willing to invest themselves in content they find relevant. We have 1,214 articles that have an average-time-on-page of five minutes or more — that’s the average.

Over 3.6 million people have visited the website, the majority of whom work in the banking industry. Half of them are regular readers, and more than 100,000 of them visit the website at least once a week. In fact, The Financial Brand has readers in every country on earth — all 236 of them — including some rather unexpected places like Iran (8,053 readers), Cuba (23 readers) and North Korea (1 reader). We’ve even had two people access the website from Antarctica! Crazy…

The site just passed 10 million all-time page views — exactly seven years after the site was launched (to the day). Articles on the site have been read an average of 2,946 times. There are hundreds of articles that people have read over 10,000 times, and two of our top posts have generated 145,000 pageviews each.

Here is a list of some of The Financial Brand’s more popular and noteworthy stories that we’ve published over the years. We hope you enjoy them, and thank you all for your support.

1.) 7 Tips to Find Your Brand’s Personality
2.) 6 Tips for Building a Brand Culture and Improving Internal Communications
3.) 101 Fun Marketing Ideas for Banks & Credit Unions
4.) 10 Of The Best Banking Brands To Watch
5.) 8 Do’s and Don’ts for More Effective Ad Campaigns
6.) 7 Common Sense Ways to Increase Bank Cross-Selling
7.) The Simplicity Revolution in Banking
8.) Why Social Media Is a Waste of Time for Most Banks & Credit Unions
9.) 5 Ways Financial Institutions Can Use Social Media*
10.) 7 Things Banks & Credit Unions Don’t Do In Social Channels (But Should)
11.) Why Branches Aren’t Dead… Yet
12.) 5 Tips for Your Next Branch Transformation Project
13.) Steal This Idea: The Ultimate In-Branch Conversation Starter
14.) 4 Ways to Make Your Brand as Cool as Umpqua Bank
15.) 5 Keys to Crafting Strategic Bank Marketing Plans
16. Why Are Credit Unions Tax Exempt? Do You Really Know?
17.) 14 ‘Branch of the Future’ Designs
18.) A Comprehensive Guide to Retargeting for Banks and Credit Unions
19.) Minding The Gap in Social Banking Expectations
20.) 21 Steps to Onboarding Success in Banking
21.) Big Data: Big Opportunity In Banking… Or Big B.S.?
22.) 9 Steps to Improving Bank Cross-Sell Performance
23.) Banks’ Future Hinges On Sharpening Digital Marketing Skills
24.) 15 of the Best Facebook Pages in Banking to Watch
25.) 4 Myths About Bank & Credit Union Slogans
26.) 21 Steps to Onboarding Success in Banking
27.) Six-Pack of Awesome & Gorgeous Bank HQs
28.) How To: Brand Books For Retail Financial Institutions
29.) 9 Beautiful Integrated Brand Identities from Retail Banks
30.) Your Service Is Not What Differentiates You
31.) Virgin Money Should Shock Just About Everyone
32.) 11 Tips For Building A World-Class Brand Identity
33.) Big Data: Profitability, Potential and Problems in Banking
34.) 25 Inspirational & Responsive Banking Website Designs
35.) 12 Questions: The Role, Relevance and ROI of Social Media in Banking
36.) Battle For Mobile Payments: Guide to Digital Wallets
37.) The 15 Most Common Brand Positions in Retail Banking
38.) The Great Digital Banking Debate
39.) Next Gen PFM: Contextual Money Management
40.) Lessons in Social Media Branding from USAA
41.) 10 Tips For Killer Headlines
42.) More Than A Game: How Gamification Can Drive Real Business Results in Banking
43.) 8 Astonishing Facts Bankers Should Know About Millennials
44.) 10 Things You Are Doing Wrong With Your Institution’s Website
45.) What Do Consumers Really Want From Banking Websites? Simplicity!
46.) 300 Mobile Payment and Digital Banking Trends
47.) 50 Of The Most Spectacular Website Designs In Banking
48.) You Don’t Control Your Brand (Actually, You Never Did)
49.) Everything You Should Know About Branding (But Were Afraid To Ask)
50.) Antes vs. Drivers: 3 Steps to Find Relevant Differentiation

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