Want to make the most of your marketing budget? Want to make your larger business seem small? A best-in-class example of how to do this comes from MB Financial, a financial institution serving the Chicago marketplace. It’s a formula that any multi-site company can follow to make its mailings feel more personal and increase conversions without personalizing down to the individual level.

MB Financial was targeting more than 430,000 small companies in the Chicago area. MBF has 86 branches, but it wasn’t making the desired connection with its audience. Small businesses just saw the bank as an old, stodgy institution like all of the others. MBF wanted to put a face to its branches and make banking at its locations seem more inviting and accessible.

To do this, MBF developed a four-pronged messaging strategy: “We deliver the personal attention you want, the banking services you need, business advice you can use, and business connections you wouldn’t expect.” To get the message out, it used print, radio, and digital media ads. However, the heart of the campaign was direct mail.

• First, MB Financial used customer modeling to identify 30,000 small businesses that were its most likely prospects.
• Second, it broke its mailing into highly versioned segments, one for each local branch.
• Third, it created targeted postcards that appeared to be coming directly from the bank manager at each SMB’s closest branch.

Each postcard included a photo of the branch manager, a personal message, and an invitation to call his or her direct line. To sweeten the pot, MB Financial included an offer to get up to $550 in bonus cash for opening an account or line of credit.

The results? High visibility and a 205% increase in sales leads attributed to the direct mail campaign. What a great way to make a large business seem small and using the branch manager photo made it personal. Using print leaves a longer impression, and has a higher chance of being noticed and saved.

Print Still Works; Mixing print with all the other marketing options delivers better results.