Our Services
We deliver data-informed and time-tested insights that you can actually implement!
We bring over 30 years of experience and expertise in advanced marketing solutions to banks, credit unions, fintech companies, and private equity firms. Our goal is to make sophisticated marketing capabilities accessible to you.
We collaborate with you to address the most pressing challenges facing your organization today. Whether your focus is on growth, productivity, performance, or efficiency, we bring valuable insights and expertise gained from firsthand experience. We add value in the following areas (Click the tiles below to learn more).
Our Services Include
Organization and Operating Model
Marketing organization design and operating model, competency assessment, and training & coaching.
M&A, Thin/New Market Expansion
Conversion, integration, onboarding retention, and growth orchestration. "Thin" market/new market entry.
CMO On-Demand
Have a Pressing Marketing Question? Get Expert Guidance — Fast.
Strategic Projects
1. Marketing Planning
Pressing Questions:
- Is your marketing strategy aligned with business growth goals and market dynamics?
- Do you have a clear roadmap to optimize spend, prioritize initiatives, and maximize ROI?
- Are your marketing efforts proactive, data-driven, and adaptable to changing customer behaviors?
Our Approach
We go beyond traditional marketing plans — we develop agile, insight-driven roadmaps that blend strategic vision with executional precision. Our approach ensures that marketing is not just a cost center but a growth engine, fully integrated with business objectives, customer insights, and builds upon what has worked and learns from what has not.
How We Help
- Strategic Alignment – We ensure marketing plans directly support revenue goals, customer growth, and competitive positioning.
- Data-Driven Decision Making – Leveraging AI and advanced analytics, we identify high-impact opportunities for targeted engagement.
- Prioritization & Resource Allocation – We help you optimize budget spend, balancing brand-building with demand generation.
- Agile and Adaptive Planning – We develop dynamic frameworks that allow for iterative testing, learning, and real-time adjustments based on performance insights.
- Execution Roadmap – We provide a clear, actionable plan that ensures marketing efforts drive measurable business outcomes.
Book a strategy session today.
Let’s build a marketing plan that delivers real impact — not just a document that sits on a shelf.
2. Brand Strategy
Pressing questions:
- Is your brand messaging clear and compelling? Does it connect with your target audience and reflect your unique value?
- Are you differentiating yourself effectively? If your customers can’t articulate why you’re different, they may choose a competitor.
- Does your brand align with your business goals? Your brand should support growth, customer loyalty, and market positioning.
- Are you tracking brand perception and health? Ongoing measurement ensures your brand stays relevant and competitive.
Build a Brand That Resonates & Drives Growth
Your brand is more than just a logo — it’s the emotional connection between your business and your customers. A strong brand strategy differentiates you from competitors, builds trust, and enhances customer loyalty. Whether you’re launching a new brand, repositioning, or refining your messaging, we help you craft a compelling, data-driven brand strategy that drives measurable results.
How we help:
- Brand Positioning & Value Proposition Development – Defining a clear, compelling market position that sets you apart.
- Customer-Centric Messaging – Crafting brand stories that connect emotionally and drive action.
- Visual & Verbal Identity Alignment – Ensuring brand visuals, tone, and messaging are cohesive and powerful.
- Brand Performance & Health Tracking – Measuring awareness, perception, and competitive positioning.
- Competitive Analysis & Benchmarking – Understanding where you stand in the market and identifying growth opportunities.
Transform Your Brand into a Business Driver
A well-crafted brand strategy doesn’t just build awareness — it drives growth, engagement, and customer loyalty. We help you develop a bold, differentiated brand that stands out and delivers real impact.
Let’s refine your brand for long-term success.
3. Customer Segmentation
Pressing Questions:
- Are you targeting the right customers for sustainable growth and profitability?
- Do you have a clear, actionable segmentation framework that drives strategy, product development, and marketing execution?
Do you feel you are spreading your limited and valuable resources too thin by trying to meet the needs of all market segments?
Do you know that 20% of your customers bring in 80% of your revenues? A more important question is do you know which ones?
Our Approach
We don’t believe in one-size-fits-all segmentation. Our approach blends behavioral, psychographic, and data-driven insights to develop a dynamic segmentation model that is not only actionable but also adaptable. By integrating AI-driven analytics with human intuition, we help you identify, prioritize, and engage high-value customers in a way that maximizes impact.
How We Help
- Strategic Segmentation Frameworks – We develop customer personas and clusters based on deep data analysis, purchase behavior, and unmet needs.
- Data-Driven Insights – We use advanced analytics, AI, and predictive modeling to move beyond basic demographics and uncover what truly drives customer decisions.
- Targeting & Personalization – We translate segmentation insights into highly relevant, personalized marketing strategies that enhance engagement and conversion.
- Market Positioning & Growth Strategy – We align your product and marketing efforts with the most valuable customer segments, ensuring differentiation and long-term growth.
- Agility & Continuous Optimization – We implement test-and-learn methodologies to refine and evolve segmentation strategies in real time.
Unlock the power of segmentation that drives real business results.
Let’s identify your highest-value customers — schedule a consultation today.
4. Customer Insights & Market Research
Pressing Questions:
- New Product Development – What unmet needs exist in the market, and how can we create solutions that resonate?
- Product Naming – Does your product name capture its essence and connect with your target audience?
- Optimizing User Experience – Where are the friction points in your customer journey, and how can we improve them?
- Brand Health Tracking – How is your brand perceived, and how does it compare to competitors?
- Customer Satisfaction & Loyalty Measurement – Are you building long-term relationships with customers, or are they at risk of churn?
Understand Your Customers Like Never Before:
Knowing your customers is key to driving growth and differentiation. Our Customer Insights & Market Research service helps you uncover not only what your customers think but also the needs they haven’t yet articulated. By combining qualitative and quantitative research, we bring data and emotions together to reveal deeper insights that shape strategy, branding, and customer experience.
How we help:
- In-Depth Interviews – One-on-one conversations to explore motivations, perceptions, and pain points.
- Ethnographic Observations – Firsthand study of customer behavior in real-life settings.
- Focus Groups – Facilitated discussions that provide rich insights into customer attitudes.
- Quantitative Surveys – Scalable, data-driven insights to understand, measure and model customer choices, behaviors, and attitudes.
- Usability Testing – Hands-on evaluation of products, services, and digital experiences.
- Workshops – Expert-led sessions to align stakeholders and translate insights into action.
Turn Insights into Impact
With our proprietary research techniques, we go beyond traditional surveys to capture the true voice of your customers—helping you refine your offerings, messaging, and customer experience strategies.
Ready to uncover what truly drives your customers? Let’s start the conversation.
Data, Analytics and Martech
1. Martech and Marketing Automation
Pressing Questions:
- Is your Martech stack costing you more than the value it delivers?
- Are you confused by the vast number of options available today and the newest and latest solutions?
- Is your Martech stack enabling seamless, data-driven marketing—or is it a patchwork of disconnected tools?
- Are you leveraging AI and automation to personalize customer experiences at scale?
- Do you have a clear roadmap for optimizing your Martech investments and increasing marketing efficiency?
Our Approach
We bridge the gap between technology and marketing strategy, ensuring that your Martech stack is not just a collection of tools but a growth engine. By integrating AI, automation, and data-driven decisioning, we help you create seamless, personalized customer journeys that drive engagement and conversion. Our approach is pragmatic—focusing on business outcomes first, ensuring every technology investment delivers measurable impact.
How We Help
- Martech Stack Audit & Optimization – We assess your current technology ecosystem, identifying gaps, redundancies, and opportunities to improve efficiency.
- AI & Automation Strategy – We implement AI-driven marketing automation solutions that enhance customer engagement, personalization, and campaign performance.
- CRM & Data Integration – We ensure seamless connectivity between marketing, sales, and customer data for a single, unified customer view.
- Performance Marketing Enablement – We set up advanced attribution, predictive analytics, and test-and-learn frameworks to maximize marketing ROI.
- Implementation & Adoption – We don’t just recommend tools—we help you deploy, integrate, and train your teams for real adoption and sustained success.
Turn your Martech investments into a competitive advantage.
Let’s build a smarter, more connected marketing ecosystem — schedule a strategy session today.
2. Data Management
Pressing Questions:
- Is your data accurate and reliable? Without clean, structured data, your insights will be misleading (GIGO — Garbage In, Garbage Out).
- Do you have a single source of truth? Multiple, conflicting data sources create confusion and inefficiency.
- Are your analysts spending more time processing data than extracting insights? Poor data infrastructure slows down decision-making.
- Are you leveraging first-party data effectively to drive marketing performance and customer insights?
- Do you have a data governance strategy to ensure accuracy, compliance, and security?
Unlock the power of your data
In financial services, data is a critical asset, yet many institutions struggle to leverage it effectively. Whether your challenge is ensuring data accuracy, unifying disparate data sources, or driving actionable insights, our Data & Analytics service helps you transform raw data into a strategic advantage.
How we help:
- Data Structuring & Governance – Organizing, cataloging, and securing data for maximum usability.
- Data Integration & Single Source of Truth – Eliminating silos and ensuring all teams work with the same, accurate data.
- Data Automation & Optimization – Reducing manual data processing so analysts can focus on strategic insights.
- AI & Predictive Analytics – We implement AI-driven data models that anticipate customer needs, improve targeting, and enhance personalization.
Data should be your biggest competitive advantage — not a bottleneck.
Let’s turn your data into a strategic asset — schedule a consultation today.
2. Data Analytics
Pressing Questions:
- Are you using advanced analytics to uncover real customer insights, or are you just reporting on past performance?
- Do you have a predictive analytics strategy to anticipate customer behaviors and optimize marketing spend?
- Is your organization truly data-driven, or are decisions still based on intuition and incomplete information?
Our Approach
We help businesses move beyond static reporting to real-time, predictive, and prescriptive analytics. Our approach ensures that data isn’t just collected—it’s transformed into actionable insights that drive smarter marketing, deeper customer engagement, and better business outcomes. Whether it’s AI-powered modeling, segmentation analysis, or real-time dashboards, we ensure analytics fuels growth, not just reporting.
How We Help:
- Marketing Performance Analytics – We develop real-time dashboards and KPIs that measure what truly matters, driving optimization and accountability.
- Customer Segmentation & Behavioral Analytics – We use AI and machine learning to create dynamic customer insights that inform strategy and personalization.
- Predictive & Prescriptive Analytics – We implement forecasting models to anticipate trends, enabling proactive decision-making rather than reactive adjustments.
- Attribution & ROI Optimization – We refine your analytics approach to understand the real drivers of marketing effectiveness and maximize return on investment.
- AI & Machine Learning Integration – We enable smarter decision-making by embedding AI-driven insights into campaigns, customer journeys, and marketing automation.
Discover How to Convert Insights into Action
Turn your data into a competitive advantage and make every marketing dollar work smarter. Let’s unlock the power of analytics — schedule a strategy session today.
Demand Generation
Pressing Questions
- Are your marketing campaigns driving profitable customer acquisition, or are they just generating leads that don’t convert?
- Is your onboarding experience setting the stage for long-term relationships, or are customers disengaging early?
- Are you focusing on the right 20% of customers who generate 80% of your revenue, or are cross-sell and retention opportunities being overlooked?
Our Approach
We take a full-funnel, data-driven approach to demand generation—ensuring that marketing isn’t just driving traffic, but delivering high-value customers who engage, grow, and stay. Our framework integrates customer acquisition, onboarding, and lifecycle marketing to optimize every stage of the journey. We use advanced analytics, AI-driven personalization, and test-and-learn methodologies to continuously refine strategies, ensuring that every marketing dollar generates measurable business impact.
How We Help
- Customer Acquisition & ROI Optimization – We design and optimize campaigns that drive high-intent customers through paid media, SEO, content marketing, and performance-driven demand generation strategies.
- AI-Powered Targeting & Personalization – We leverage advanced analytics and AI to identify and attract the most valuable prospects, ensuring efficient spend and higher conversion rates.
- Customer Onboarding & Activation – We create seamless, high-impact onboarding experiences that improve early engagement, deepen relationships, and maximize customer lifetime value.
- Cross-Sell, Balance Growth & Retention – We develop data-driven retention and cross-sell programs, ensuring that marketing efforts focus on the top 20% of customers who drive 80% of revenue.
- Multi-Channel Demand Generation Strategy – We build integrated marketing programs across digital, direct, social, and offline channels to sustain and grow customer relationships over time.
Maximize Growth with Smarter Demand Generation
Your marketing should do more than attract customers—it should create long-term value. Let’s build a demand generation strategy that delivers results — schedule a consultation today.
Organization Design and Operating Model
Pressing Questions
- Is your marketing organization structured to drive business growth, or is it struggling with inefficiencies and misalignment?
- Are your teams, processes, and technology optimized to enable agility, collaboration, and data-driven decision-making?
- Do you have a scalable operating model that evolves with changing market dynamics and business priorities?
Our Approach
We design modern, high-performing marketing organizations that blend strategy, data, technology, and creativity to deliver measurable impact. Our approach ensures that marketing is not just an execution function but a strategic growth driver. We help financial institutions and businesses optimize structure, streamline processes, and build future-ready capabilities by aligning talent, technology, and operating models with business goals.
How We Help
- Marketing Organization Structure & Role Clarity – We assess and refine your marketing org structure, ensuring clear roles, efficient collaboration, and accountability for results.
- Operating Model Transformation – We establish a scalable, customer-centric operating model that fosters agility, innovation, and alignment with the broader business strategy.
- Center of Excellence (COE) Development – We help create specialized COEs (e.g., Performance Marketing, Data & Analytics, Martech) to drive efficiency and expertise.
- Talent & Capability Building – We assess skill gaps, develop talent roadmaps, and build high-performing teams through training and coaching.
- Workflow & Process Optimization – We streamline workflows, implement best practices, and introduce AI and automation to improve speed and effectiveness.
Unlock the Full Potential of Your Marketing Organization
A well-structured, agile marketing function can be your biggest competitive advantage. Let’s design an operating model that drives growth — schedule a strategy session today.
M&A Integration, "Thin" and New Market Entry
1. M&A Integration
Pressing Questions:
- Is your conversion strategy delivering the expected value from the M&A?
- Is your execution of integration minimizing the risk of attrition among high-value customers?
- Are you maximizing post-integration cross-sell and revenue opportunities?
- Are you safeguarding your acquisition from competitive threats and market disruptions?
- Is your go-to-market (GTM) approach accelerating revenue capture and solidifying your market position?
Our Approach:
While M&A presents a tremendous opportunity for growth and expansion, integration remains one of the most complex and risk-laden phases. Even banks with a strong track record in M&A execution often struggle with conversion and integration, particularly in protecting and deepening customer relationships.
The post-M&A period is highly vulnerable — local competitors and fintech challengers capitalize on the uncertainty to lure customers away. A well-executed integration, backed by a strong GTM strategy, ensures that you retain valuable customers, accelerate monetization, and maximize the potential of the newly combined entity.
With decades of experience leading integration and go-to-market efforts at top financial institutions, we bring first-hand expertise in identifying and mitigating common pitfalls. We have developed a robust M&A Integration and GTM Playbook that can be customized to your unique market dynamics, customer base, and business priorities.
How We Deliver Success
We take a comprehensive approach to M&A integration, ensuring a seamless transition while unlocking revenue potential.
1. Conversion and Customer Retention Strategies
- Developing a structured integration roadmap to minimize customer and revenue attrition.
- Implementing proactive retention tactics, including targeted messaging, concierge-level onboarding for high-value customers, and real-time monitoring of attrition risks.
- Aligning operational and technology transition plans with customer experience priorities.
2. Go-to-Market (GTM) Acceleration
- Rapidly aligning the new entity’s value proposition with market needs through strategic segmentation and tailored messaging.
- Deploying targeted marketing and cross-sell strategies to drive engagement, activation, and deeper relationships.
- Establishing differentiated branding and positioning to solidify the newly integrated institution’s market presence.
3. Maximizing Cross-Sell & Revenue Growth
- Leveraging data-driven insights to identify cross-sell opportunities across consumer, business, and commercial banking segments.
- Creating hyper-personalized offers using AI-driven decisioning to enhance engagement.
- Deploying a performance marketing engine to optimize product uptake and deepen share of wallet.
4. Competitive Defense & Market Positioning
- Conducting competitive intelligence analysis to anticipate market disruptions and preempt competitor moves.
- Enhancing pricing, product bundling, and loyalty programs to reinforce customer commitment.
- Strengthening the customer experience through seamless omnichannel engagement.
Our Playbooks for M&A Success
Conversion Playbook
Outlines best practices for process, execution, and risk mitigation
- Provides a framework for seamless operational transition while preserving customer trust.
- Ensures critical activities are executed to protect market share and minimize churn.
Customer Onboarding & Growth Playbook
- Designed to retain high-value customers through proactive engagement.
- Drives new relationship growth with targeted and relevant up-sell and cross-sell strategies.
- Ensures smooth onboarding through real-time engagement, customer support, and personalization.
Our proven methodologies ensure that you not only avoid the common pitfalls of M&A integration but also accelerate value realization, fortify market positioning, and drive sustainable revenue growth.
2. Thin Market/New Market Entry Strategy
Pressing Questions
- Do our expansion markets offer greater growth potential than our core markets, where we already have a strong presence?
- How do we win in high-growth opportunity markets where our current presence is minimal?
- Will the same strategies and tactics that have driven success in our core markets translate effectively into these new, lower-presence markets?
- How can we differentiate our brand and create a competitive foothold without directly competing on incumbents’ terms?
Our Approach:
Whether expanding through acquisition, organic growth, or a digital-first strategy, one key insight remains constant — the playbook that worked in core markets often fails to deliver the same results in new, high-opportunity markets.
Success in these markets requires a challenger mindset — leveraging your core strengths while positioning your brand distinctively against entrenched incumbents. Rather than attempting to displace market leaders outright, the goal is to reshape the competitive landscape, carve out a meaningful share, and drive profitable growth.
We specialize in deploying hyper-local, high-impact, and cost-effective strategies to help organizations establish a presence, attract early adopters, and generate measurable ROI.
How We Deliver Success
Market Intelligence & Opportunity Mapping
- Conducting data-driven market assessments to identify the highest-value micro-markets and underserved customer segments.
- Analyzing competitor positioning to uncover differentiation opportunities.
- Evaluating digital vs. physical presence strategies to determine the optimal market entry approach.
Hyper-Local Brand Activation & Challenger Positioning
- Developing a hyper-local go-to-market (GTM) strategy that highlights unique strengths and differentiators.
- Creating localized messaging and brand positioning that resonates with target audiences.
- Deploying community engagement and partnership strategies to build credibility and gain early traction.
Precision Marketing & Growth Acceleration
- Implementing guerilla marketing tactics and grassroots engagement to capture market attention with minimal spend.
- Leveraging digital and social platforms for highly targeted customer acquisition.
- Optimizing media spend by focusing on hyper-local, high-ROI channels.
Competitive Disruption & Market Penetration
- Crafting strategies that reframe the competitive landscape rather than competing head-on.
- Deploying pilot programs and test-and-learn approaches to refine execution before scaling.
- Utilizing alternative distribution channels and strategic partnerships to accelerate market entry.
Our Playbooks for Market Entry Success
Thin Market Entry Playbook:
- Defines market segmentation, positioning, and activation strategies.
- Provides a roadmap for scaling customer acquisition efficiently.
- Ensures marketing investments generate measurable growth and profitability.
Hyper-Local Challenger Playbook:
- Guides localized brand positioning, media strategy, and engagement tactics.
- Offers high-impact, cost-effective approaches to building brand presence.
- Focuses on ROI-driven growth models that balance market expansion with profitability.
Winning in new markets isn’t about outspending incumbents — it’s about outthinking them.
Our expertise ensures that your expansion efforts are strategic, targeted, and built for long-term success — Schedule a strategy session today.
CMO On-Demand
Pressing Questions
- Uncertain about a campaign or tactic? Get an expert assessment to ensure maximum impact.
- Need a second opinion on a major strategic shift? Avoid blind spots and enhance decision-making.
- Wondering how your new product will resonate with customers? Leverage proven go-to-market expertise.
- Preparing for a critical board or executive presentation? Craft a compelling narrative with confidence.
Have a Pressing Marketing Question? Get Expert Guidance — Fast.
Sometimes, you need an experienced marketing leader to validate your strategy, refine your messaging, or navigate a high-stakes decision. That’s where our CMO On-Demand service comes in — providing you with expert guidance exactly when you need it.
How We Help
With 30+ years of experience in marketing leadership, we’ve encountered and solved nearly every challenge you face. Our insights are informed by real-world successes and failures — helping you make smarter, faster decisions.
High-stakes marketing moves — such as launching a new product, rebranding, or entering a new market — carry significant risks. Even with thorough research and planning, a quick expert review can enhance your strategy and reduce uncertainty.
What You Get
- On-Demand Expert Advice – Quick access to a marketing leader with deep industry experience.
- Actionable Recommendations – Practical, no-fluff insights that improve your strategy immediately.
- Proven Strategic Thinking – Advice shaped by decades of success in brand building, digital marketing, analytics, and more.
Let’s Make It Happen
Whether you need a one-time consultation or ongoing strategic guidance, we’re here to help. Get in touch today to start the conversation.
Our Perspectives
Here are a few articles that highlight our perspectives various topics (click below to read).
How Gen AI is Reshaping Bank Marketing
Conversation with Jim Marous on the “Banking Transformed" podcast on ways generative AI is revolutionizing bank marketing -- From enhancing customer experiences to driving more personalized marketing strategies, the potential of AI to transform marketing is immense.
The Three Most Common Mistakes in Brand Marketing
Learn how to avoid common pitfalls like changing creatives too soon, inconsistent sensory branding, and low brand attribution. Packed with real-world examples, this guide offers actionable insights to help your brand cut through the noise and stay top-of-mind.
Maximizing Results with a Test-and-Learn Framework
Explore how a test-and-learn approach can unlock the full potential of performance marketing. Discover actionable strategies to drive continuous improvement, optimize campaigns, and achieve measurable growth in an ever-evolving digital landscape.
Can AI Explore into the Unexplored?
AI can amplify human intuition to unlock uncharted frontiers. Go beyond the “known unknowns” to explore the “unknown unknowns.” This isn’t about simple automation; it's about AI collaborating with human creativity and judgment to create something greater than either could achieve alone.
Marketing: The Ultimate Whole Brain Discipline
We know what the CFO, COO, and CHRO do — but the CMO? That role’s a complex dance between art and science, creativity and data. it’s not enough to be left-brained or right-brained. To be an effective CMO today, you have to master both.
Driving Growth through Digital
Abbas Merchant, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Regions shares his perspectives on driving growth through digital and data.
About Us
With decades of experience transforming marketing for financial institutions, we craft innovative strategies that consistently achieve double-digit growth and measurable ROI.
Leveraging our experience, we translate insights into actionable strategies that drive tangible results — tailoring our approach to fit the unique needs of each client.
