Case study

~$7M from a marketing system I built and run.

Since 2022 I've built the digital marketing for a $1.2B community bank: owned social for three brands, HubSpot automation, paid media through agency vendors, and reputation across nine branches. In 2026 those channels have brought in about $7M in marketing-attributed new deposits and loans. This year I added an AI layer on top: market research that shaped the 2027 plan, and content production at a volume a small team couldn't reach.

ROLE: Digital Marketing Specialist
SCOPE: 9 branches, 3 brands
PERIOD: 2022 to now
LEADS: Marketing Committee
SITS ON: The bank's AI standards committee; presents to executives and the board

Deposits and loans ~$7M

marketing-attributed new deposits and loans, 2026 year to date

Owned social 218

social-sourced accounts, 154% of a 142 goal

HubSpot automation 2,500 hours

saved with automated workflows

AI-assisted output 2,000 hours

of content output produced with AI

Part one · 2022 to now

The engine

The channels and automation that produced the 2026 results.

01Channels

Own the channels that bring people in

I run owned social for all three of the bank's brands, direct the agency vendors behind display and search, and manage reviews and responses across nine branches.

Social-sourced accounts grew from 42 in 2022 to 218 in 2026 year to date
Display and search run through agency vendors I direct: 210 accounts on about $81K
Google rating raised from 3.9 to 4.75

02System

Automate the follow-up so nobody waits on a person

I run HubSpot as admin and architected the automated workflows that keep people moving after they first raise a hand.

Abandoned-application, nurture and onboarding workflows
2,500 hours saved
2025 email click-through rate of 8.66%

What the engine produced

2026 year to date, from the bank's own reporting.

Result

Marketing-attributed new deposits and loans

Owned social brought in $4.15M. Display and search run through agency vendors I manage, and they brought in about $2.8M from 210 accounts on roughly $81K of budget.

~$7M

Reputation

Google rating 3.9 to 4.75

Across all 9 branches, on 579 reviews.

#1 local bank for reviews written in 2026
100% response rate

Part two · 2026

The AI layer

Added this year. It shapes what comes next; the results above come from part one.

03Research

Profile the whole market, then plan around it

In 2026 I put AI agents to work on where the bank stood against everyone around it. The data pointed to room to grow in lending and a home market that non-bank lenders were winning. I built the 2027 marketing plan around it and presented it to executives and the board.

59 banks and credit unions profiled
1,060 Google reviews read and coded
Competitors' social, rates and fees scanned
Public HMDA mortgage data and FDIC deposit data analysed, plus GA4, Google Business Profile and Semrush audits
About $220M of lending headroom versus peers, at the peer loan-to-deposit ratio
Non-bank lenders hold about 48% of purchase mortgages and about 95% of FHA loans in the home market; buyers under 35 are about 51% of purchasers
2027 marketing plan with a paid budget of about $166.5K

04Scale

Use AI to produce the volume a small team can't

I use Claude agents and ElevenLabs to produce 2,000 hours of content output. The creative is compliance-reviewed.

18 long-form SEO and AEO guides
A 20-video campaign in four formats, with AI voiceover and motion design

How I keep it honest

How the numbers are counted. Results come from the bank's own reporting. Each account is credited to the first channel that recorded it. Figures are 2026 year to date.
A seat on the AI standards committee. I sit on the bank's AI standards committee.
Compliance-reviewed creative. The creative goes through compliance review.