Integrated strategies: Maintaining brand visibility and customer trust

Rockland Trust hired Inkhouse in 2018 to help launch and manage their blog, The Learning Center. With two distinct audiences — the small business owner and the consumer — Rockland needed help creating compelling and engaging content that was relevant to each audience. The team also needed support with a distribution strategy to effectively reach the right audience with content that would be most valuable to them and creative social media assets to compete against both local and national banks.

Inkhouse created a thoughtful content strategy that blends content focused on timely news with evergreen, educational pieces that engage Rockland Trust’s key audiences and support their overall business objectives. Content planning extended beyond basic bylines to include a video series on common consumer scams, Facebook Live events that tie back to content themes and drive awareness of the Learning Center, and downloadable assets such as budgeting worksheets, goal trackers and checklists. Inkhouse owns the entire content creation process, from blog drafting to distribution strategy,  and designed assets that support Learning Center pieces. 

As the content program matured, Inkhouse tactically changed gears to update existing content and create new resources for key audiences aligned with bank goals and initiatives. A key example is the Homebuyer’s Playbook published in early 2023, a downloadable guide for consumers in purchasing a home. The success of the playbook, which included driving leads for the mortgage team, has inspired similar asset creation for other lines of business designed to educate potential customers and build trust with them to establish a long-term relationship with Rockland Trust. 

In 2023, Rockland Trust expanded its program with Inkhouse to include media relations. The goal of this program is to create sustained buzz through traditional and integrated PR efforts that keep Rockland Trust top of mind for its key audience’s banking needs. Inkhouse drives efficiencies with spokespeople and thought leaders through strategic intake calls that provide commentary on news-of-the-day, proactive pitch ideas and support content development.

The partnership between Inkhouse and Rockland Trust has returned significant results to date for both the content and media relations portions of the program. 

Notable Learning Center results include:  

• More than 200 pieces of timely, impactful content and multimedia assets including social media cards, animations, social media ads, videos and an ebook. 
• Organic search traffic for the Learning Center grew nearly 300% between 2018 and 2023, and Rockland Trust Learning Center content presence in the top three Google search results increased by 97%.
• 168% increase in Learning Center new users from 2018 to 2023 and 189% increase in returning users over the same time period. Returning users increased by 72% year-over-year (2022 vs 2023)
• Anticipating that engaged sessions, a new GA4 metric, will increase by more than 50% year over year by the end of 2024 

In terms of media, 2023 was one of the most successful years to date for the bank including: 

• More than 550 pieces of media coverage, showing a significant 36% year-over-year increase.
• Consistently increasing share of voice locally and nationally in a crowded landscape that includes large, well-known competitors. 
• Media highlights include recurring national broadcast segments on CNBC Power Lunch and Yahoo Finance’s Closing Bell for its investing experts and thought leaders featured in a wide variety of outlets including CBS MoneyWatch, the Boston Globe, GBH’s Greater Boston, and the New England Real Estate Journal among many more.