If you haven’t noticed by now, I absolutely love working with local businesses on their holistic digital marketing strategy. I find it so fulfilling to help small businesses in my community.
Today, I want to share a story about my work with SaviBank, a local community bank in Northwest Washington. We worked together for about a year prior to their sale to Harborstone Credit Union, and then supported their brand conversion during that transition.
From running paid advertising campaigns to fixing local SEO issues, we were able to bring in new customers for their Mortgage department and help swiftly transition Savi into their next chapter.
SaviBank Summary
SaviBank offered a full range of personal and business financial services, including checking, savings, loans, credit cards, and home mortgages. In March 2024, SaviBank announced a strategic sale to Harborstone Credit Union, which officially happened September 1, 2025.
Holistic Marketing Strategy for SaviBank
I conducted a marketing analysis, SEO audit, and consultation for SaviBank, uncovering issues and opportunities for the bank to expand its online presence and prepare for the acquisition transition.
We worked together to fix SEO issues preventing their mortgage pages from appearing in search results and brought new customers to their website and branches across the Skagit Valley.
We were able to make great strides for SaviBank prior to their sale. Between appearing in search results and improving awareness of their mortgage services, there was a lot of progress made toward their business and marketing goals.
Let’s walk through the problems they were facing and how we addressed each one.
Situation #1: Not Appearing in Local Search Results
SaviBank originally came to me because they didn’t know why they weren’t getting mortgage service inquiries. One of their primary goals at the time was to raise awareness in the community around their locally-managed mortgage services. There was a time when those services weren’t available at SaviBank, so people in Skagit Valley who weren’t already customers were unaware Savi could help them with home loans.
Problem: Page Indexing Blocked
If you typed anything related to mortgage services into Google, SaviBank didn’t show up in search results at all. It was like they didn’t exist. And since their goal was to build awareness around that service, we had a lot of work to do from a local SEO standpoint.
With 10 branches in Skagit, Whatcom, and Island counties, and none of them appearing in search results, this was a huge problem. When I dug into it more, I discovered that the entire mortgage section on their website was blocked from being indexed by Google. Those pages were marked “no index” inside their website platform.
This is one of those “oops” moments that remind us how important it is to regularly check your website SEO. This was a quick fix by their developer, but had gone undetected as a significant barrier for months.
Problem: Missing Business Listing Information
A common challenge many small businesses face is maintaining accurate business listings when we aren’t always in control of where our company is listed. Sometimes, business listing sites will grab your business information and list it as a resource on their website. But if the original information they grabbed is incorrect, it can be tough to fix and may even spread misinformation about your business widely over time.
This is especially relevant in the world of AI Overviews. Those bots are scanning the internet to look for information to share, and if your business information is inconsistent or incorrect, AI may either continue to spread that misinformation, or they may consider it unreliable and not share your business information with potential customers at all.
Here, you can see SaviBank wasn’t appearing as an option for the search “home loans near me,” and that was, in large part, because they didn’t have a Google Business Profile optimized for mortgage services.
Solution: Business Listings Service
Our first step was to leverage my go-to business listings service to get SaviBank to appear in search results in the first place. We optimized their Google Business Profile, and with the listings service, we pushed that information across all other top platforms, such as Bing, Yelp, and MapQuest. They began indexing for mortgage services after correcting, optimizing, adding, and publishing all their business information.
Solution: Appearing Local Search Results
We also fixed the website indexing issues that were preventing their website from appearing in search results. We removed the block on indexing from their website platform and pressed Google Search Console to reindex them. Within a few days, the mortgage section of their site began appearing in search results.
Once we accomplished these two updates, SaviBank business listings were optimized for local searches, and their mortgage pages were indexed. As shown below, SaviBank began appearing as a local option for the search “mortgage lender burlington” along with other relevant queries. Success!
Situation #2: Lead Generation
Once we fixed the indexing and local SEO issues, we wanted to focus on lead generation to build their mortgage service funnel. We started Google Pay-Per-Click and Meta ads to build awareness quickly and book more mortgage services as soon as possible.
Below is an example of one of their ads, which leads to a custom landing page. When the landing page form was submitted, the mortgage team was notified and lenders were ready for quick follow up. This holistic journey ensured the customer received a quick response to their inquiry and got a taste of the quality, local service they would experience during the mortgage process.
Paid Ads Results
One thing that’s always important to remember when launching a marketing campaign is that there are many factors outside of your control. Just like you can’t market your way out of product or service issues, we have to set realistic expectations around campaigns impacted by external factors—such as interest rates or economic downturns.
We set realistic goals with this campaign and focused on some big picture wins, such as increased brand awareness, as well as lead gen metrics.
Here’s a quick snapshot of the campaign metrics:
- 41 new mortgage inquiries
- 4.41% click-through rate from Google ads
- 330,908 impressions from Meta ads
For a short campaign on a small budget, we were pleased with these paid ads results. We built additional brand awareness, reach, and engagement, including several phone calls from new customers requesting to work with a specific loan officer they’d seen featured in our ad sets!
“Working with Rachael and her team has been so beneficial for SaviBank. We’re so thankful for her knowledge and help with our online and digital marketing! We absolutely recommend working with the great team at Woods MarCom.” – Serafina Lemos, Marketing Assistant
Situation #3: Transition to Savi, Powered by Harborstone Credit Union
SaviBank was acquired by a credit union. While there is always a bit of wiggle room during these transitions, ultimately it’s a compliance issue to be referenced as a bank after the merger took effect. Additionally, credit unions and banks are governed by different accrediting bodies, which need to be accurately referenced in all communications, listings, and materials.
Long story short, it was extremely important that Savi’s information was comprehensively updated on the transition date: September 1, 2025.
This is just some of the information we had to change because of the acquisition:
- Branding and name
- Brand Logos
- Primary Business Listing Category
- Website
- Hours of operation
- Products and services offered
- Update accrediting body logos and references
- Removal of “bank” from any and all descriptions, products, or fields
Since we had already set up the business listing service, we could easily update the information and push it out to all platforms, ensuring accuracy and consistency from the start. This also ensured they were compliant with being referred to as a credit union, not a bank, everywhere online.
You can see here that not only are they appearing in local search results, but it’s under their new name. The bulk of the updates happened within a few hours, and Savi was consistent across the board within 24 hours of the acquisition coming into effect.
Why Holistic Digital Marketing Services with Woods MarCom?
A holistic digital marketing strategy looks at the big picture of your business by combining organic and paid strategies to earn the best results. We look at potential issues that could get in the way of your marketing goals and new opportunities to grow your business.
And this is not a one-size-fits-all service. Starting with a marketing analysis, I see how your business could benefit from various marketing strategies, whether it’s paid ads, business listings, a new website, or SEO optimization. You get a fully custom plan to grow and meet your goals.
If you’re ready to make intentional and strategic changes to your marketing plan, inquire to work with me today!
