Support Local Business Campaign

Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, StonehamBank had been hosting a series of pop-up events in the towns neighboring their two branch locations, Stoneham and Billerica, MA for roughly a year. These events took place at local farms, food festivals, sporting events, breweries and more. The goal for this initiative was to drive new checking accounts and increase brand awareness throughout their surrounding communities while also building relationships with current and potential customers. Although the bank was not able to directly attribute their account growth and engagement to this initiative, there was significant evidence that the rise in brand awareness, local market visibility and employee/visitor engagement contributed tremendously to the boom in checking account openings.

Once stay-at-home orders went into effect, they had to put their physical pop-ups on hold. Since they didn’t want to lose the momentum they’d gained, they switched the focus from driving checking accounts to driving support for local businesses and pivoted to "virtual pop-ups." Their first pop-up gave the spotlight to a small, local restaurant that had remained open for takeout throughout the quarantine phase to try to support their employees.