11/07/17

Helping Bank Members Move Into a New Microsite

Making the dream of home ownership a reality for Americans is a critical operational activity for most banks and credit unions. For OBI Creative client, Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines (FHLB Des Moines), helping banks issue affordable mortgages is one of the many services at which they excel. One of 11 regional banks in the Federal Home Loan Bank System established by Congress in 1932, FHLB Des Moines provides a stable source of funding for 7,400 federally insured depository institutions of all sizes and types. Its diverse membership includes community and commercial banks, credit unions, insurance companies, thrifts and community development financial institutions.

Improving User Experience with a New Website

In late 2016, FHLB Des Moines approached OBI for help finding a way to speed up and improve its onboarding experience for new and existing member banks. Wanting to help their members navigate a variety of complicated application and training processes, FHLB Des Moines asked us to help them make it easy for their members to sell and service a variety of home and commercial mortgage products.

The project was invigorating for our web team, because we knew that engineering a positive user experience would result in improved funding and liquidity for FHLB Des Moines members, empowering them to better meet the housing, economic development and business needs of the communities they serve.

In short, we knew right away this project would impact real people in powerful ways.

Engineering an Effective Website for FHLB Des Moines

OBI met with the FHLB Des Moines team to determine their goals and develop a plan for creating an online resource that could house all mortgage application and training information, since doing so would simplify the product onboarding process for members. From there, our web team developed a sitemap and wireframe to outline each page’s content and functionality.

The site was then designed and built using Drupal, an open-source content management system (CMS), giving our team the ability to make future enhancements and the FHLB Des Moines team to make resource and training edits as needed.

The Results – More Visitors, Longer Stays

Like a house that everyone loves to visit for events and gatherings, FHLB Des Moines’ new member microsite became a repeat destination for the banks and financial institutions it serves. Within one month, the new microsite achieved the following metrics:

Sessions – 1,001

Pageviews – 3,381

Average Session Duration – 4:30 (far higher than any of the bank’s other websites)

Bounce Rate – 34%

In just 30 days, direct traffic accounted for over half of the site’s sessions (62%), indicating FHLB Des Moines’ members were not just coming, but staying and coming back again to the microsite. Top visited pages included: Resources, Products and Applications, showing visitors’ interest in learning about the application process, exploring products and signing up.

For OBI, the results proved the worth of our process. Whether on a website, social campaign or integrated marketing plan, taking the time to perform solid research and then informing strategy and execution with that research leads to stunning results (and in this case, more people moving into the homes of their dreams).

B2B brands deserve strong websites too! Does yours need a refresh? Contact OBI Creative today for help engineering digital results for your brand.