Marketing has its unpredictable side - just ask Randy Alderman, who represented The Bradford National Bank in Greenville last season at the city’s annual holiday tree lighting festival. He stood proudly with his wife and four children - ages 10, 9, 7 and 6 - bundled against the chill, outwardly calm and mentally tortured.
“ All
I could think of was how we’d be in front of all of these people
and these kids were going to fight to see who gets to flip the switch,” he
admits wryly. Fortunately, ordinary officials handled that job inside
the building while the visible Aldermans led the countdown, something
each of his three daughters and son could get behind with gusto.They’re apparently chips off the old block, a man for who bank president Frank R. Joy has two words: “energetic” and “enthusiastic.” Alderman himself labels his life “a blast,” as everything he touches circles back to the magic of marketing.
It began innocuously when his Jaycees club leaders announced to the then teenager, “Randy, you’re chairman of the 4th of July celebration.” He learned he could take an event and make it still bigger through promotion. He never shook the thrill.
But after ten July 4th celebrations, stints as a disk jockey, a news and program director for radio station WGEL, and a role organizing the statewide political campaign for Sen. Frank Watson (R-Ill.), Alderman’s career prospects seemingly dried up, he says.
While contemplating his next move, he took a job with Bradford Bank as a teller.
After six months, Alderman struck gold – right under his nose.
“ I inquired about other opportunities (at the bank), and they asked if I knew anything about marketing. It was obvious they didn’t read my resume when they hired me,” he jokes. (In addition to his work experience, Alderman graduated from the Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, with a radio and television marketing degree). He took over the bank’s marketing projects on a freelance, trial basis that first year before assuming the title full time.
In the past 11 years, Alderman has acquired all of the marketing, public relations and advertising activities, selling the bank’s message of stability through direct mail, radio, television and sometimes house calls.
Credit him with special events like washing windshields in the drive-through, bank-sponsored parades and theme contests that invite employees to dress as everything from patriots to hippies.
“ It’s not an easy job, but it is adventurous, and there are so many different avenues you can use to market a product of service,” he notes. “I like the variety.”
His out-of-the-box thinking doesn’t always jive with the board he admits, but says his bank’s president Frank Joy encourages him to keep the ideas flowing. After all, the bank has doubled in size since he grabbed the marketing horns, including building it first branch outside the county. Altogether, Bradford Bank has soared from $86 million to $190 million in assets in an area of only 17,000 people.
Alderman’s innovative marketing plans even made the local newspaper where they profiled the bank’s self promotion practices. Televisions in the lobby continuously air Power Point presentations promoting Bradford Bank products and services.
Each television rotates more than 100 screens of everything from employee promotions to history trivia on the bank.
Alderman also teaches the front line tellers at the bank how to spot bad currency and checks as well as gives speeches as least once a month on the latest in stolen I.D. tactics for customers. “We don’t try to sell them on Bradford,” he says. “Our message is that as a community bank it’s our responsibility to educate people on ways to protect themselves.”
So fascinated with marketing, Alderman even spins his marketing web off hours.
His involvement with the Greenville Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Commission meant bringing the city’s first TV campaign targeting the town as a St. Louis market destination.
He also helped the city land a grant for marketing materials for economic development and has voluntarily run the city’s Web site for nearly 10 years, making Greenville the first in the area with a URL.