POV
Most FI execs say, "We need to be more data-driven."
What they actually have is a growth story problem.
There's no shared definition of growth for the marketing team. Just vague exhortations like "be curious about data" with zero clarity on curious about what. Big bets on brand and digital with no internal narrative that makes those bets feel smart instead of scary.
Until you fix the story, no dashboard, workshop, or martech stack will make your team behave like a growth engine.
Field Note
A Midwest credit union with a 23-person team and no shared definition of "growth"
This credit union (midwestern, multi-billion in assets) has what most community FIs dream of: a 23-person marketing org that includes charitable foundation work, volunteer programs, member experience, digital, HubSpot, website, campaigns, and a new product development lead. They've got a CEO and CMO who are genuinely willing to level up. New website. Bolder visual system. A partnership with a West Coast experiential firm.
Externally: total win.
Internally: that's where the cracks showed.
In brainstorms, team members were nervous. "Do you have any idea how much that's going to cost?" Some, especially those from smaller CUs, couldn't reconcile these big, flashy plays with the budget discipline they'd been raised on. Leadership kept saying "we're hyper focused on growth," but to the team the work looked exactly the same. Campaigns, email, events, business plans just like last year.
Under the surface, the team wasn't "curious about the data" because no one had framed what questions matter most. The initiatives were getting mushed together in people's heads, creating confusion about why they exist and how success would be measured. Skeptics had a point: "Are we really going to spend this much, for this long, on indirect members and a new brand?"
Their real constraint wasn't capability. It was an internal growth narrative that hadn't been written yet.
Try This With Your Team
1. Answer the question your team keeps asking silently: "What does growth actually mean for us?"
In one page, define growth in their language, not yours. For the credit union or bank overall, that might be net new primary relationships in specific segments, incremental deposits from outside your footprint, or more profitable servicing of indirect members. For marketing specifically, what behaviors are you trying to drive? What will you stop doing if this works?
Exercise: Have every leader finish this sentence in writing: "This initiative is worth doing because it helps us grow by ________." If they can't fill in the blank, you're not ready to ask for "more curiosity about data."
2. Turn "be more data-driven" into specific curiosity prompts
Replace fuzzy exhortations with prompts like: Every campaign owner must bring one "I wonder..." question about performance to the next standup and one thing they did about it. For indirect members making branch or call-center payments, ask what's one change that would make you consider using the app or site instead, then capture the answers. For every big bet (like an event lounge), assign someone to calculate the fully loaded cost per hour of staff time and compare it to alternative uses.
The goal isn't turning everyone into analysts. It's normalizing "I wonder why..." as a valued behavior.
3. Build one internal case study your CFO would actually brag about
Pick one big swing and build a short, CFO-grade case study. Objective. Investment (including fully loaded people costs). What actually happened (engagement, leads, pipeline, new members). What you'd change next time.
Then use it inside the org as proof that you're not "just doing cool stuff." You are learning, measuring, and evolving your growth bets. This is how you build the internal credibility that makes the next big bet easier to greenlight.
Takeaway
If your marketing team seems resistant to data, risk, or "leveling up," the problem probably isn't attitude or talent. It's that you're asking them to chase "growth" without a clear, believable story of what growth means, where each initiative fits, and how curiosity will actually be rewarded.
Fix the growth story first. The dashboards, digital brands, and indirect strategies get a lot more powerful once your own team knows exactly what game they're playing and why it's worth winning.
If you're a CMO or marketing leader wrestling with how to turn growth ambitions into a coherent internal narrative, I'd love to talk.
BrandThnk helps financial services and fintech teams build the strategic clarity that makes bold bets feel credible instead of chaotic.
—Allison