We’re so busy doing communications work here in the Thinkshift studios we often forget to talk about it. So, from the “better late than never” files, here’s a look at how we helped a client turn on a dime to take advantage of a news-driven opportunity.

Last fall, with the Occupy movement focusing ire at big banks and the emergence of the grassroots Bank Transfer Day movement (inspired by the big banks’ plans to start charging fees for debit card purchases), New Resource Bank saw an opportunity to promote its sustainability mission and customer-friendly approach to a receptive audience.

The challenge: the bank’s Move Your Money campaign had to happen fast to catch the news swell and stay within a small discretionary budget.

The Thinkshift team pulled together the bank’s great ideas with our own to develop a tightly integrated cross-media campaign to spur new accounts and raise New Resource’s visibility. A new Move Your Money landing page would be fed by an e-mail blast seeking referrals from existing customers; a postcard; blog, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn posts; and messages on the screens in the bank’s windows. Time from initial discussion to launch: one week. With all elements in place, we did a PR blitz that netted local TV, radio, and print coverage.

The result: Record numbers of new clients opened New Resource accounts in November. We can’t claim full credit for that, of course—change was in the air and numbers had already started to tick up in October. But we feel confident that the compaign contributed. For a full five weeks after the launch, the Move Your Money landing page was the fifth most-popular page on the bank’s website, behind Contact Us, About, Personal Checking and Personal Banking.

Those mainstay pages also experienced a huge jump in visitors during the campaign, with an increase of as much as 130 percent compared with a comparable five weeks. In addition, the customer e-mail requesting referrals had an open rate of 19 percent (615 viewers), and the media coverage put a spotlight on the bank that could cast a lasting glow.

The upshot: never let a news hook go to waste.

See the full wrap-up on the bank’s Planet-Smart blog—and while you’re there, move your money!

The e-newsletter Thinkshift produces for the California Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition made the Q2 2010 Vertical Response 500 list, at number 264.

The quarterly e-mail marketing award recognizes top-performing Vertical Response customers. To qualify, customers must send four or more e-mails and achieve average open rates above 20 percent and click rates above 4 percent. The newsletter typically gets open rates in the mid to high 20 percent range, and clickthrough rates in the mid 20 percent to high 30 percent range. The exception: the July 12 issue had an incredible 85.25 percent clickthrough rate.

I wish I knew how to repeat that. What I do know is that the consistently high open and click rates for this newsletter are driven by rigorously targeting content (including original reporting) to audience interests.

Think that substantive, credible content goes unnoticed? Just check out this article opener: “Should anyone question Stanford’s commitment to sustainability, point them to the ‘Sustainable Stanford’ website. Then watch their jaw drop.”

The article, the cover feature in the current issue of Sustainability: The Journal of Record, goes on to repeat Stanford’s sustainability messages—verbatim in some cases—and quotes liberally from key facts and figures on the site.

Strong website content serves two purposes: it gives the sustainability program a high degree of control over information, and it provides a deep resource for writers. And strong information architecture makes that content easy to find: the Stanford site presents information in ways external audiences expect rather than according to internal categories.

Needless to say, we’re extremely proud of our client for getting such great PR, and happier still that the website we developed for them last year is serving them so well. Kudos, too, to the creative team at 1185 Design, which partnered with us for design and development.