The company serves over 1,400 financial institutions across the U.S.

Lincoln startup Social Assurance is helping banks, insurance companies and financial advisors navigate the choppy waters of customer relations in the digital age.

“We provide the software, process, content and strategies to help financial institutions market with confidence,” said Ben Pankonin, CEO and co-founder of Social Assurance. “It’s an avenue for them to bridge the gap between traditional marketing and marketing in the digital age.”

Banks have relied on traditional marketing approaches and foot traffic to their locations for over 150 years. That landscape is changing rapidly.

“Fewer people are showing up at banks, there’s less face-to-face contact,” Pankonin said. “But at the same time, banks need to do more with their customers. They need to develop relationships digitally.”

Financial marketing meets regulatory compliance

The Social Assurance platform addresses all aspects of digital marketing, from content creation and approval processes through scheduling, managing and reporting. Their market is nationwide.

“We work with 1,400 financial institutions of all sizes across the country, literally in every state,” Pankonin said. “We’ve helped them grow and transition to understanding what’s happening with digital tools.”

Is there resistance to change among institutions that have been around for a very long time?

“I think the challenge is not that they don’t want to adapt to new technology,” Pankonin said. “But there needs to be a process to adapting.”

The challenge is compounded by the highly-regulated nature of the industry.

“There is certainly a legal and compliance aspect to what we do,” Pankonin said. “It’s also about understanding an enterprise approach to a customer-facing product like Facebook. Working within the confines of regulation is a fun challenge.”

So is Social Assurance a regulatory compliance company?

“A lot of people look at us and say we’re a compliance product,” Pankonin said. “But we’re a platform that lets them market faster in a compliant and measureable way.”

Defining the problem

So how did Social Assurance get started?

“My co-founder [CTO Matt Secoske] and I decided to interview some financial institutions,” Pankonin said. “We didn’t know that much about the industry, and asked, ‘Is this a problem?’ and, ‘Can software fix it?’”

They learned that many institutions assumed they would need to hire a staff person to handle digital marketing and determined there was a niche to be filled.

“We started with a narrow focus, the advertising approval process,” Pankonin said. “We soon realized we were solving a bigger problem. It was not just social messaging, but building customer relationships through digital tools, which is a much bigger role than we understood when we started.”

Positioned for the future

The company recently moved into space in The Atrium in downtown Lincoln, which has allowed them to focus on building team cohesion.

“The last year, we’ve really worked on culture and teambuilding,” Pankonin said. “Where we’re headed is to round out marketing for financial institutions with that key focus of helping them market with confidence.”

Pankonin became a Pipeline Entrepreneurs Fellow in 2012 and was asked about the experience.

“It gave us a view to step back from the business,” he said. “It reminds me every quarter to look more strategically and engage with like-minded people. It’s a huge value for our business because there is a bigger picture at work.”

Pankonin likes Social Assurance’s position in the market.

“We have a customer that just celebrated their 150th anniversary, and they told us they’ve seen more changes in the past 10 years than the previous 140,” he said. “It’s an interesting market dynamic and a great place for a startup to be sitting.”

—

Rod Armstrong is Vice President of Strategic Partnerships for AIM in Lincoln, Nebraska. He is a regular contributor to Silicon Prairie News.