Sarah Martin is CEO at Pulsate, a mobile-first, personalized consumer engagement platform tapped largely by community banks and credit unions. Pulsate’s data, for instance, capitalizes on banking customer intent signals to recommend next-best products that convert interest into action. Martin says to compete in a widening financial services market, institutions of any size must believe they too can attract and retain customers, drive deposit growth and loan balances, as well as react to dynamic market fluctuations just like their neobank competition, money centers and others. Regional banks, community banks, credit unions and banks of all sizes can expand their approach and smartly use the resources they have by thinking as their customers do. Yes, data and technology are key, she says, but institutions should strategize how they can best leverage in-house capabilities, often with partnerships. She says the design of her platform targets a specific goal, however, one she believes too many financial institutions take for granted: recognizing and acting on customer micro-engagements. Finding value not just in product, but in service, in overall experience, in empathy, in message, in brand, in differentiation, in delivering highly personalized, contextual offers and communications directly within a bank or credit union’s existing mobile and digital banking platforms is what Martin has found can effectively transform a mediocre or even satisfactory digital or mobile banking channel into a comprehensive profit center. Every encounter is an opportunity. Feedback is data and data informs what can happen next.