Of late, we have constantly been concentrating much about credit unions. We have made web designs for a number of credit unions and also carried out extensive industrial research. Various credit unions have also contacted us during the same period of time and we have engaged in lengthy discussions concerning their objectives and frustrations.
We have repeatedly heard similar goals quite often:
- Reaching out to a younger audience
- Growing our membership
- Getting our members to utilize more service
- Taking advantages of credit union’s extended opportunities by the industries in banking
Regrettably, our research has also shown various marketing mishaps concerning the industry. These include:
Keeping pace with larger banks
Big financial institutions have got advertising and marketing budget orders of greater magnitudes compared to the biggest credit union. In all mediums, advertising is usually blanketed and they possess the purchasing power for sustaining the long term spending.
Why the fight?
We are of the opinion that when you are competing against a big competitor, success calls for thinking, branding and offering improved services than what competitors offer as one does not go to outspend it.
If you cannot win a battle, you do not need to fight it-Sun Tzu
Illustration: Advertising
As much as they are powerful, ads are also costly. Credit unions in most cases end up making low cost advertisements, mediums of low return like in bus wraps and radio. Even though these produce impressions, it is only a minimal response that is received from people who get to see them. Although they work, they are not the ideal techniques for reaching out to the young generation that they aim at.
Competing on Services and Rates
The beauty about credit unions is not because they offer low rates and even if this was the case, lenders or larger banks could make sacrifices to margins in the short term in order to have any offer undercut. In a similar way, any service developed by a credit union can be replicated easily. Fortunately, consumers do not strictly make any type of decision based on numbers. This is true especially with regard to money-where emotions and trust are major components in deciding who should be trusted.
The fact that credit unions are different from banks is their major strength. A credit union is a local community. Instead of customers, it has got members who are favored by their decisions as opposed to corporate profits. That said, credit unions should therefore lead with their rates for who they are.
They fail to value their website as a useful tool for marketing
A website plays a vital role in determining the success of your marketing. Unfortunately, credit unions lag behind many industries in how they approach their general digital marketing and their websites in general. Many of the credit union sites have generic content and unclear navigation. Typically, they fail to serve their existing and potential members and many of them focus on what the board and their staff desire.
Not fully committing to marketing
In order for you to be successful, credit unions need to have a great story and get that story before the eyes of as many people as possible; the tool by which you do that is known as marketing. Do not be like others who commit Credit Union Marketing Mistakes by viewing marketing as messy. They fail to allocate staff and a budget to their marketing efforts. Even the ones that do so, they consider the marketing approaches as being risky.
They favor content that is mass produced instead of that which is unique
Purchasing articles or generic blogs from a content farm is another Credit Union Marketing Mistake. This is because you compete with banks as well as other credit unions. If your site contains similar content to banks and other competitors, it then becomes difficult to trust your site or your competitors.
The following is what unique content can do for you:
- User improvement and member engagement
- Improves search visibility and also traffic
- It is a great tool for sharing in social media
- Establishes and strengthens your brand
- Depicts competence and leadership
- Differentiates brand competitors