Abilene Teachers FCU wanted to grow its auto lending program and promote online loan applications by targeting a specific demographic: millennials.
During a 30-day auto loan promo that began Sept. 1, 2015, the $418 million CU spent $17,092 to run its "Never 2 Late Auto" campaign. The promotion used a variety of traditional media channels, such as flyers, digital, print and television ads, according to the credit union's Marketing Manager Cathy Mayer.
The Abilene, Texas-based credit union wanted to change the way members interacted with its lending products by using more online, mobile and social channels, Mayer said. In addition, the CU wanted to find a clear way to measure return on investment from online and digital marketing campaigns across all channels.
So before launching the new auto loan promo, Abilene Teachers implemented Shastic's loan generation tool to integrate online, social media, and mobile marketing under one solution.
The loan generation tool was implemented on Aug. 21, 2015, and provided a streamlined lending process as well a better visibility in the CU's return on investment across each digital channel—from looking to booking, according to Meyer. And the implementation itself took less than an hour.
ATFCU was extremely pleased with the results. The CU gained 45 new members and opened 436 new loans worth a total of $11.5 million within the 30-day promotional period.
With interest income for the first year estimated at $541,024, the campaign generated an "incredible" return on investment of over 3,000%, according to Mayer. Its efforts earned the institution a Best Practices Award from Credit Union Journal.
The CU was able to keep the total spend of the campaign at around $17,000 ($8,000 for personnel and $9,000 on marketing) by swapping out materials in its existing ad budget to those created for the "Never 2 Late Auto" campaign. "And being in a mid-sized market, advertising is relatively inexpensive out here," Mayer noted. "All we did was change the message on those mediums."
