RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif. — If you have seen stories about credit unions and the services they provide to their members in online outlets that previously had ignored CUs, you can thank CO-OP Financial Services for its stepped-up outreach efforts.
According to Bill Prichard, manager of public relations and corporate communications, CO-OP has sent press releases to general consumer publications for years, but has greatly increased its efforts this year.
"We are the nation's largest credit union service organization, and as such we feel a commitment not only to promote ourselves but to promote the credit union movement as a whole to consumers," he explained. "We want credit union members to greatly appreciate the resources they have available as members of credit unions, and we want non-members to know what is available. We feel what is good for credit unions is good for CO-OP."
The most recent example of this strategy is a release, sent Thursday, that explains CO-OP's plans to introduce mobile card controls and alerts capabilities [see related story]. Prichard said the CUSO is using the Business Wire distribution service.
"Business Wire reports online pickups to us, as Yahoo Finance and other online outlets are picking up our releases," he said. "We also are using our social media platform to further disseminate information. We believe it has been very successful so far so it is something we are going to continue to do."
