IRVING, Texas-As the economy slowly recovers, $167 million YOUR Federal Credit Union is trying to convey a positive message to its 18,000 members.
VP-Marketing Rick Stokes said bad news in the past two years has made his job difficult, "but we are telling our members we have money to lend."
Membership and assets have increased as YOUR FCU has "piggybacked" on the negative publicity banks have gotten, Stokes reported, noting that the advent of the CU's new CEO CEO Mark O'Bryan, who started Feb. 1, has been another bright spot.
"With our new CEO and the positive direction we are going, it will be important to maintain the new members we have picked up," Stokes appraised. "We are going to have to be there competitively for them and in a way that is different than everyone else. We need to provide our present members and potential new members a way to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the market. We have to provide a product they need at a rate they want."
YOUR FCU has a mixed field of membership. Its core group is IBM employees, plus it has numerous other SEGs (including some in Houston), and it serves a few community areas in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. Stokes said the membership has not yet seen a full recovery from the recession, in part because IBM has downsized.
"We work with those members to help them in the case of layoffs, which is something a lot of credit unions are facing," he said.
Last year, YOUR FCU received a NAFCU Award for Best Lending Promotion by a credit union with less than $150 million in assets for its "Don't Get Lost in Debt" promo. Stokes said the campaign was the first the credit union rolled out after it had performed a branding analysis, so it was able to use its new look and feel.
At the time Don't Get Lost in Debt was being implemented, "Retirement plans were falling, people were losing jobs, so we knew we needed to help our members with financial relief," Stokes said. "Our members were asking about signature loans and our skip-a-pay program, which we do twice a year. They needed extensions to help them out financially, so it was a good time for that particular campaign."
The "Lost" promotion featured signature loans that helped members consolidate their debt. The promotional graphics included maps that helped visualize "finding" debt relief.
As the economy has begn to rebound, Stokes said YOUR FCU has introduced a car loan campaign using newspaper ads that have led to $690,000 in loans booked. "Right now, everybody is having to tighten their belts when it comes to credit-granting criteria," Stokes said. "But as incomes increase, there will be an opportunity to work with more members and help out. "
YOUR FCU is also considering adding credit cards to its product line-up.
