ARVADA, Colo.-Sooper CU here has found some success selling mortgages to Gen Y members.
While the number of closed loans from one recent campaign may be low compared with the number of members targeted, one executive says the success of the method is just as important as the response.
Sooper CU ran a campaign using personalized URLs (or PURLs) in March and April of this year, booking 18 home loans to Gen Y members as a result. Donna Ogorek, VP of marketing and development at the $240-million, 32,000-member credit union, said that Sooper CU had been looking for ways "to try to capture that next generation of membership."
Using services provided by DocuMatix, Sooper CU was able to target about 9,800 members-approximately 30% of its total member base-via direct mail or e-mail. Ogorek explained that what made this push different was that each member was contacted with a PURL, so that either the postcard or e-mail contained a web address with their name, such as mtg.soopercu.org/JohnSmith. To be contacted for the promotion, members had to fall between the ages of 25 and 38, have a specific income level and not have a mortgage with the CU. Members for whom the credit union had an e-mail address (about 3,800) received the messaging via e-mail, and the rest (about 6,000) received traditional direct mail.
Regardless of the channel, all communications had the same offer: half off of the origination fee, which is normally 2% of the purchase price. The credit union did not run any special pricing promotions with the campaign.
All members who visited their personalized URL were asked to fill out a brief survey for the opportunity to win a free iPad, and Ogorek said that was key to the campaign's success.
What's In It For Me?
"What we find with Gen Y is that we're in this Facebook age of 'What's in it for me?' " she said. "It's hard to lead them down a path without having that at the end of it."
Ogorek added that the look of the postcard and e-mail were tailored to Gen Y, including the phrase "Snag your dream home." According to Ogorek, "Snag isn't a word we would normally use with baby boomers," who constitute much of the CU's membership.
"The cool thing about this was to see how we could get people engaged with direct mail when every study tells us that Gen Y doesn't read direct mail," said Ogorek, adding, "For retailers, banks and credit unions, the simplest way to get Gen Y to engage is to pay them." Hence, Sooper Credit Union's iPad giveaway. "That has been a very successful marketing tool for that generation; it's about instant gratification."
According to its June call report, the credit union has 361 first mortgages on its books, totaling $42 million. That's an increase of five loans (and about $1 million) from its March call report (during which time the PURL campaign was active) and an increase of 19 (and $3 million) from its December report.
Ogorek said that because this was the CU's first time attempting a PURL campaign, its goal was simply to generate member response and-at a minimum-10 loans or refis. Because the CU is heavy on deposits and actively hunting for loans, officials did not have a target dollar amount.
"We wanted to see if we could steer members toward new and innovative methods of outreach by using more traditional means of marketing," she said. The credit union is considering running another PURL campaign later this year, this time possibly built around auto loans.
