GREENVILLE, S.C.-Great rates and great service? Not good enough, says one marketing professional.
"Rates and service have been the credit union message for years, but I don't think credit union representatives or MSRs are really any more or less friendly" than their counterparts at the banks, said Bo McDonald, a marketer who works with several South Carolina credit unions, as well as with the marketing arm of the state league.
After all, he continued, quality of service is subjective, and if a credit union opts to compete on price, it's easy for the bank down the street to match rate if it wants to.
McDonald noted that while CUs shouldn't abandon the message of rates and service, the better strategy is to find ways to encapsulate the experience of being a member.
"Banking is a commodity; you can get a checking account anywhere," he said. "When you're marketing, what makes your credit union different? How do you make the banking experience at your credit union not a commodity?"
It's not a message or a strategy that is well executed across the credit union community. McDonald noted the he finds the state of CU marketing to be a is a fairly mixed bag.
"I've got one piece here in front of me that I just goT in the mail from a credit union-I won't give their name, but it's awful," he said. "But on the other hand I've got another piece sitting here that's got a call to action and gives me a 'What's in it for me' that if I were a consumer I'd look at it and act on it. So it's hard to make a blanket statement."
This Has Always Worked, So...
McDonald said that disparity is the result of a combination of finite resources and a lack of progressivism. "A lot of it is 'We've done this for five, 10 or 15 years, and this has always worked,'" said McDonald. "The problem is that it's not working as well as it had, and we're not looking for new ideas to replace those."
Some of McDonald's client CUs still rely on direct mail, but he noted that there is a smaller margin for error with direct, because consumers are so quick to throw it in the trash. "You've got about three seconds to get someone's attention; there's got to be something on there to get people to open it or turn it around to find out exactly what you've got to offer," he said. "The piece I'm holding right now just says 3.99% on the front with a CU logo-it doesn't tell me anything. Is it auto? Mortgage? Home equity?"
Credit unions' best marketing strategy may be completely outside of the marketing department, McDonald suggested.
"If you've got your staff trained, if they truly believe in what they're doing, then that's the best advertising we could ask for," he said. "Unfortunately, that's also the hardest thing to do--getting the buy-in from the staff."
Long Haul of Social Media
Meanwhile, as marketers attempt to do more with fixed budgets, McDonald reminded that while costs for social media are attractive, it's anything but an easy fix.
"It's a slow process," he said. "That's the biggest thing I've learned. The Carolina Collegiate Facebook page has been up for about five years, and we're now just seeing the benefits of that."
Instead, regardless of channel, McDonald reminded that credit unions must constantly be devising ways to make their marketing relevant, impactful and timely. He cited a "New Year's Resolution" promotion from earlier this year at several CUs with which he works that used statistics about failed resolutions as the creative hook. The CU message "was 'We can help-consolidating debt into one low monthly payment or refi for low rates and payments.' We didn't really want the deposits, but the whole thing of this is saving money."
"We didn't advertise interest rates, we didn't say we have auto loans; it was all about meeting the member's need at that particular time."
