LAKE MARY, Fla.-After being named Central Florida's best credit union for the fourth time by local media, CFE FCU here set out to do more to raise awareness of its brand via its Facebook page and a Web Hunt game.
Its success has led to it being named a Credit Union Journal "Best Practice" winner for 2011.
"We wanted something that was viral and fun and interactive that could engage people who weren't members," explained marketing manager Laura Richard.
Working with Code Green and its interactive CU Web Hunt game, CFE "turned our website into a virtual gameboard where they could explore the website, and through that process they're getting educated and hunting for game pieces on the website, where they're strategically placed" throughout the site.
Officials at the 116,000-member, $1.2-billion CU also tied the game to its Facebook page as a way to increase activity there. When CFE FCU launched the game in late 2010 it had about 800 Facebook fans; it has since added another 1,600 as a result of the game, said Suzanne Dusch, VP of marketing. The Web Hunt game included 10 game pieces hidden throughout the CFE website, and a bonus clue led users to the CFE's Facebook page, which had to be "liked" in order to get the bonus piece. Each piece users collected entered them in a drawing for individual prizes, and users who collected all ten pieces had the chance to win $1,000.
The game ran for just less than two months, during which more than 3,600 users played the game, 92.4% of whom were members. (The game required registration via an e-mail address, which allowed the CU to track which users were and were not members).
Time On Site Doubles
"We realized fairly early in the process of the game that we were going to have mostly existing members playing the game, but what we didn't anticipate is that it would double the amount of time that people were spending on the individual pages of our website," said Dusch. New visitors to mycfe.org increased by 25% during that time, and Richard noted that "the way we measured the campaign is by looking at the number of new visitors to our website and their time on the site."
Richard estimated that the CU added about 100 new members as a result of the game (275 people who registered to play were non-members) and the CU "experienced a lift for the three months following," but Richard added that it's hard to tell how many of those new members were directly related to the Web Hunt. For non-members that played in the Web Hunt, CFE reached out to them through an e-mail thanking them for registering and explaining the benefits of credit union membership, followed by another e-mail, when the member got close to the end of the game, inviting them to join.
"It was not intrusive; it was more of a natural messaging as part of being a player in the game," said Richard. She added that the credit union was not able to track whether or not its loan volume grew as a result of the game.
Many CUs have attempted to run brand-awareness campaigns and grow their Facebook presence, but it continues to be a struggle for many. "My advice to credit unions would be to make the commitment," said Dusch. "Don't sort of do it; don't kind of commit to it. Make it a part of your marketing philosophy, because your members want it. They're looking for it."
Dusch added that as a result of the Web Hunt/Facebook project, CFE added a new full time position of Electronic Marketing Specialist, whose job is to keep an on-going dialogue with members, regardless of how positive or negative their attitude toward the CU is on Facebook.
"It's an opportunity for you to be transparent with your members or your potential members," said Richard. "It's not about selling-the last thing you want to do [on social media] is sell products. For financial institutions in particular, that's a scary thought. But believe it or not, the more real you are, the more [consumers are] going to trust you."
