SEATTLE-Verity CU here is launching the second incarnation of its "Verity Mom" campaign, but the promotion is just one piece of the CU's larger strategy of marketing to mothers.
The $367-million, 25,000-member credit union launched Verity Mom in 2009, hiring member Rosemary Garner for the one-year "Spokes Mom" position after she won the Verity Mom contest. Garner proved so successful that her tenure was extended by a year, but now VCU has brought the contest back for 2011 and is on the hunt for a new mom.
The winning mom will earn $20,000 (paid out as part of a one-year contact) and win a new laptop and HD video camera from Canon. She'll use those tools to blog about the credit union, create videos, and connect with other moms both online and at community events.
One result of the first Verity Mom project was successfully lowering the average member age by two years to 37 years old. Marketing Manager Melina Young pointed out that the new Verity Mom will likely be more focused on building the CU's presence through social media, and one of the goals this time around is "to continue increasing the number of moms that are aware of Verity Credit Union and get the word-of-mouth marketing to continue to grow."
The VerityMom.com blog will consist of posts about motherhood and about Verity CU, and Young said that the CU will be monitoring the Verity Mom's work in social media as a way to help grow business. "It's a fine line, because we don't want everyone to feel that if they follow or 'like' Verity Mom [on Facebook] that they're going to be inundated with new stuff from Verity Credit Union," she said. "Even though Verity Mom is a part of Verity Credit Union, they are considered separate; you can like and follow her without having to be a member."
A Demographic Mom Could Love
The funds for Verity Mom come from the CU's marketing budget, and Young said that the CU has internal tracking methods in place to determine how many Verity Mom followers are active members. She added that CU officials are also working on putting together campaigns to make sure those members are profitable members.
Shari Storm, Verity CU's SVP and chief marketing officer, said that the mom demographic is a great one for credit unions "because moms make the majority of household buying decisions; they're also a key influencer of where their children do their banking."
Storm, who authored the book "Motherhood Is the New MBA" and was featured in Redbook magazine and elsewhere in the media, said that Verity's board made the decision in 2008 to go after the mom market in part because no other CU had made a credible attempt to capture it.
As such, the Verity Mom contest is part of the larger strategy to focus on moms. The CU has even changed the way its branches are laid out in order to make them more kid-friendly. "I want kids to love coming to Verity Credit Union when they're 4, 5, 6 and 7 years old, because I want to win their hearts and minds when they're young," said Storm.
Branches have "kid stations," tellers have suckers and stickers and other items for kids, the CU hosts coloring contests, Easter egg hunts, visits from Santa and more. That makes it easier for moms, too, added Storm, because "it's much easier to run an errand if your kids love going to the place you're running into."
The Mother of All Targets
Verity also tailors its advertising toward mothers, and Storm pointed out that listeners are much more likely to catch Verity ads on radio stations that play artists like Madonna than on sports radio. She added that "moms feel really passionate about the causes that they support, so we try to integrate ourselves into those types of things."
For example, in 2010 the credit union sponsored a "Cartwheel for a Cause" contest (named after its Cartwheel checking product) in which members submitted a 60-second video about a cause they felt strongly about and had to incorporate a cartwheel. The winner won $5,000 for their chosen cause and $1,000 for themselves. "We had 37 applicants and the word-of-mouth marketing we got for that was astounding."
One member, noted Storm, even came in and opened a $150,000 equity line just because the CU had supported a local non-profit-and that wasn't even the winning charity.
Storm said that by continuing to craft the CU's products and marketing message toward the mom demographic, it was meeting the needs of other demographics at the same time.
"If bill pay works so well that a mom says 'I love it,' it probably works well enough for a 23-year-old guy who's not married or for a 75-year-old guy with no kids," said Storm. "If you can make a mom happy, it's a good measurement of if you can make a lot of the rest of your community happy."
