Executives at Financial Center First Credit Union wanted to figure out a way to determine the success of the $513 million institution's various marketing campaigns. So the marketing department created a return on investment (ROI) tracking program last year to evaluate exactly how well each campaign performed.
"Before implementing the ROI form, campaigns were put together haphazardly and often without clear, measurable objectives," said Daniel Kavanaugh, senior vice president and chief of sales and marketing at at the Indianapolis-based CU. "This made reporting on results after the campaign difficult and evaluating the effectiveness and profitability of the campaign next to impossible."
The program has four main goals:
- Demonstrate marketing's value to the organization by quantifying its impact on new member growth and existing member penetration/retention.
- Provide transparency into the campaign as a whole and ensure that all parties involved are laser focused on what's expected of them.
- Establish a clear process for evaluating proposed campaigns, such as defining measurable goals and expected profits; establishing a marketing budget to meet those goals; identifying other departments that need to be involved to make the campaign a success, tracking results; and reporting final ROI.
- Evaluate the effectiveness after the campaign ends. Will the CU repeat this initiative again as is, with changes or scrap it?
The program garnered Financial Center First a Best Practices Award from Credit Union Journal.
Since the tracking program was implemented last year, 11 of 14 marketing campaigns have a completed ROI. The total ROI produced from the 11 campaigns was $658,059, more than double the marketing spend of $300,359.
"Sometimes you can spend $300,000 and don't know what you've got back," Kavanaugh noted. "Now we can demonstrate it and that really improves credibility with management and the board."
The credit union's most profitable program so far has been a direct deposit checking conversion campaign, which generated some $78,000 in ROI with a $9,360 total spend. "It was really focused," he noted.
Kavanaugh said one of his favorite campaigns is a "Save to Win" program that gives members a chance to win $1,000 every month if they also purchase a $25 certificate of deposit. As a Certified Financial Planner, he said he is very focused on helping members save money. "I'm a big believer in that."
Financial Center First's ROI tracking can be used by credit unions of all sizes, according to Kavanaugh. He advises CU executives to consider all of the components involved before starting a similar program, adding that even if the ROI results are not positive, the process is still "a great evaluation tool."
