ORLANDO-Any credit union can make an impression with its marketing and branding. But as one person stressed during Credit Union Journal's Grow Show, a CU must repeatedly hammer away at the same message while also giving people a reason to take notice.
"Men shop, bank and date because of convenience," quipped credit union consultant Paul J. Lucas. "Women do it because of value. The best credit union member you can go after is a woman. When you do something good for a woman, she's going to go out and tell everybody. When you do something good for a man, he forgets it!"
Jokes aside, Lucas stressed to the crowd that especially in a current low-rate environment, credit unions have to pound away at their messaging while always emphasizing the value they can bring to the member's life.
Lucas recalled that in work he did to rebrand Department of Commerce FCU. The fundamental job, he said, was to understand the membership and craft the right message for that audience. The result was the tageline, "Live well, below your means." Not only was the message clever and attention-grabbing, but it spoke directly to the membership and emphasized the CU's value proposition.
"A brand is useless without personality," he said, adding that taglines should not only help recall the brand name, but should differentiate and make the brand competitive. Lucas offered "Life Takes Visa" and "What's In Your Wallet?" as two examples from outside the credit union space.
Wow!
Also, consumers must have a reason to pay attention. Because people receive so much junk via both e-mail and the Postal Service it's easy for people to skip over something unless they have a reason to take notice.
Lucas-as well as First Entertainment CU VP Roy MacKinnon, who presented with him-noted that the most successful e-mail subject heading used by the Obama re-election campaign simply said "Wow."
Recipients wanted to know what the "Wow" was about, and clicked to open those e-mails. To prove that that strategy can work for CUs, the pair said they had both tried to "Wow" credit union members. The result? Double the open and click-through rate on those messages compared with the usual response.
