ORLANDO, Fla. - FORUM CU has put its money where its members’ mouths are.
The billion-dollar Indianapolis-based credit union decided no one could tell the credit union’s story better than the members themselves.
“In six years of telling our story, we didn’t do a very good job,” related FORUM’s Andy Mattingly during his session at CU Journal’s Grow Show. “We discovered our members do a much better job.”
The six years Mattingly was referring to dates from the time the credit union changed its name from Indiana Telco to FORUM. What it found was trying to tell members, using “you” language, what was in it for them wasn’t nearly as possible as members themselves using “I” language telling other members and prospective members what’s in it for Numero Uno.
To do this, FORUM invited members to sign up on the website to be part of the marketing campaign.
After selecting some of the applicants, each member was put in front of a camera and asked a few simple questions about why they belong to FORUM and about some of the products and services they use.
The completely unscripted results were phrases like the following:
“If I could find a man like FORUM, I’d be married.”
“We’re bringing up our daughter the FORUM way.”
“FORUM makes me giddy.
Important note: these were actual phrases used by actual members who were not paid to say these things and who came up with these sentiments entirely on their own. The videos are rotated on the website, and excerpts of some of them were turned into bill boards.
In addition to finding a much more powerful way of telling the FORUM story, Mattingly said, it also became a viral marketing success, as well.
“We had one member who took a photo of herself by her billboard, then she e-mailed to everyone in her address book with a message saying, ‘hey, check me out on FORUM CU’s website,” Mattingly related. “You can’t pay for that kind of word of mouth.”
