INDIANAPOLIS – Seeking more precise trends in pay scale and duties, the Marketing Association of Credit Unions is undertaking this month what it describes as a comprehensive salary survey of 2,500 marketing professionals in the U.S. "We realize Callahan's, CUES and others do surveys of marketers, but ours is vertical in nature and covers across the board the whole range of marketing positions within a credit union," explained Kent Lindeman executive director. The survey sent via e-mail and regular mail "will provide a benchmark of average salary and benefits" keyed to specific marketing jobs, years of experience, department composition, field of membership and CU size, said Lindeman. In addition, the survey will examine not only salaries of CEOs in small CUs who handle marketing but also staffers all the way to down to marketing coordinators and business development officers, he said. Results of the survey will be announced at MAC's annual conference May 24-26 in Palm Desert, Calif. with survey participants receiving a free copy of the results. Kate Kelly, MAC chairman and assistant vice president-marketing at Redwood CU in Santa Rosa, Calif., said the survey "is something our members have asked for for some time as a way of letting them know exactly where they stack up" in the compensation scale. Very often surveys done in the past by other organizations wind up on the CEO's desk or in human relations but "don't filter down or are shared with marketers," said Kelly. The new MAC survey is designed to show, more clearly, marketing structure within CUs. For instance, "this survey might tell us how many credit unions put business development under marketing or under branch operations," said Kelly noting also the data might also show reporting lines and the number of marketing positions in a typical CU. Findings from the survey and an analysis will be presented during a session entitled, "Money Matters: An In-Depth Look at CU Marketing Compensation Trends" during the Palm Desert meeting, she said. So far nearly 100 e-mail returns have already been received in the Indianapolis office, she said. All of the responses are anonymous. The survey, said Kelly, is the first major project of its kind in five years following MAC's reorganization into a national trade group with staffing headquarters here. Previously, MAC, known as the Marketing Association of California, drew its members primarily from California and Nevada CUs but now is getting many new members from the East Coast, Texas and elsewhere. -

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