The Members Group, the payments processing CUSO affiliated with the Iowa Credit Union League, reports record numbers of its financial institution clients are seeking its help with card promotions.

The organization said in a release Monday that so far this year, three times the number of credit unions and community bank clients than last year have asked for its help with setting promotional rates, balance transfer programs, skip a payment offers and rewards promotions. It also reports it is working with several credit unions on targeted promotional efforts based on their members' previous card use.

“The holiday shopping season has traditionally been one of the most popular times of the year for card promotions,” said Georgann Smith, TMG's vice president of marketing. “We attribute much of this year's uptick in requests to an increasing awareness among our clients of the highly competitive credit card marketing environment. As well, many have come to understand the power of portfolio segmentation in marketing and are looking to get their feet wet with business intelligence strategies.”

One credit union using the targeted marketing promotions is the 39,000-member, $352 million Heritage Family Credit Union in Rutland, Vt.

HFCU is using TMG's Catalyst program to offer to swap out double or triple reward offers for cash-back reward offers as well as offering credit line increases to members most likely to respond to them, TMG said.

Doing the targeting helps the credit union launch more-efficient card marketing efforts.

“Working in conjunction with TMG to understand the right offers for the right cardholders has been an important part of our marketing strategy for the 2013 holiday spending season,” said Mary Notte, HFCU Visa coordinator. “It's important to us, as a member-owned organization, that we extend only those offers our cardholders will truly value. Doing so also helps us control costs by not pushing out ineffective promotions.”