Binkley said Altura's been able to garner fee income by connecting members to car-buying service Auto Expert, for example. Auto dealers pay the credit union a referral fee.

"The member's not paying for it, but we're making money off of it," she said.

Auto Expert is a subsidiary of Altura and has partnered with more than two dozen other credit unions. Its revenues were up by double digits year over year, Binkley noted.

"One of the things we're really trying to push forward is what new products or services can we offer, and how do we offer them," she said. "Do members want them? And next is how do we make them make money for us? Sometimes when you're testing things out, you can't really make them profitable in the beginning."

Conventional Objective: Promote Revenue-Driving Offers Modern Tactic: Stop Making Everyone the Same Offer

Traditional campaigns for credit union products and services that grow noninterest income often come off like that famous episode of "Oprah": You get an offer, you get an offer and you get an offer. Altura is rethinking that and tinkering with customized platforms and communications that are carefully targeted to specific members.

"We can add members that have a loan; we can give them every quarter their updated FICO score as a free offer," Binkley noted as an example. "Maybe we'll offer it on some, and maybe some can do an upcharge if they want to see it."

The idea is to combine the credit union's online banking functions with other services that some members typically go elsewhere to get – and pay for, too.

"I think it's really about how we tie and link those, and we still create value for the member," she said.

Conventional Objective: Increase Interchange by Encouraging Card Use Modern Tactic: Embed Shopping Apps

Credit unions have long known that more card use typically means more interchange for card issuers. What's changing is how they encourage that card use.

The Pittsfield, Mass.-based Greylock Federal Credit Union, for example, redesigned how it went after noninterest income by launching its ChaChing offering in September. The product works on members' smartphones and tells them about perks, benefits and discounts available at local merchants. Using the GPS feature on their phones, ChaChing sends mobile alerts offering discounts when members are near participating merchants. Members get the deals when they present the offers on their phones and pay with their Greylock credit or debit cards.

Spokesperson Chris Gregor said the launch is so new that Greylock, which has $1.1 billion in assets and about 82,000 members, doesn't have accurate performance data yet. But the idea is to capitalize on members' growing mobile use.

"We can say that our goals with the product are to increase debit card use and therefore interchange income, but also to more frequently engage with our electronically-minded members and to help them save money," he said.

Conventional Objective: Grow Deposits; Grow Noninterest Income Modern Tactic: Focus on Relationships More Than Deposits

Many credit unions narrowly fixate on the relationship between deposits and noninterest income, but Binkley said Altura has been setting goals that revolve more around new checking relationships than memberships and balances, she said.

"I think traditionally, in the branches, the frontline, we used to always place deposit goals for the year and we'd say, 'Grow deposits by X amount,'" Binkley explained. "We really changed that for us during the recession. We're in California, where we didn't want our capital ratio to go down. We didn't want more assets in terms of balances, but we wanted more relationships because noninterest income was the one thing we could still continue to do. What we started goaling them on were new checking relationships, not in memberships, and not balances."

"A certificate doesn't help the credit union as much as if I could bring in a checking relationship. I can cross-sell a Visa for overdraft, and I can give them a debit card that can actually make it this robust relationship," she said.

Conventional Objective: Be Top-of-Mind for Everyday Financial Decisions Tactic: Promote Your Ability to Get Members a Discount

Providing ancillary loan products such as GAP insurance may not be the most glamorous part of the credit union business, but when they cost two or three times more if they're purchased elsewhere, there's an opportunity for credit unions to become a bigger part of their members' financial lives, Binkley said.

Altura has made a conscious effort to offer GAP insurance at a discounted rate from what members would pay if they bought it at a dealership or elsewhere in the open market, she noted. The same goes for credit-reporting tools, she added.

"Maybe we can't do it for free and we're still making money, but we're able to offer it at a discount for them, so it's still a value," Binkley said.

Ultimately, however, the most modern tactic of all for growing noninterest income may actually be one of the oldest concepts in finance: Diversification.

"I think the moment we sit here and we go, 'Oh, we're happy with this one channel,' things happen," Binkley warned.