For More Effective Marketing, Play Up Your Strengths
Learn four ways credit unions can differentiate themselves from their megabank competitors.
Better member engagement and effective marketing continue to be hot topics across all industries, especially financial services. But for credit unions, modest budgets and limited resources sometimes hinders competitiveness, especially when it comes to competing with megabanks and their mega budgets. There is a solution: Play up your own strengths.
To compete with megabanks and better engage with existing and prospective members, credit unions should not only be smart with existing teams and budgets to maximize resources, they should also leverage their own unique strengths. Here are four examples.
1. Credit unions have feet on the streets. Literally! CEOs at credit unions shop at the same grocery stores and eat at the same local restaurants as their members. This not only allows them to directly interact with the community and build relationships, it gives them a pulse on what’s actually happening in their community.
How many times has someone in your community bumped into the CEO at one of the top 10 U.S. banks while getting their morning coffee at the local coffee shop? Megabanks never have opportunities to ask their customers how their families are. Credit union executives do. Take advantage of that. Credit unions must focus on their community and play to that advantage.
2. Credit unions are agile and nimble. Credit unions need to be creative and resourceful. Let’s face it, credit unions know their community the best – better than their megabank competitors. Credit unions must use that knowledge and community insight to their benefit.
Credit unions must also be willing to test ideas. If one fails, move on quickly to the next one. Continuously, credit unions should try new approaches until finding one that works exceptionally well.
3. Credit unions are known for their service. Two out of three U.S. adults would rather bank at a community financial institution than one of the big national banks, according to the latest Consumer Banking Insights Study. The reason is simple – consumers value the personal service received. Moreover, one in four customers at megabanks feels guilty for banking with a big bank.
Whether a credit union is looking to build engagement with existing account holders or grow its local market share, it must leverage its reputation as having a “people-first” approach and tout the superior service it is known for. We don’t need consumer research to know that the mega banks can’t do that.
4. Credit unions have relationships with local businesses. Small businesses, arguably the backbone of this country, are on the rise; in fact, according to research by the Small Business Administration, 99.9% of U.S. businesses are comprised of small businesses. Credit unions have a relationship with these businesses. Really strong relationships, in fact. Credit unions can leverage those relationships to not only better engage with their business members, but to truly help those members build and grow their business.
Additionally, these relationships can be mutually beneficial. For example, credit unions can team up with their community’s local bakery for a day and advertise that they will be there to open accounts on the spot. It’s a win-win. The bakery gets free exposure to grow their business and the credit union gets to leverage its traffic to build its membership.
Despite limited resources and small budgets compared to megabanks, maximizing existing resources and playing up their unique strengths can set credit unions apart from the rest. Credit unions can not only increase membership, but strengthen member loyalty and satisfaction, creating a major competitive advantage over megabanks. And who doesn’t want that?
Keith Brannan is chief marketing officer for Kasasa. He can be reached at keith.brannan@kasasa.com.