Improving the Member Experience With Video Marketing

Offering your members exceptional, personalized service in the branch is old hat for most credit unions, yet offering the same quality of service beyond the branch is not as easy of a task. Today, members of every generation want to receive service that is consistent, personalized and frictionless, no matter the channel – and to be successful at this, you must start to think outside the box (or branch).

From marketing to member onboarding to account inquiries, more and more of these service interactions are taking place through the online and mobile channels. And it’s becoming clear that there is a lot at stake if these channels are not satisfying the needs of your current and prospective members – especially for younger demographics, like millennials and Gen Zers. With members spending more time online and less time in branches, your credit union should be spending 95% of its time and resources building digital experiences that are frictionless and personalized.

Meeting the expectations of the digital-first millennial demographic may seem like it will require more effort and resources than your business can afford. But as a millennial myself, I can say with confidence that there are just three qualities that will allow your credit union to satisfy your younger demographics, time and time again: Ease, speed and relevance. If your credit union can uphold these traits in all of your marketing, service and sales interactions, you will be able to consistently add value for your younger member demographics.

Ease: Reduce Friction in Member Processes

Onboarding new members, verifying insurance with borrowers and sharing relevant offers with current members are three challenges facing credit unions. These experiences can be quite unpleasant from the member’s perspective, if not handled well. One recent observational study from Lightico found that 40% of college students applying for accounts at major banks (Bank of America, Citi, etc.) abandoned the onboarding application before finishing because of issues they encountered during the process.

Having digital tools to carry out these communications can go a long way in reducing friction and enhancing the member experience through these processes, which in turn can strengthen relationships with your members. Such digital communication tools include text, email and video – with video messaging offering an especially powerful solution for grabbing and keeping the attention of your members. With its visual appeal, concise messaging and creative branding capabilities, video is today’s highest performing digital medium, according to Social Media Today.

Speed: Enhance the On-the-Go Member Experience

More and more of the population leans on mobile and digital means of communication over in-person interactions, as they live on the go. One of the best ways to engage your on-the-go members is to deliver targeted, personalized video messaging. With the use of attention-grabbing imagery, text, sound and personalized messaging, videos have the ability to engage members, communicate information, and increase brand awareness in ways no other mediums can. Because of this fact, Cisco projects that by 2020, 82% of digital content will be video based.

For credit unions, sending out custom video messages alongside the more traditional methods of communication offers a great opportunity to simplify your digital interactions with new and existing members.

Relevance: Speak to Members’ Individual Needs

The more personalized and tailored you can make a message, the more impactful and engaging your communications will be. Video offers a way to communicate with your members and share helpful resources in a convenient, hyper-relevant format. These messages can be personalized to include member-specific information, such as the member’s first name, type of service (such as loan amount) and upcoming payment due dates.

By speaking to each member on an individual level, these videos can better capture and hold the attention of your members. The level of response experienced by credit unions utilizing video marketing to communicate with members has been a testament to this fact. In fact, an Allied Solutions case study showed that recipients of Allied’s SmartVideo messages tend to watch and engage with videos several times.

From Gen Zers to baby boomers, members today are handling most of their daily banking transactions online. Cut through the digital noise and grab the attention of your members by leveraging digital tools (like video) that will add ease, speed and relevance to every interaction.

Mallory Porter is Digital Solutions Program Manager for Allied Solutions. She can be reached at mallory.porter@alliedsolutions.net.