How to Hit the Ground Running With Your Credit Union Marketing in 2024

I know what you’re thinking with a headline like that. Market? In this economy? Are you kidding me?

I get it.

Budgets are tight. Ratios are off-kilter. Regulatory changes are maddening.

But here’s the reality: If you wait to market your credit union until we’re in a better economy, consumers will have long forgotten you. And by then, it will be too late.

To grow successfully in 2024, you must hit the ground running with your credit union marketing. There’s no way around it. Marketing touches everything at your credit union. Now is not the time to cut marketing, it’s the time to invest in marketing.

Here are six ways you can hit the ground running with your credit union marketing in 2024.

1. Take Imperfect Action

It’s easy to get sucked into a planning vortex. We color code our planners, set up our spreadsheets, build our marketing calendars … only to look up and realize it’s already March.

If you want to hit the ground running in 2024, then it’s time to stop planning and start doing. As Eckhart Tolle, author of “The Power of Now,” says, “Any action is often better than no action.”

Diving in like this may mean you do things before you feel ready. That’s okay. As Steph Taylor says on her “Imperfect Action” podcast, you need to prioritize consistent action over perfect action.

It’s better to be in the game and miss a few shots than to not be in the game at all.

2. Conduct a Marketing Assessment

One of the most important things you can do to have success in 2024 is to assess where you are now. Are you spending your marketing resources on the right things? Does every one dollar you spend on marketing generate at least two dollars?

If you don’t know the answers to these questions, then it’s time to conduct a marketing assessment. Here’s what a good marketing assessment will show you:

• What marketing to keep doing;
• What marketing to stop doing; and
• Strategic and tactical suggestions for maximizing your marketing.

As one credit union CEO said about her credit union’s marketing, “We’ve learned to glance at our competition and glare at ourselves.”

3. Focus on Low-Hanging Fruit

What’s the easiest way to grow your credit union in 2024? Focus on marketing to existing members. Big, public marketing campaigns may be cooler, but marketing to members is more effective for your bottom line nine times out of 10.

In 2024, make products per household a major Key Performance Indicator. You’ll see a better ROI than mass marketing or trying to acquire new members.

Here’s a list of low-hanging fruit to get you started:

• Members with checking accounts but no loans;
• Members with loans but no checking accounts; and
• Members who joined the credit union within the last year.

As an example, Bankrate.com reports that 57% of U.S. couples keep at least some of their money in separate accounts, a number that rises to 69% when talking about millennials. If you’re looking for deposits, there’s some easy low-hanging fruit. Your members do not have all their money with you. So simply ask them to bring you funds they have elsewhere.

Keeping your existing members is just as important, if not more important, as bringing in new ones. You must close your credit union’s back door and keep members from leaving.

4. Simplify Your Messaging

Marketing guru Donald Miller says it best: “Clarity rules.” Is your marketing message easy to understand?

In 2024, don’t add to your marketing message. Cut it. The best marketing strategies and tactics are simple.

In his book “Simply Put: Why Clear Messages Win – And How to Design Them,” author Ben Guttmann explains that the most effective messages aren’t the ones with the least amount of words. They’re the ones with the least amount of friction.

Credit union acronyms and financial jargon notoriously add friction to your message.

Think of track and field athletes. Sprint runners naturally have faster times than hurdle runners, even though they’re running the same track. Why? Because there are things hurdle runners must jump over.

Stop putting hurdles in the way of your marketing.

5. Outsource (Some) of Your Marketing Efforts

Most credit union marketers wear multiple hats. And even for the best, it’s hard to do it all yourself.

One solution is to outsource some of your credit union marketing efforts. By bringing in a team of experts, you can turbo charge your marketing and save your credit union money in the process (a marketing agency is almost always cheaper than an FTE with benefits). That means higher ROI.

Here are suggestions for outsourcing:

• Social media
• Graphic design
• Copywriting
• Campaign development

You could outsource some of your marketing or all of it, whatever works best for your credit union.

6. Leverage Artificial Intelligence Tools

If time is your enemy, then AI is your friend.

ChatGPT can’t think strategically for you (it says it can, but do you really want it to?) but it and other AI tools like it can dramatically increase efficiency when it comes to executing that strategy. The less time you spend writing blog posts, emails, headlines and social media posts, the more time you have to think strategically.

Take a page from these brands who have creatively used AI to execute their business strategies:

• Spotify debuted an AI DJ;
• Snapple created an AI tool to generate the facts on its bottle caps; and
• Taco chain Velvet Taco launched Chat GPTaco, a menu item created entirely by AI.

Of course, you’ll want to make sure the program understands your brand’s voice.

Hopefully now you’re equipped to hit the ground running with your marketing in 2024. We’re rooting for you.

Mark Arnold is founder and president of On the Mark Strategies, a Dallas, Texas-based consulting firm specializing in branding and strategic planning for credit unions.