5 Marketing Traps to Avoid
Some credit unions move so fast with their marketing that they don’t actually see potential traps.
Have you ever been caught in a speed trap? You’re just buzzing (okay, speeding) along in your vehicle trying to get to your destination as quickly as possible. And then, all of a sudden you see red and blue lights in your rearview mirror. You’re now drinking a tall glass of “busted.”
Speed traps are tricky because as a “trap” there is often something we don’t know: Maybe it’s the speed limit, the hill that prevents us from seeing the police, or we are just zoned out and not concentrating.
Just like you want to avoid speed traps while driving, you also want to be mindful of several marketing traps to escape at your credit union. In other words, you might be moving so fast with your marketing that you actually don’t see a potential trap.
Here are five marketing traps to avoid:
1. The Inconsistency Trap
You can’t start marketing and then put the brakes on it. Marketing doesn’t work that way. Marketing takes consistency. Yet many credit unions will cut their marketing budget in order to save a few bucks as part of a cost-savings initiative.
But as Henry Ford once said, “Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time.”
When it comes to your marketing efforts, there is no failure—there is only feedback. If a particular campaign or strategy didn’t work that doesn’t mean you stop trying to reach members with your efforts. You learn from what worked and what didn’t.
In working with credit union clients all across the country, the difference we see between successful and unsuccessful marketing is consistency. Those credit unions that maintain a steady, continual marketing drip outperform those that only do marketing when they “need” to generate loans or deposits.
Avoid the inconsistency trap by never pulling back on your marketing.
2. The No Niche Trap
If you are trying to be all things to all people, good luck with that. It’s a terrible marketing strategy. You can’t reach everyone. So stop trying. Your credit union needs three to four target audiences that you excel at reaching. Focus on the niches, not the masses.
As business keynote speaker Donald Miller famously said, “niches lead to riches.”
When thinking about your niches, go beyond just demographic information. Research your members by asking these questions: What do your members want, what are their felt needs, what do they fear and what are their pain points?
The credit unions seeing the most growth have developed brand plans that clearly detail their target audiences. Their marketing connects because their efforts are focused.
Watch the no niche trap by clearly determining your target audiences.
3. The Employee Trap
Everyone is in marketing. Yet many credit union leaders believe marketing is a department. It’s not. Marketing is everyone’s responsibility. In fact, some of your best marketing is done at the employee level. Those one-on-one conversations with members.
You should never “declare from on high” the marketing edicts. Your staff works with the products and members every day. So get their feedback and ideas before launching a new campaign. Your credit union has a secret weapon when it comes to marketing: Your employees.
Some of the best marketing you can do is at the employee level. How? By having your employees create “wow” experiences for your members. Engage your employees in marketing by having them answer questions like: What is the experience you want to turn into a wow, how will members feel as a result of the wow and what does exceeding expectations look like?
Stay away from the employee trap by involving your employees in your marketing.
4. The Wordy Trap
Marketing is a word business. But when it comes to your messaging, you must remember that less is best. Simplicity wins.
For many credit unions, their messaging is not clear at all. It’s just too wordy. You need to cut, cut, cut and refine, refine, refine. For example, a campaign may start out as a simple auto loan promotion but then you add in messages about gap insurance, credit life and disability and other services. Suddenly a one message campaign has turned into a cluttered mess.
Some of the most common problems we see in our credit union marketing assessments include: Too much copy, no calls to action, a focus on features instead of benefits and not using “you” in the copy.
Avoid the wordy trap by communicating your message in as few of words as possible.
5. The ROI Trap
How effective is your marketing? What is the return on investment of your various campaigns? Can you even answer those questions? If not, then you’ve fallen into the ROI trap.
As John Wanamaker famously said, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.”
Marketing is just as much numbers as it is creative. While more creative campaigns certainly garner better results, the proof is still in the pudding. One easy way to calculate ROI is to simply take the net income generated from a campaign and divide that by your marketing acquisition costs.
Make sure you know your credit union’s most profitable products. And then heavily promote those in your efforts.
Avoid the ROI misstep by showing your marketing results.
Just like you can avoid speed traps, you can also watch out for marketing traps. They are everywhere at your credit union. But when you avoid these marketing traps, your growth actually speeds up.
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.