Results-Based Marketing Yields, Well, Results

Think about your marketing. What is its purpose?

Is the purpose to send a certain number of emails or represent what the board chair deems attractive? Nope.

Marketing drives growth. The goal of your marketing is to yield results. That can be building brand awareness, increasing membership among younger generations, boosting deposit growth, take your pick.

Whether your credit union’s marketing is handled in-house or outsourced, with an experienced team that gets your brand, executives must understand how to lead and get out of the way. Among all the things you can take courses on or find information about, from leading a team to beaded jewelry making, there’s not a lot to teach you how to client.

I don’t care if you’re outsourcing IT or marketing; you’ve chosen to outsource because you don’t have the expertise or resources inside your team. You’ve done your due diligence, dug into the team’s experience and spoken with your colleagues who are clients. Let them do what they do best without micromanaging every font choice (unless it’s Comic Sans, but then you have a bigger problem).

Relationship Building

No credit union wants to agency hop, so building a strong and trusting relationship is critical to achieving top-notch results. A successful, long-term relationship between you and your credit union marketing agency means high levels of quality communication rooted in transparency. It sounds easy enough, but transparency requires a certain level of vulnerability and setting aside ego. That can be difficult.

But, once you’ve conquered communication and transparency, sharing goals and KPIs that are mutually agreed upon and aligned with your credit union’s strategic objectives is the only way to ensure proper measurement of success and identify what isn’t working. Whatever marketing firm you choose, it should set clear expectations and be completely transparent and candid about what they do well and what they don’t do well.

Expecting harmony is a recipe for disaster. Don’t fear tension. Your credit union marketing agency shouldn’t strive to be your best friend, as that leads to fear of confrontation and upsetting the relationship. Your credit union hired a marketing firm to help you solve a problem within your credit union, like a wide range of expertise ranging from video editing to copywriting.

Allowing those tough conversations, uncomfortable questions and fresh ideas that challenge the way you’ve always done things will result in a trusted, mutually beneficial, long-term relationship. Allow your agency to challenge you to find that unmet need that led to their hiring in the first place.

Driving Results

Credit union executives are great at running their credit unions but might need help understanding the nuances of marketing. At the same time, the credit union client must be clear on its objectives so the marketing agency can be most effective in its area of specialty. Your marketing agency should approach your credit union and its marketing from a place of curiosity and mutual respect. Ensure you each appreciate the other’s expertise.

Great Meadow Federal Credit Union ($61.4 million, Granville, N.Y.) CEO Ryan Roberts said as much recently, too: “We do not just want to find any marketing firm. We want to be challenged and pushed on our internal thoughts and ideas. Are we meeting our goals and staying true to our brand?”

Leaders willing to consider recommended changes internally and accept constructive criticism as intended are the ones whose credit unions will succeed in staying relevant. As the times change, it impacts different generations, their relationship with money and how credit unions might best reach them.

Credit unions have been talking about attracting younger members for decades, and the average age of a credit union member in the U.S. has increased to a startling 53, according to the World Council of Credit Unions. Instead of working strategically to bring in younger members, some credit unions continue to plod through the everyday fires instead of focusing on the time and energy-consuming critical changes. I tell my team, “Never say, ‘I didn’t have time.’ Instead, say, ‘It wasn’t a priority,” and see how fast the important things start getting done over the urgent fires.

The same goes for your budget. If you identify something as a priority, such as bringing younger members into your credit union, but never fund it, is it truly a priority? You may have to experience some necessary endings and shut the door on some legacy products, services or other budgetary items to make room for the new, more essential items that will make and keep your credit union relevant.

Because without that foundation, no marketing will get you where you need to be. If you market your credit union as high-tech, you better have the technology to back it up. If you aren’t closing loans quickly enough, cranking up the marketing will likely only exacerbate the problem. Credit unions must determine their brand, either change or support it, and then align marketing to that. Make that brand one that helps your credit union to survive and thrive by engaging, educating and retaining the next generation of members for big wins in long-term and short-term results.

Bo McDonald is CEO of Your Marketing Co. in Greenville, S.C.