Credit unions like yours have earned outstanding reputations in your local community. Your credit union is embedded in the fabric of community life, always keeping your members in the driver's seat. By nearly 2 to 1 margins, people feel that credit unions have their best interest than hearts versus a bank. In the same study, the data shows that credit unions are better supporters of their members' well-being than banks.
With all this positivity around your credit union, why aren't new accounts being opened daily? There are hundreds of thousands of monthly searches across the United States for credit unions, but this doesn't translate to more people banking with credit unions.
The truth is that the big national banks have the money and brand awareness to muscle out community credit unions like yours. Your offerings aren't the problem, but it could be the marketing.
How can your credit union get noticed in a competitive landscape? A well-built credit union marketing plan.
Where To Begin Your Marketing Plan
As with any solid plan, you'll want to begin your marketing plan at the end. Not the end marketing deliverables but the goal you want to achieve with your credit union marketing plan. This depends on the context and nuances of your credit union and community. However, it may take the form of increased membership or awareness of your credit union.
Whatever end goal you envision, it must be measurable. Otherwise, there won't be a way to identify whether the campaign achieved the stated goal. Those measurements are known as key performance indicators.
These can be general, like increased website traffic or social media engagement. Or, you can tailor them to your credit union and track metrics like increased phone calls and the number of forms filled out online for more information.
Establishing these goals and metrics early will make selecting which channels to pursue in your credit union digital marketing plan easier.
Employing Strategies That Work
Even after determining your end goal and your KPIs, there's still a broad universe of channels you may wish to pursue. How do you know which ones to pursue? Sound credit union marketing strategies take stock of the surrounding environment. See what your competitors are up to, whether they're other local credit unions or nearby banks. You should also take stock of your messaging, reviews, and reputation.
Once you understand where your competitors are in relation to your credit union, you can better strategize how to beat them. You'll also likely discover areas where your credit union marketing strategy can drive improvement.
While your unique context may vary, some critical credit union marketing strategies to utilize include a Search Engine Marketing Strategy and Over the Top marketing strategy.
Credit Union Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing is a broad category that includes paid and unpaid channels for driving traffic to your website. Employing search engine marketing strategies is one of the best ways to drive people to your website, whether searching for credit unions specifically or financial services more broadly. At the highest level, you can think of this approach as diverging into Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC).
SEO for Credit Unions
One of the first forms of search engine marketing that comes to mind is SEO. Broadly speaking, search engine optimization is how search engine users find your website after they search. As anyone who's used Google or Bing will tell you, they rarely scroll down past the first page. In fact, 75% of organic traffic comes from a search's first three results.
Getting to the top three is no easy feat. Your credit union marketing plan will need a robust emphasis on all aspects of search engine optimization to last far beyond a single campaign. This includes creating content for the website, having authoritative backlinks, and optimizing for mobile users.
Credit Union Content Ideas
Building out web content allows you to include keywords your potential members use when searching for financial products. You should aim to achieve this through optimized web pages, FAQ sections, and a dedicated blog.
Credit unions already have a strong reputation for trustworthiness and a mission to provide resources and knowledge to their community. If you don't already have a blog doing this, it should be a top priority in your credit union marketing strategy.
Not only is the blog a great way to drive traffic, it's also great for conversion. Your blog can break down complicated financial topics while highlighting financial products your credit union offers. For example, your blog can explain a particular loan and highlight your great rates. You can also time blogs around times of the year when bigger purchases occur, like pitching boat loans at the start of summer.
Building Authoritative Backlinks
This one may seem complex, but it builds off the work your credit union is already engaged in. Search engines like Google try to send their users to websites Google believes are authoritative and trustworthy. Google weighs various factors, but one often overlooked factor is authoritative backlinks.
Backlinks are links to your website from other websites. They are authoritative because the website sending people back to you is also trustworthy. If your credit union partners with local schools or colleges, ensure they have links back to you on their websites. The same is true for any nonprofits or businesses your credit union works with. Another conversion-focused partnership to grow would be with local real estate agencies or auto dealerships.
Optimize for Mobile Users
Businesses may appear at the top of a desktop search only to disappear when the exact search is done on mobile. Google's indexing bots want to ensure a smooth user experience, meaning that websites that aren't optimized for mobile aren't shown to mobile searchers.
Research now shows that over half the general population prefers mobile searches. If you're looking to grow lifelong credit union members, that means reaching Gen Z and Millenials. The same study shows that 80% of Gen Z users search primarily through mobile. A mobile-friendly experience is necessary, especially with the rise of mobile banking apps.
Pay-Per-Click
Another way to catapult to the top of the search page is through pay-per-click marketing. Deploying this strategy requires a keen understanding of the keywords your potential members use to find financial services.
Pay-per-click works like an instantaneous auction. You bid on specific keywords, and if yours is the winning bid, a link to your website will be displayed on that user's results page. However, you only pay for that spot if they click your link.
A grounded credit union marketing strategy should use all SEM tactics to reap the most rewards. A pay-per-click campaign without developed content pages might have users clicking out of your page just as fast as they clicked on it. In those cases, there's no return on investment.
Take Your Credit Union Over The Top
Credit unions play a crucial role in life-changing decisions. Credit unions make mortgages, auto loans, and retirement possible. All of which are highly emotional, momentous decisions. Written media may not be enough to hit home for potential members looking to make these financial moves. Sometimes, videos are your credit union marketing plan's best friend.
Should your strategy call for videos, you must know where to place them. Consider including Over-the-Top (OTT) marketing in your credit union marketing plan. While the name may seem like doing too much, it's an essential channel for reaching audiences. OTT refers to video advertisements that go "over the top" of traditional TV providers and instead use the Internet to reach customers.
OTT can include various forms of television online, including full-episode players like Prime Video or Hulu. Unlike traditional TV advertisements, OTT allows you to target a video to a specific audience, maximizing impact. OTT has become an essential component of any marketing strategy, with 99% of all U.S. households paying for at least one streaming service. If you want to provide an evocative pitch, OTT deserves a place in your credit union marketing strategy.
Built For You, Built For Success
Credit unions offer unique and trusted financial services in their communities. Their members routinely applaud their service, kindness, and dedication to their members' interests. Despite offering incredible care for members, non-members are often unaware of what they're missing out on.
It's time to change that. Let's start with a comprehensive credit union marketing plan to raise awareness of the great work your credit union is doing. Utilizing best practices for SEO, Pay-per-click, and Over-the-top, your credit union can increase web traffic, form fills, and phone calls to branches. But what if content marketing, mobile optimization, and video advertising aren't in your wheelhouse? Are you doomed to remain in the dark?
Don't panic. Turn to CMG Local Solutions for a premier partner in credit union marketing. When you need a credit union marketing strategy to raise your profile and membership, it must be built with you and your members at the heart. That's why our team stays on top of critical local trends so we know where your potential members are, what they care about, and how to speak to them.
