Gosh, isn't it sort of mean to make Grandpa buy a new computer? This one's only ten years old...

Take an active role in member security

When we build a credit union web site, we get a lot of security questions related to compatibility with older browsers. Depending on who you ask and what numbers you believe, somewhere between 2% to 8% of the general public is still using very old versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer. Naturally, credit unions don’t want to leave…

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Time + attention + money = total resources

Money isn’t everything – budget time and attention too

What’s your total marketing resources? No, not just the number of dollars you spend on media, services, and clicky pens. I’m talking about the other parts of the equation: time and attention. Time + attention + money = total resources. Time, of course, is a combination of staff time (how much time can and should you…

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Every credit union has a unique local flavor

Can you taste the local difference?

Last week, I noticed a cool new package in the freezer at the grocery store. No-nonsense, retro-yet-high-tech, and irresistible next to the generic plastic bags. Priced only a little bit higher than the generic sweet corn from who-knows-where. What it contained was sweet corn. Indiana bicolor sweet corn. I visited the company’s web site (huskfoods.com),…

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Everyone can provide a plain old ordinary checking account or car loan for plain old ordinary average people.

Go find some weirdos

Quick, tell me about your members. No, not the average members. They’re boring. And you already know plenty about them. And so does everyone else. Find some weirdos. People out on the fringe. The ones who were in New Guinea last week, and are currently somewhere in Kazakhstan. The family thinking seriously about what kinds…

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What will you always do, no matter what?

Mission Statements are boring. What’s your Manifesto?

When we start on a branding project, one of the first things we usually see is the credit union’s “Mission Statement”. About 99.999% of the time, a committee has very carefully stripped it of any concrete meaning or use and it says the exact same things as every other mission statement. What I’m more interested…

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change the objective of your marketing from selling to helping

Would your members pay for your marketing?

What’s that you say? Pay? To receive our direct mail, emails and statement inserts? Uh, I don’t think so. Okay, then let’s look at this a different way. Would your members be willing to pay, say $5, for some information that would teach them how to save $50/month on a car loan? Absolutely. Over the…

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The value of Quality is far higher than its cost.

Five things I believe about Quality in CU marketing

The benefits of high Quality and the pitfalls of low Quality are obvious for things like airplanes and motorcycles. Without Quality in materials, design, craftsmanship, and maintenance, people die. Although the risks aren’t quite as immediate or dire, Quality is just as important in our corner of the world, credit union marketing. Quality – and…

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It's just easier to be honest.

I could never lie as a kid

I could never lie as a kid. At least not successfully. I was so bad at it, all you had to do was take one look at my face and you’d know. Every time I tried to cover something up, all I managed to do was get deeper in trouble. So I gave it up.…

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The credit union you imagined is the one you should be working to build right now.

Blow it up and start over

Let’s do a thought experiment. Close your eyes and imagine getting  everyone out safely of the building. Hustle them down the street and issue big bags of popcorn, party hats, confetti, and kazoos. All set? Count backwards from ten and then… Imagine blowing up the credit union. Now imagine how you would build a new credit…

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Sometimes you run across numbers that make you go HMMMM.

Five numbers that make you wonder about a CU

Whenever we talk with a potential new client, we head over to NCUA.gov and check out their numbers. It’s all public data, and not all that detailed, but after perusing a few hundred of these, we’ve learned how to gain some insights into a credit union’s situation and “attitude” just from poring over ratios and…

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