Some ideas for CUs inspired by things that aren’t CUs.

Strategic inspiration to help credit unions mix things up

Have you heard the saying about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? There’s a lot of power in good branding, authentic messaging and a creative loan campaign, but sometimes you should be looking elsewhere for inspiration. You might be surprised at how many fresh new ideas you can find when…

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Show them how a credit union really is different.

3 ways to earn your members’ trust

There’s an old saying, “May you live in interesting times,” which supposedly refers back to an old curse. If you’ve not heard of it before, the gist is that it’s better to live in a “boring” time of peace and prosperity instead of an “interesting” time of conflict and change. And when it comes to…

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Is ChatGPT my new arch nemesis?

Is AI going to steal my job?

According to the internet, ChatGPT is the newest hot-topic artificial intelligence that’s apparently going to steal my job and take over the world! ARGH! I wanted to know more about this scourge upon humanity, so I turned to every millennial’s secret work weapon: Looking it up on Google. Despite the doomsayers, ChatGPT is just a…

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You can do anything, but what should you do?

3 ways to get BIG results from your tiny social media budget

It seems like budget is the Achilles’ heel of social media managers, regardless of industry. In my experience, this is equally true at credit unions. The reality is that your social media budget has to compete with the rest of your marketing goals, and might get ignored as a result.  The good news is that…

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Make some simple, but important, changes

5 ways to get better social media results next year

We all know the way social media goes. In January you pull out your brand new social media strategy, you know, the one you were so excited to implement. You’re certain that this is the year… Then it’s suddenly April, and things have gotten so busy. As the year goes on, you tend to fall back…

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Show them, transparently, how it all works.

Let’s get unapologetically, radically transparent

No, I don’t mean transparent as in “invisible” or “see-through,” and I certainly don’t mean “difficult-to-find.” The word transparency could refer to a lot of things inside a credit union, but for our purposes we just have to ask one question:  Do people know how a credit union works? We know that people see “credit…

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Get real with financial education, and you’re going to see real results.

We need Financial Education for those not-so-happy times

When members come to your credit union for a mortgage or a car loan, it often feels amazing. Helping someone start a retirement account feels smart and safe. But there are a lot of life events that don’t give us those warm-fuzzies. If you spend any time on the r/personalfinance subreddit, you’ll see a lot…

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Is your website actually usable, or are you just used to it?

Do you have website blindness?

Is your website actually usable, or are you just used to it? If you’re working with your website frequently or even daily, you might feel like your website is truly, actually user-friendly. But the problem is, you’re too close to it. You might have website blindness. It’s easy for you to navigate a website when…

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This ain't your granny's marketing

3 questions to help you maximize your social media marketing

A lot of people are treating social media marketing exactly like every other type of marketing. They think that if they put an ad on a social media platform, people will just show up. “If you build it, they will come” and all that. But you’re not Kevin Costner, and this ain’t your granny’s marketing.…

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Mistakes happen, but this industry is built on customer service

Don’t be like an airline

You might not think that an airline has a lot in common with a credit union. But when you think about it, people come to both airlines and CUs because they want to do something else. No one I know rides commercial airlines or takes out loans because they enjoy doing those things. Both airlines…

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