Posts by Sam Dicken
Get face-to-face with the Financial Education Monster
This pesky pain-in-the-neck likes to sit in the periphery. The Financial Education monster lurks just out of view, a persistent reminder of a mostly unfulfilled promise you made to your members. And even worse, your members can see the scruffy, generic, little rascal, too. Here’s how to brush up the Financial Education Monster, give him…
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Quick wins CUs can get done NOW
Suddenly CU budget season is right around the corner, and the end of the year is within sight. Which means there’s another year-end review with your boss and you still haven’t gotten that list of To-Dos done, much less hit all those goals she set for the year! OMG! It’s okay. Don’t panic. Simply take…
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Boats Aren’t Motorcycles
As a marketer, you can slap an image of a car or a house on your ad for an auto loan or a home loan and most people will get it. But what if you want to offer loans for boats, RVs, ATVs and UTVs, electric bikes, snowmobiles or jet skis? And what do you…
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Website accessibility and translation go hand-in-hand
For some people, website translation (and other forms of web accessibility) seem like more of a compliance issue than anything else. They only want to do what’s necessary to avoid any accusations or complications, and no more. Once done, the translations and other changes will likely sit there. They’ll be untouched by future updates, because…
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Why clarity is King for marketing to English language learners
Many a Marketing 101 student in has heard the tales of the Chevy Nova and Colgate. In these stories, a lack of diversity or language research led to embarrassment and abysmal sales in Latin American markets. A great first lesson in international marketing, or marketing to English language learners, right? Well, it turns out that…
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The Gig Economy and how credit unions can help
As a millennial it’s weird that I get to say this, but here it goes: the economy and the workforce don’t work the same way they used to. A significant portion of adults are now a part of the Gig Economy and we’re seeing a decline in full-time, salaried positions with benefits as we navigate…
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What your credit union needs to know about Facebook
If your credit union has been just kind of existing on Facebook, here’s how to turn your page into a Facebook engagement phenomenon.
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What young people actually want (part 2)
A few weeks ago I started asking the young people I know about the things they want from a financial institution. I received a flood of opinions and wrote up some of their main ideas, but now it’s time to get specific: Credit unions have an awareness problem, particularly with young people. Credit unions and…
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What young people actually want (part 1)
If you don’t want to talk to young people, I get it. Their memes are confusing and their fashion choices can be scary. But you can’t grow younger if you aren’t really sure what these folks want. The good news is that I went out and talked to the youths for you, and they had…
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Speaking Spanish is my superpower
You wouldn’t know it from my current curmudgeonly outlook, but I was not a particularly shy kid. To hear my family tell it, I could have held a conversation with a brick wall as long as it nodded in the right places. I had this deep-seated need to make friends and be liked. I wanted…
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