Posts by Sam Dicken
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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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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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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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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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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A second look at CU science fiction
Many years ago we wrote a post called “Credit Union Science Fiction” as an attempt at looking into the future. It was a fun, funky mental exercise that let us flex those precognitive muscles a little bit. After all, making predictions and planning for the future is an important part of every marketing strategy. We…
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Hey CUs, young people need your help
I’ve written at length about how credit unions can get noticed by Millennials. But sometimes it feels like people forget how time just keeps passing us by. Not to make anyone feel old, but as of 2022 millennials are now between the ages of 26 and 41. This means the vast majority of college grads…
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Student loans are crucial for making credit unions relevant to young people
Student loans continue to plague our youngest generations. This debt is keeping us from buying cars, buying houses, having kids, and generally moving on with our lives. Need proof? When the U.S. Department of Education offered to freeze student loan payments during the COVID-19 pandemic borrowers collectively agreed wholeheartedly. So much so that more than…
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Fun facts for TWOsday
Today is TWOsday, February 22nd 2022 (2-22-22) and that’s the most 2s we’ve had in a date since February 22nd, 1922. There’s only a handful of these dates every century, and two of them happened this month (2-2-22)! We wanted to take a moment to recognize today’s date, because chances are that none of us…
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3 reasons why your CU should be promoting sustainability
For an unfortunate number of people, sustainability is just another buzzword. Like “Organic” or “Eco-Friendly,” it’s just a bit of hippie dippy hooey that businesses pay lip-service to for PR reasons. In other words, it’s just a Marketing thing. Well I think that attitude is not just sad, but frustrating. It’s outright bogus and not…
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