Recommendations and Resources
Here at iDiz, we hope it’s obvious that we believe in the power of the credit union movement.
Our vision is that those of us who serve the credit union movement – vendors, CUSOs, consultants, and other solution providers – will also participate in the eight core credit union principles.
In particular, we believe that the spirit of the sixth principle, “cooperation among cooperatives” should also apply to those who serve credit unions. When we work together we can achieve more, elevate credit unions and their members, and make the world a better place.
Below you'll find lists of CUSOs, companies, and people we've partnered with, collaborated with, spoken with, or just heard great things about.
Got feedback? Questions? Want to get on the list? Is there someone we should know about? Get in touch!
We’re starting to see some amazing and unique marketing automation and data-driven marketing platforms pop up. They all solve different things in different ways, and every credit union is in a different place in their journey – take your time making your choices.
And of course, with any marketing automation, you have to make sure your solutions are driven by a coherent, high-level strategy. Plus, you’ll need to supply content — we’re happy to help you make the most of your automation.
Lemnisk
There’s been a lot of attention on marketing automation for credit unions, and this is one of the more complete and polished solutions we’ve seen, with reasonable costs and learning curve.
https://www.lemnisk.co/banking/
Act-On
You could say much the same about Act-On’s platform; polished, complete, and well worth a look as your credit union moves into marketing automation.
https://act-on.com/industries/banking/
CRMNEXT
We’ve heard great things about CRMNEXT, a CRM and marketing platform made specifically for financial institutions.
https://crmnext.us/
Onovative CoreIQ
This is a polished, purpose-built marketing platform built for financial institutions that combines MCIF, email, and CRM features. We have a few clients in common, and we’ve been impressed by what we’ve seen!
https://onovativebanking.com/
Leading2Leadership
Rich Jones has been a friend and a leader in the CU movement for a long time. Facing challenges in leadership, transformation, and data? For speaking gigs, interim leadership roles, strategic planning, leadership development, and cultural transformation engagements, contact him here.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/leading2leadership
BRaas (Becky Reed as a Service)
Becky Reed is a credit union industry veteran, visionary, innovator, and thought leader with more than two decades of leadership in credit unions and CUSOs. She’s recently started BRaas, “Becky Reed as a Service” to help credit unions stay at the forefront of technology and member experience.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/becky-reed-50056518
These are some of the brilliant solutions we've been seeing for busy CU marketers seeking to deepen connections to their members and their communities, get a handle on data, and maybe even streamline and save time!
Extole
Ever try to run a member referral marketing program? The logistics turn into a nightmare fast. Extole handles all the matching and details for you. It’s a brilliant solution to one of the toughest CU marketing problems.
https://www.extole.com/banks-credit-unions/
IntelligenceBank
IntelligenceBank offers some very interesting digital asset and brand management tools, great for large or scattered teams.
https://www.intelligencebank.com/
SocialAssurance
This is a very nice suite of digital and social media marketing, compliance, and community development tools.
https://socialassurance.com/credit-unions/
Trellance
From deep dive analytics, to cloud services and outsourced talent, Trellance has a huge range of technology, resources, and services to keep credit unions on the cutting edge.
https://www.trellance.com/
* Full disclosure: we have a referral agreement with this partner, so we may receive a payment for any new credit union clients we send their way. We only enter partnerships when there’s a clear, synergistic benefit to our mutual clients and their members, when there’s extraordinary value, and when we can wholeheartedly recommend their services.
NxtLevelDocs Statements
In a nutshell, NxtLevelDocs has solved statements. Fast, frugal, and frustration-free statements and e-statements are better for you, your members, and your credit union.
https://www.nxtleveldocs.com/
Connect - Digital Banking
Connect’s Emerge platform lets credit unions create and customize a complete online and mobile digital banking experience.
https://www.connectfss.com/
AUX - Outsourced Back-Office Services
AUX is a CUSO focused on outsourcing back-office services for credit unions, including accounting, compliance, data analytics, and more. We love the name, we love the paper ox logo, and we love the concept -- it’s a lot like what we do for marketing with our Virtual Marketing Department.
https://auxteam.com/
Alloya Corporate Federal Credit Union
We’ve worked with Alloya for many years. They offer a huge array of services for credit unions, but with one simple concept at the core: simplifying life for their member credit unions, and making life better for your members.
https://www.alloyacorp.org/
WP Engine - Managed WordPress Hosting
WP Engine is the first, largest, and in our opinion, the best provider of managed hosting for WordPress. Credit union websites demand reliability, security, and speed at reasonable cost, and we've found that WP Engine delivers on all counts. From our perspective, WP Engine makes managing dozens of websites quick and straightforward, and their support has been superb.
Name.com - Domain Name Registration, DNS
We've used and highly recommended name.com for several years. Prices are reasonable, their domain name registration management and DNS management tools are the clearest, cleanest, and easiest we've seen, and their support (rarely needed) is excellent. They're US-based, which we've found is very important for ensuring top-notch support, reliability, and speed. We've also found that Name.com's DNS services are far more reliable than the "bigger" names you've heard of, plus they don't spam you endlessly.
https://www.name.com/
Dreamhost - Cheap, Simple Dev Hosting
Sometimes you just need inexpensive hosting without all the bells and whistles to try things out, store and transmit files, and so on, and you don't need advanced monitoring and security. And if you're developing code, it's best to do that somewhere besides your main hosting.
We've used Dreamhost for many years for these sort of web-based odds and ends. They're US-based, independent, employee-owned, and on the very rare occasions we've needed it, their support is excellent.
https://www.dreamhost.com/
Nodeping - Easy website monitoring
We monitor all our client's websites 24/7/365 in many different ways. We can highly recommend Nodeping when you need super-simple, fast, reliable, and inexpensive uptime monitoring. There are tons of options for many types of checkups and alerts, including DNS and domain name issues. (And don't worry; if we built your website, we're already monitoring it using Nodeping and several other methods.)
https://nodeping.com/
WAVE2 - Branch and ATM locators
WAVE2 is an iDiz Partner*, and our recommended solution to show all your own branches, ATMs, surcharge-free network ATMs, shared branches, retail placements, and more in one cohesive solution. Plus it works on your website, mobile apps, and online banking. (They're also friends, so tell everyone at WAVE2 we said "hi" when you call.)
https://wave2locator.com/idiz/
Coconut Software - Online Appointment Calendars
This is an online appointment scheduling system targeted to financial institutions. Our clients using Coconut Calendar are very happy, their members love it, and implementation was a breeze.
https://www.coconutsoftware.com/
Cognito - Secure Forms
We usually recommend Cognito for our clients who need the ability to build and manage simple, cost-effective secure online forms. You get a wide array of tools for easily creating forms and collecting and managing data, along with plenty of integrations to work smoothly with email marketing. They're US-based and offer high standards of security and data control. This blog article has more details: How to add secure forms to your credit union website
https://www.cognitoforms.com/
Financial Calculators
We explained the options in more detail in this blog article: How to Add Financial Calculators to Your Credit Union Website. These include:
And, of course, we can program custom calculators if you need something specialized.
Website Images
Website Image Editing & Optimization
Away from your work machine? Don't feel like firing up Photoshop? Don't even have Photoshop? We use these amazingly capable free online image editors pretty regularly for quick tweaks to website images.
Forgot to optimize when you exported an image? Tinypng does just one thing, and it does it extremely well (not to mention it's fast and free); it optimizes the file size of your image without making it look any different.
Royalty-free Photos
* Full disclosure: we have a referral agreement with this partner, so we may receive a payment for any new credit union clients we send their way. We only enter partnerships when there’s a clear, synergistic benefit to our mutual clients and their members, when there’s extraordinary value, and when we can wholeheartedly recommend their services.
Google Workspace
We've run our business with Google Workspace for years (until recently, this was called Gsuite). It started with Gmail, and over time they've added a complete suite of amazing productivity tools and apps.
Gmail has the planet's best spam filtering and stellar email security, and we use Google Meet, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and other apps all the time to collaborate and create.
https://workspace.google.com/