Posts Tagged ‘We Dare You’
Is Free just another word for Not Worth Paying For?
Credit unions have long championed giving certain services away for absolutely nothing: free checking, free bill pay, free ATM access, free shared branching, etc., etc. But are free services appreciated, or pretty much just expected? As designers and marketers, we get hit up all the time for free work. This charity needs a logo and this non-profit…
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Brand Loyalists are wimps. Build a Legion of Brand Fanatics.
Sure, Brand Loyalists boost your bottom line, talk about your brand, recommend it to their friends, use it on a daily basis, even teach their kids how to use it. And most companies would be happy to have them. Not me. I think you can do better. I think you can build your own legion of…
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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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Is your home page a welcome mat or a clown car?
I challenge you to go to a site you’ve never visited before. To make it even more random, ask a coworker or friend what their favorite site is, and go check it out. Now I’d like you to be objective and ask yourself the following questions as you look at the home page: Does it…
Read MoreIf I weren’t in Marketing, I’d probably be…
I never thought I’d be creating marketing for credit unions when I was growing up. I had no idea what advertising was, or a logo, or that people got paid for designing the cereal boxes I looked at every morning. Heck, I didn’t even know what a graphic designer was when I went to college.…
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Incredibly bad marketing advice
We’ve always tried to give you good marketing advice in order to help you grow your credit union. But where’s the fun in that? Besides, it’s late, and I want to go home, so here is some incredibly bad marketing advice instead. Enjoy. 1) Your logo isn’t sacred. Tweak it as much as you want.…
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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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Are you defending your pain?
Life is full of annoyances. Everyone of us has something that has been nagging at our brains, something we know is wrong and just needs to be fixed. That drive you kind of crazy, day after day. At home, it might be a squeaky door, a burned out light bulb where you need to haul…
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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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The $50 question
It’s easy to think of things to give away (free online banking, free bill pay, free overdraft protection, free checks, lower rates), but it’s a lot harder to add a large amount of value. (It’s even harder to actually ask for money.) So I’d like to propose a simple thought experiment: What could you add…
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