3 Ways to Spice Up Small Business Member Relationships

by: Kirstin Orr, Senior Associate Director of Marketing, NAFCU Services Corporation

There’s been a lot of attention surrounding small member business lending legislation, and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what the fuss is all about (credit unions are being denied the ability to lend to small businesses because of an outdated member business lending cap – thus, hindering the opportunity to help stimulate the economy by providing credit to small businesses, even though they have the money to lend. Rings a bell, right?). While raising the lending cap for small business members is still being debated on Capitol Hill, I thought I’d take a look at some other ways credit unions can help their small business members now.

The overarching theme is this: let them know you want them to succeed, and that you’re here to help them do it – let them know you care. Many credit unions spend a lot of time focusing on promotions and offers for individual consumers. Your business members (and prospective business members) are just as important. Developing a meaningful, lasting and yes, profitable relationship with them will help establish your credit union as their primary financial institution – and it will also distinguish you from any banks they might be working with!

With that said, let’s get to the good stuff… I threw together a few ideas that have come to my attention recently that are great, inexpensive (or even free) ways to engage your small business members:

1.  Offer them the opportunity to participate in your individual member promotions like credit card rewards points. By including the businesses of your members in a points program, you are helping to bring them business, helping stimulate the local economy and delivering a relevant benefit to your local consumer members.

Next steps? Talk to your rewards program provider about how easy it is to add local businesses to your program.

2.  Take part in promoting local or national contests for small businesses. There are a great deal out there, from The New York Times “Make Your Pitch” contest to our Preferred Partner Biz2Credit’s “Capitalize Your Dream” contest. The best part is you don’t have to coordinate the efforts of the contest beyond marketing it to your business members (Biz2Credit even gives you marketing ideas and materials)! And your small business members will love you even more for making them aware of such great opportunities for them.

Next steps? Check out the contests above or do a quick Google search for “small business contests.” It could be a simple as putting a link on your homepage or a message in their online banking portal. Yep, they’re FREE to promote.

3.  Don’t skimp on services. There are many things a small business needs to run successfully, going beyond the loans they acquire. Merchant services are one of the most common, yet also one of the most commonly overlooked solutions that credit unions can offer. There are many solutions out there that are tailored to help improve your revenue streams while you assist merchants with payment processing capabilities. The provider that you use is key to helping you provide the expertise, access, and support to your merchant members. Our Preferred Partner for merchant services happens to be Vantiv. Here’s a free, educational webinar from Vantiv to get you started in thinking about best practices for offering merchant services programs at your credit union (pardon the commercial, but free and educational can’t be all that bad, right?) Many providers that offer solutions to credit unions for business members also offer free software to help your business members in accounting, tracking their business functions and more. A nice little added value to your member relationship!

Next steps? Watch the free webinar and talk to your small business solution providers about other freebies they can give your members. The more tools for success you can offer your business members, the more they’ll engage with you and go to you for fulfillment of other business needs (Cha Ching!).

What are some other ways your credit union spices up your small business member offerings?

Kirstin Orr joined NAFCU Services in 2009. In her current role as Senior Associate Director of Marketing, she works closely with the NAFCU Services Preferred Partners to create educational, timely and free content for credit unions with the goal of offering useful information to help credit unions grow and be more productive. Prior to joining NAFCU Services, Kirstin worked in various marketing roles, ranging from email and analytics to graphics and Web design.  www.nafcu.org/nafcuservices