Wait.
You’re probably thinking, “There’s no way you can be writing about the wayscredit unions can boost their broadcast marketing efforts.”
Believe it.
“But, don’t you only focus on digital marketing?”
Yes. That is true.
And we will continue to focus our efforts at CU Growon helping credit unions use digital marketing totell stories that sell because digital is such a rapidly changing
environment that it requires a deep level of expertise.
Here’s another way to think about it.
General marketing firms, also known as full service or branding firms, aremore like generalist doctors. They may know a little about a lot but theylack deep expertise in critical areas. For example, your GeneralPractitioner would refer you to a cardiologist if he found a potentialissue with your heart.
We believe the same kind of expertise model is needed for credit unionmarketing.
Specifically for credit union digital marketing.
Through our digital marketing assessments, we are finding that creditunions and full service marketing firms could use some guidance in a humanizeddigital economy.
Let me be clear here.
There is no one to blame for this and I am not pointing fingers at anyone.Even as an expert and teacher, I will always be the student in certainsituations.
Today, I only want to provide a recommendation that could benefit bothcredit unions and full service marketing firms alike.
And if you are a general, full service marketing firm, this one idea couldmake your firm look like a rock star to the credit unions you work with.
The Number One Flaw of Broadcast Marketing
I have written about the challenges confronting credit unions as they havebuilt business models around branches and broadcastmarketing. From my perspective, it does not look like either will be goingaway by the end of the year.
A common pattern we are discovering in our digital marketing assessments ofcredit unions is that the calls to action (CTA) found in broadcastchannels, such as direct mail, TV and radio spots, are wrong.
The problem from our perspective is that these CTAs direct consumers to acredit union’s home page. This is a major friction point for credit unionslooking to increase conversions for loans and new accounts.
CTAs should NOT direct consumers to your credit union’s home page. Becauseto be blunt, your homepage has not been optimized for conversions.
Here’s a Real World Exercise to Try
Let’s assume your credit union is running a summer home equity loanpromotion. You are running TV, radio, direct mail and even email messagesin your market. Currently, all of these channels have CTAs directing aconsumer to “visityourlocalcu.comto apply.”
Now take a moment and put yourself into the shoes of a consumer. In thisrole, ask yourself the following questions:
What does this journey look like?
How many clicks must I take to get to where I need to go next?
Would I even apply for a loan on the first visit?
What other pieces of information would be helpful in making a decision
to apply?
How long does this entire process take?
If I’m not ready to apply, how would I be reminded down the road?
Most likely, you just tried walking through these steps on your desktopcomputer.
Now do the same exercise but this time, make sure you use your mobiledevice. What does the journey look like now? Is your mobile site optimizedfor a current member or a prospective consumer looking to convert?
Once you have completed this exercise, get your peers at your credit unionto do the same thing and compare notes. Maybe even bring in a few membersand consumers from your community and have them go through the steps above.
The goal is to find out where the friction is in the consumer journey andfigure out ways to eliminate it.
Make Journey Mapping a Part of Every Marketing Campaign
One way to eliminate consumer journey friction is to simply make journeymapping a part of every marketing campaign. To get you started, here are sevenkey stepsthat make up the digital journey.
I can share that from our findings and recommendations, we have savedcredit unions hundreds of thousands of dollars in wasted media buys alongwith boosting conversions for loans and new account.
All by making consumer journey mappinga part of theprocess.
Many of the credit unions we consult with also work with generalist or fullservice marketing firms who are assisting with the execution of the thesemarketing campaigns.
Instead of making the call to action “visityourlocalcu.comto apply”, werecommend you try one of the following:
1. A direct URL to a specific page like “visityourlocalcu.com/heloctoapply.”
2. A campaign specific URL like “visitsummerheloc.comto apply.” Thiscampaign URL could be setup to point to a subpage on your website.
However, there is a better solution than that.
Love Your Landing Pages and They Will Love You
Instead of directing consumers to a subpage on your website, considerdriving traffic to landing pages that can be optimized for conversions.Landing pages can be enhanced further with ongoing A/B testing.
While not wanting to get too technical, there are ways to get even moreinsight into your marketing campaign’s success as you begin to tie revenueattribution back to various broadcast marketing channels by using URLs like:
Visitsummerheloc.com/TV
Visitsummerheloc.com/radio
Visitsummerheloc.com/DM
Please note that not all consumers will use the full path as noted abovewhen typing in a URL. At a minimum, this should at least give you some ideaof the traffic each one of these broadcast channels is driving.
Assuming you are using a landing page, you could even see which third partysites, like your corporate website or other online property you may beadvertising on, are driving traffic and conversion.
Finally, at an advanced level, you can begin to understand how muchrevenue, based upon conversions, these broadcast channels are generating.
When putting these recommendations into practice, your credit union or fullservice marketing agency can use this data to plan media buys for futurecampaigns while increasing conversions and overall marketing success.
And that’s something we would all like to do.
